Montalbera’s infinity salt water pool + bubbles + Art Predator

September 2026 was quite a month! While I didn’t win any major writing contests like I did in September of 2022, it will still go down as an incredible month for wine, food, travel and adventure for this Wine Predator!

I started September at Burning Man, and while I didn’t bring my top wine game, my campmates sure did! Burning Man is better know for its cocktail culture, but there are certainly some awesome wine bars in Black Rock City like Vines without Borders.

David Oliver’s Pettaled Portal would be a great place for a bottle of bubbles!

I had big plans for writing in September — Sue and I got together several times in July and August to create content, but it’s still waiting!

September 3 was Cabernet Day and I’d planned to celebrate that as well as California Wine Month with you with a few California Judgment of Paris wines. And once I got back from Burning Man, I was teaching just about full-time.

Plans for Chianti Day followed as Sue and I tasted a few Chianti, so we’d planned that for Chianti Day. For Grenache Day, we have several from Tablas Creek and the plan is to also discuss their regenerative organic certification; I visited them in April and I have lots of pictures, too.

Navigli negroni

But on Grenache Day, I was on my way to Italy– on a press trip to Roero! They let me fly in early.  I visited friends in Milan and we went to a fabulous bar in the Navigli neighborhood of Milan. Did you know there are two canals that run through Milano? Yep! We enjoyed cocktails in Navigli at @magcafe next to the smallest bar in the world that by reservation only seats 4 people and makes custom drinks. Pretty cool! We shopped in the vintage market along the water also plus a gondola!

Oltrepo Pavese hike high along the ridge; at the top we had a picnic lunch

And we went for a hike in Oltrepo Pavese, a wine region I’d written about but never visited. Sadly, we didn’t have time to visit any wineries but we did hike among the vines. My friends going hiking in Oltrepo Pavese often; they enjoy hiking the hills through the vineyards and through the forests. Our hike was thrilling along a knife edge.

From Milan I went by train to Asti in Piemonte, specifically to Monferrato where I visited two winters: Montalbera and Garrone where I tasted Ruche for the first time as well as other wines well known in the region like Gringolino and Barbera d’Asti. I also soaked in the salt water pool at Montalbera! That night had a stunning sunset with the Alps sending up a dramatically harp outline.

Monferrato sunset

Do you know “ruche”? It’s a really rare red grape from the Monferrato region that’s definitely worth discovering! It was basically unknown until the 1970s when a priest realized that a few rows of vines weren’t actually Barbera but something else.

Montalvera

That something else is now known as Ruche, and today I walked the Montalbera Terra del Ruchè vineyards and tasted their wines to learn why about 60% of their million bottle production is dedicated to this grape. They also grow and produce about 60% of this wine!

Dante Garrone

I enjoyed an introduction to classic Piemonte cuisine with Dante Garrone and his wines from Monferrato at a “bottega del gringolino” Antico Ricetto. At Garrone, they specialize in indigenous grapes of the Monferrato area, especially Barbera d’Asti and the much more rare Gringolino d’Asti and Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato DOCG.

Ruche is so rare that only a million or so bottles are produced each year! It fell out of favor and was almost completely lost mainly because it is very rigorous and hard to control in the vineyard and in the cellar. It was recovered in the 1960s and by the 1980s winemaking techniques had developed such that the wild ruche could be managed and made into a sophisticated and elegant wine.

Both of these wines are quite rare in the world and worth discovering. Both have bold fruit and I’m quite taken with the florals of the Ruche which come from one of its parents, Malvasia, which is quite aromatic.

Dante describes Gringolino as a gothic wine, sharp edged in contrast to Ruche as a baroque wine smooth and soft and when made with some wood rococo!

Garrone Jeep

After lunch we visited the cellar and took a jeep tour of the steep slopes of the Garrone vineyards. So beautiful … and with views of villages here and there.

… then Dante drove me to Roero where I’m now staying at Ristorante hotel Le Botti Guarene for my next adventure: a deep dive into Arneis, the white wine of the region, and Nebbiolo too as well as Roero cuisine!

Roero is also in Piemonte just north of Alba and the areas where Barolo and Barbaresco are made from Nebbiolo. Turns out Roero makes some darn fine Nebbiolo — elegant, fragrant, lean, supple. Roero is also famous for a white grape, Arneis and while we were focused on the traditional still expression, we also had sparkling and a passito.

And I have to stop here for now because I brought home from Italy, in addition to a few bottles of wine, jet lag and a terrible cold. So it’s bedtime… before I fall into a deep snooze. ! Next up, Roero!