The wines of Barbaresco are as elegant as the Barolos, but more approachable and drinkable sooner. See what wine bores we are becoming?

Anyway, this is my kind of church:

The church was deconsecrated and is now used as a wine education and sales outlet in Barbaresco.

We wandered around Asti for a few hours

and went for a tasting at Giacomo Bologna — a very large and very good winery.

Finally — a cooking lesson at the home of our guides, where we made bagna cauda, a traditional garlic and anchovy dip for raw vegatables, risotto and tiramisu.

These days we were occupied with tastings at four wineries and dinner at a “Slow Food” restaurant. Our exploration of Barolos, Barberas, Nebbiolos and Dolchettos continued at Silvio Grasso:

with additional stops at Massolino, Conterno Fantino and Elio Grasso.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday night we ate at a “Slow Food” restaurant in Alba, Osteria Del Arco. the slow food movement had its origins in Piedmont as a response to ‘fast food’ restaurants being located in the region. The movement emphasizes locally produced foods and biodiversity in food production.

On Wednesday we had lunch and a tour at a cheese and salami producer. The family-run operation produces various kinds of cheeses (from sheep, goat and cow milk) and salami from pork. First we sampled:

Then we toured:

So, while I have a little time on the wi-fi — I’ll try to catch you up

Carl and I went to Italy last week. Flew to Milan where we stayed only one night

(although we did have a lovely dinner and learned about coperto — basically a cover or seating charge in restaurants)

before taking the train from Milan

to Tortona for our Epicurean Tour in the Piedmont.

We started with the Barolo region: Barolo, but also Nebbiolo, Dolchetto, Barberas and a new wine for us: Pelaverga. The first winery was Marchesi di Barolo, the oldest winery in the region and the second largest producer. They have the traditional large wooden casks:

but do the vinification in the stainess steel tanks.

We went on a truffle hunt demonstration (since it isn’t really truffle season). In Piemonte they have the rare white truffle in addition to the black truffle. They use specially trained dogs to sniff out the truffles. They are trained to find and scratch the round for about a second to indicate where a truffle will be found. Our guide had a truffle hunter and his dog, Lara, demonstrate the hunting for us. There are certain trees under which truffles will grow; one of them is hazelnut.

The dog will scratch on the ground:

And truffles will be dug up!

Next post: More Wine! More Food! More Vineyard and Scenery!

Here’s me trying to look elegant on my way to the restaurant — oh, wait, is that the finished slog wrap??

There are a few woven in ends issues to deal with again,but other than that it’s done!

I took my Twisted Flower socks to the restaurant to work on — a very upscale pattern for a very upscale restaurant. It elicited a few comments from neighboring diners and the waitstaff (as usual). I get a lot of comments from waitstaff typically — many people who learned how to knit as a child or who are really interested in knitting. The feeling I get is that a lot of people WANT to knit, but they just haven’t crossed the line to take it up as a serious pursuit.

The only problem with this evening is that Chateauneuf du Pape + Cookie A = Knitting Mistakes. I know I put at least one yarn over in the wrong place; I’ll check tomorrow for “wine stains” — those knitting mistakes caused while Knitting Under the Influence.

My people!

Turns out, they were a group from Alabama so it was like a little bit of home with my tomato & mushrooms.

Slog update:

Almost down to the last skein:

In the meantime, I finished the first sock out of the hand spun merino I got from the Spinsters at Spin Cycle Yarns. I really love all the colors in their yarn — this is “Italian Landscape” colorway:

I also added to the slog wrap. I decided to show the unknit skeins as a measure of progress — hard to see an addition to a white rectangle with a diagonal rib pattern. When I got to Ireland I had 5 skeins left. And now:

Whoo-hooo!

Anyway, I added a few things to the stash from Ban Si in Galway:

This really earthy and tweedy locally spun 100% wool

And a wool and alpaca blend that I have in mind for that scarf with the fluted ends from the Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright. I think it will work, but I don’t have the book with me, so I don’t remember exactly what weight yarn was called for:

And some Opal sock yarn — some really groovy arty Opal yarn mostly in turquoise for my husband, Carl, and some happy colors for me.

The astute blog reader will notice another cast on sock — I am weak. Yes, I have a little case of Second Sock Syndrome — I have the 2nd twisted flower sock to finish, the second Italian Landscape sock and now . . .

CORRECT!

The store is in the old bridge mill in Galway with other shops that have jewelry, vintage clothes, photographs and so on. This store has yarn (again mostly Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Opel, Noro but also some Colinette Jitterbug and some Irish Spun wool and wool and alpaca blend.

Galway seemed more geared toward tourists than the parts of Dublin I’ve seen. There seems a stronger bohemian culture there, although I was only in the tourist parts and only for a few hours, so my first impression could be all wrong.

On the River Corrib:

Along the road into city centre

Fiddle and Bodhran players in an alley:

Mostly I just walked around in town. I went into a pub for lunch and there were three fiddlers and a guitar player sitting there playing which made for a lively accompaniment to my lunch of fresh whiting and veg.

Galway Bay

All the tourists in the streets:

Knitting and Additions to Stash update to follow!

In a futile effort to assuage my guilt at leaving my husband for a month to go to Ireland (on business, not pleasure) I have been knitting him these socks as a surprise.

These are STR (Socks that Rock) Heavyweight in the Rolling Stone colorway (that he picked out) and they were a lot of fun to knit. I used a stitch pattern from Yarn Harlot (Date) reworked for knitting in the round.

These are really big socks and I worried that I was going to run out of yarn and have to rip out an re-knit with shorter legs. But, I needn’t have worried at all; just look at all the yarn I have left over!

If you want to shop here you’d better hurry because the signs say, “going out of business.” There is a nice selection of Rowan, Jaeger, and a few other brands, all on sale. Nothing really out of the ordinary, so I add to the sock stash:

There are some lovely homes here — I get the idea that these towns are all commuter towns. It doesn’t seem like a bad commute and you get to look at the sea everyday on your way to work.

Then, back up the coast to Blackrock for a yarn store located amongst many little shops and booths in a downtown market area:

Again, there was nothing really unusual, although there were a few skeins of locally spun aran weight wool, so it was easy to resist adding anything to my stash here.

When I got back to Dublin I walked back to the city centre, where it was crowded with shoppers and people just hanging out.

I did see some sweaters already knitted at this store in the city center:

They seemed to have some really nice, non-traditional looking, sweaters:

It’s hard to see the purple sweater at the left, but it has a tree or vine cable pattern on it.