Walking in Val Curone

After meeting at the Market Square, we will head towards the historic center. It will be impossible not to notice the similarity of the village with the Ligurian caruggi, a series of houses attached to each other all colored that will prompt us to wonder where the sea is. San Sebastiano Curone is located right at the crossroads of the four regions and this significantly characterizes the economy, gastronomy, habits and local customs: we are in fact in the south-western tip of Piedmont to the left of Lombardy, following the Emilia Romagna and Liguria opposite, all just a few kilometers away. Information to keep in mind when you are on site because they will make you understand many things about the local accent, the dialect, the architecture and above all the gastronomic and enological influence. We will immediately reach the delightful central square, Piazza Roma, a small jewel surrounded by Art Nouveau buildings and where the Town Hall is located, housed in Palazzo Mazza Galanti. Of this sage green Venetian-style building, the color and richness of the decorations will amaze, the artistic and constructive work here is due to the painter Lorenzo Bourges. Also in the square, in the building in front of the Municipality, we will have the opportunity to visit the Pittor Giani Archive, a suggestive permanent exhibition that houses some of the works of the painter and decorator Felice Giani, born and lived in San Sebastiano Curone between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. and whose works are preserved in dozens of the main Italian and foreign museums and galleries, including: the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art of Washington and the Hermitage of St. Petersburg. After this pleasant visit dedicated to art and culture, we will be able to have breakfast at the historic Caffè Centrale in the square, where we can taste the baci di dama, a typical hazelnut-based sweet born in nearby Tortona.

We will then continue our journey and after a few kilometers immersed in nature we will reach a tiny locality: Cascina Bandiera, where the homonymous farm resides, the only wine-producing company in the Municipality of San Sebastiano, but also the only one to climb from here in the district. Ms. Lina and her husband Andrea, both architects resident in Milan, more than twenty years ago decided to fulfill their dream and buy a farmhouse in a completely isolated place on the top of the town, a couple of hectares from which they completely produce wine. natural. They, shy in terms of communication and the media but very collaborative when it comes to bringing the territory to life and hosting friends in their bucolic company to taste what the earth gives them. The absolute protagonist of the tasting is an indigenous grape of great value: Timorasso, a white grape variety that has always been present in ancient local viticulture, then explanted in favor of more easily cultivated vines and rediscovered in the 1970s by Walter Massa. Today it is a real flagship of Piedmontese viticulture. Here at Cascina Bandiera it will be a unique experience, in a magical place that I am sure will remain in your heart.

After the tasting of white and black berried wines we will return towards the departure to end the tour in the salami refining cellar of Fabio, known by all as Il Cianta, of the Azienda Agricola La Nuova Valle, where we will finally have the opportunity to meet the king of salamis : the Salame Nobile del Giarolo, composed of the noble parts of the pig, which in other places are used for hams or cold cuts considered to be of greater value, here on the contrary they are used in the salami grind together with salt and pepper and then stuffed into a natural casing double and hand-sewn which guarantees the product an aging in the cellar for up to four or five years before being sold and tasted. More than a salami, it is a real miracle that can only become reality thanks to the favorable air currents that come from nearby Liguria and Emilia and here, thanks to the correct humidity in the cellars, they are able to find the perfect alchemy for not dry the product but let it dry slowly, slowly. We will end our journey right here with a few slices of salami accompanied by large Tortona bread, another local specialty and a glass of wine from the I Carpini farm, another successful example of ethical and biodynamic viticulture, a singular and visionary company , which has a special relationship with the wines it produces and in particular with the vineyard, a “holistic” approach that “sees the vineyard as a small part of a larger ecosystem within which each element lives in symbiosis and harmony with the other”. The perfect ending to an unforgettable day.