If Tuscany is Italy’s Napa Valley, that makes Piemonte into Sonoma County. Like Sonoma, Toscano’s lesser-know cousin is cheaper, a little rougher around the edges, but still still serious about wines and local food production. In fact, the Slow Food movement was born here — not Alice Water’s kitchen in Berkeley, as California locavores would have you believe — and just about every scrap of every hillside is devoted to grapes, hazelnuts, or other food production, and all are seemingly operated by individual owners – I saw no sign of large-scale commercial ag here at all.

Our intention to bicycle everywhere was cut short by the impossibly steep hills and narrow roads of the region – it’s a little like riding your bike around on hwy 1, to continue the California analogy – but we spent the day touring local villages in our adorable Fiat 500, which we’ve named Humberto Cinque.*

*The British lady in the car’s GPS we’ve named M, as she sounds like a stern Judy Dench when we’ve made a wrong turn and forced her to recalculate directions.