Research Note: Piedmonte, Alba and Asti

The ‘Raison d'etre’ for this article is the fact that the area is waking up, in no small way, to its wine, agricultural and tourist potential. It has produced some identifiable top grade wine for many years, on a ‘Take it or leave it’ basis. It is now interested in customers, but is not yet receiving too many visitors. This part of northwest Italy has always been poor, and has constantly been overrun by raiders since the beginning of apparently recorded history. The area, with which we are dealing, east of the French and south of the Swiss Alps contains beautiful countryside comprising five comparatively large villages and many smaller ones. It is some fifteen miles square, being simply full of hills, in many cases, not more than two miles apart. Each has a castle‐cum‐monastery on its top, evidencing the small self‐defending communities in which these people lived. The elite, which commanded them, could alone afford to drink the wine they produced.