Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the man who more or less engineered the unification of Italy, spent years as mayor of this little Langhe village before he went on to bigger things, and the square brick castle on its knoll still carries his name. He experimented with winemaking here too, at a time when Barolo was still finding its modern form, so the building sits at a neat crossroads of Piedmontese politics and Piedmontese wine.
Today the castle houses a regional wine shop and museum, and every November it hosts the famous auction of Alba white truffles, when a few knobbly fungi change hands for sums that would buy a decent motorcycle. The rooms inside hold displays on truffle hunting, local crafts and Cavour himself, and the terrace gives a wide look over the rows of Nebbiolo vines folding away towards Barolo, La Morra and Serralunga. The vineyard landscapes of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato were inscribed by UNESCO in 2014, and from up here you understand why.
As riding country the Langhe is a delight once you accept it is not fast. The roads climb from the Tanaro valley onto narrow ridges, snake through vineyards with tight hairpins and drop into villages where the street becomes a single lane between stone houses. Surfaces vary from fresh to patched, and in autumn you share them with tractors hauling grapes and with slow cars full of wine tourists. Late September and October are glorious, with the vines turning gold and red and fog lying in the valleys in the morning. Summer afternoons can be hot and hazy, and the light is best early or in the hour before sunset.
Alba is six kilometres away and has everything a rider needs: fuel on the ring roads, mechanics, and an old centre of towers and arcades where a plate of tajarin with butter, or with truffle if the season and your wallet allow, is close to compulsory. Hazelnuts are the other local obsession; Alba is the home town of Ferrero, and Piedmont's tonda gentile nuts turn up in cakes in every bar. If you are tasting wine, do it after you have parked the bike for the day.