Barbera is the everyday red of Piedmont, the wine on every trattoria table, and around Nizza Monferrato it has been raised to something more serious. The hills between Nizza, Vinchio, Castelnuovo Calcea and Mombercelli are covered in vines, planted in rows that follow the contours of the slopes, and the best wines from this area carry their own designation, Nizza DOCG, made from barbera alone. The vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato were listed by UNESCO in 2014, and this corner of the Asti hills is a fine example of what that means: a working landscape shaped by centuries of farming, with hilltop villages, brick churches, and small family wineries at the end of gravel tracks.
The riding is excellent, in a low-key way. The roads follow the ridges and dip into the valleys, with a constant series of bends, short climbs and descents, and views that open up across the vineyards to the distant Alps on clear days. The surfaces vary from smooth to rough, and some of the smaller roads are narrow and steep. Traffic is light outside the harvest season, when tractors and trailers loaded with grapes take over in September and October. Autumn is the most beautiful time to ride here, when the vines turn yellow and red and the morning fog fills the valleys, leaving the hilltops floating in the sunshine.
Vinchio is the home village of the writer and partisan Davide Lajolo, and the hills around it are protected as a small nature reserve, the Val Sarmassa, with woods and walking paths among the vines. Nizza Monferrato, about five kilometres away, is a lively market town of over eight thousand people, known for its arcaded streets and its local variety of cardoon, the cardo gobbo, which is grown bent over under soil to keep it pale and tender and is the classic accompaniment to bagna cauda, the warm garlic and anchovy dip of Piedmont.
Fuel and services are easy to find in Nizza and the larger villages. The local food is rich and seasonal, with truffles in autumn, hand-cut pasta, and hearty meat dishes. Many wineries offer tastings, but remember that you are riding: buy a few bottles and save them for the evening.