A weekend of slow cooking stirred up memories of our trip to Turin. For how to make Brandon’s take on Brasato al Barolo (Chuck Bondolo), click here. And to learn about Barolo and Piedmont’s other notable wines, click here.
To read Brandon’s column about Grappa, see the current issue of TASTE magazine (Special Italian Issue, Winter 2025).
Piedmont’s pull was twofold: the wine, namely Barolo, and beef cooked in wine or Brasato al Barolo. Brandon has long been perfecting his take on this style of braised beef, but Piedmont provided a benchmark and the most memorable by far was in her capital city: Turin.
We quickly felt a connection, perhaps because coming from Cape Town we’re used to catching sight of Table Mountain driving in and around the city. In Turin, we’d look up to see snow-capped alps – in a gap between buildings or at the end of a street – offering a similar sense of place.
It was the first time in a while we’d travelled and instead of months of research, we decided to follow our noses. We booked a bolthole with a bird’s eye view and set off with two strong restaurant recommendations corroborated by three generous food-and-wine-loving friends.
At the first restaurant, a few steps away from our home base in the old Roman quarter, the host listened as we described our tastes and suggested a wine made with Pelaverga grapes. It had a character as delicate as the red poppy on the label and set us on our course.
The second was where the braised beef peaked and no sooner had we engaged the waiter than he pulled out his phone to show the wines he’d been tasting over the weekend – by Craig and Carla Hawkins of Testalonga, a reminder of home and of the Swartland.
The Swartland Revolution gave once-overlooked grape varieties a chance to express where they grow, led by winemakers dedicated to realising this full expression. The wine we ordered was by a winemaker on a similar mission: Nadia Verrua.
Given half a chance we seemed to find our way back to what we’re drawn to in Cape Town: light-footed wines made from lesser-known grapes with unexpected personalities. Perhaps we were looking for a certain sense of place in the wines too.
Nadia makes organic wines in Asti with the grape varieties of her region, like Grignolino and Ruché. Her ‘Ottavio’ Grignolino was in our glasses and the meaty main further down the menu was gently cooked in the latter: Brasato di Fassona al Ruché.
The dining room’s moody lighting meant there was no way of telling the time of day. It created a kind of gravitas and a clandestine air. As if important business might be discussed or winemaking efforts considered fringe or even subversive may develop a cult following.
Around the time the panna cotta was served, we sensed that another English-speaking diner could no longer contain his excitement about the bottle on a neighbouring table. From where we were sitting its shape had the feel of a Dali clock, as if melting into the cloth.
Those who know, know the bottle to be a signature of winemaker Fabio Gea, who also makes a Grignolino called ‘Back Grin’. The Italian-speaker presiding over the bottle invited the fellow enthusiast to try a sip, and slow, appreciative nodding ensued.
The vignette that played out was an educational in its own right. We went for Barolo but being there offered access to Piedmont’s rich diversity of varieties (Pelaverga, Grignolino, Dolcetto, Freisa) and a taste of grapes we’d otherwise never have known.
Address book
Francesco Gaetano (pictured above) owns Turin bakery Panificio Artigianale Cerea or what he calls his ‘one-man show’. He bakes sourdough loaves using organic stoneground Italian flour and it’s where we sourced a sourdough panettone with dried figs and dark-chocolate. Francesco’s tip was to head to Guido Castagna for Castagna’s take on the Gianduiotto, the region’s signature foil-wrapped chocolate, which is shaped like a miniature ingot and contains ground hazelnuts, which are plentiful in Piedmont.