Our group left Turin early Sunday morning for an hour drive to Bra, where Slow Food has established the Banca del Vino, collecting wines from all regions of Italy. The Banca del Vino offers visits and tastings, teaches variety of courses (in collaboration with the University of Gastronomic Sciences — why am I only learning about this university today?), organizes tours of wineries, offers team-building exercises for corporate customers, and provides other services.

We began with an overview of the terroirs of Piedmont, and a tour of the wine cellars.

Our hosts then ushered us into a classroom for the main event: a tasting of wines from around the Piedmont region. We tasted five. Francesca gave us the details about the wines and the wineries that produced them. Some of the wines we tasted were made from varieties of grapes I was not familiar with — including Timorasso and Pelaverga. (But I’ll confess I’m no wine expert. Between the two of us, it is Pat who is more knowledgeable.)

After our tasting, and lunch, we took a short walk through Bra, making a pilgrimage to the headquarters of Slow Food (unfortunately, closed on Sunday). Bra is where Slow Food was founded in 1995.