Enough of this fresh mountain air, I was missing the joy of sucking car fumes and jostling the crowds for my morning cup of coffee. I decided to take an over night trip to Turin which is about a two-hour train ride from Pettenasco. My room was a few blocks from the Porta Nuova terminus and I got to go about looking for wine bars. Now in Italy nothing is as straight forward as one might think and you would think that wines bars would be a dime a dozen in the capital of Piedmont but the front desk at the hotel was of no help and in my meandering around the city I ran into a few but unfortunately they were not open in the afternoon and when I returned in the evening they were still closed. The city had some beautiful piazzas and wide boulevards and it was great to feel the energy of the crowd while I walked around.
I did have a tasting, I was walking and spied a shop, “Vino Quotidiano” with some spigots on the wall and hoped they served wines by the glass. It turns out that it was a wine shop and the spigots were to serve wine in “sfusi”, young fresh wine for immediate consumpsion that you would come in with an empty bottle or jug to be filled. Your everyday wine and at 2-3 euro a liter, it was cheaper than water. The very hospitable gentlemen in the shop, Paolo Valentino took pity on me and offered me a couple of samples from the spigot, a drinkable Barbera and an organic Dolcetto. I enjoyed the Dolcetto, it had a very interesting aroma profile and if I had a spare liter bottle handy I would have filled it up and taken it back for home consumption. Paolo was a fellow wine enthusiast and offered to take me to cantina the next day to drink wine but unfortunately I had to leave the city that day but I appreciated the offer.
Before leaving the next day I heard about the car museum in town so I took the subway a few minutes south of the city center and made my way to the museum. It was a huge building and I had high hopes for I would see in the museum, but alas it was closed that Tuesday morning. On the way back to the subway station I did stop by the Eataly store. Beautiful huge warehouse with a great selection of overpriced food and spirits, just like in New York.
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