Festa delle Feste
A September weekend when about twenty Pro Loco from the Acquese and Astigiano take over Acqui's pedestrian old town with food stands, a regional wine show and the traditional Palio del Brentau water-carriers' race.
Why it's special
It's a 'festival of festivals' — instead of one village sagra you get a score of them at once, each Pro Loco cooking the dish it's known for (ravioli, frittelle, risotti, salumi, funghi), all in Acqui's spa-town centre, with the Enoteca Regionale pouring the local wines alongside.
Programme · 2026
Two days across the pedestrian historic centre, with about twenty Pro Loco cooking regional specialities (ravioli, frittelle, risotti, salumi, dolci, funghi) paired with Acquese and Astigiano wines, and the "Wine Show" tasting counter at the Enoteca Regionale "Terme e Vino" in Piazza Levi.
- Sunday is the day for the Palio del Brentau — registration opens mid-afternoon in Piazza della Bollente and the race (competitors run carrying 50-litre 'brente' water casks) sets off around 5pm.
- Come hungry: the Pro Loco stands each specialise in a different dish, so graze widely rather than committing to one.
Acqui Terme's Festa delle Feste is a clever bit of civic logic: rather than send you round the hills for one village sagra after another, it brings a score of Pro Loco into the spa town for a single September weekend. Roughly twenty associations from the Acquese and the Astigiano set up along the pedestrian centre, each cooking the dish it's locally famous for — ravioli here, fritters there, risotti, cured meats, mushrooms, sweets — so you can eat your way across the territory in an afternoon, glass of local wine in hand.
The wine side is run properly: the Enoteca Regionale Acqui "Terme e Vino" opens its "Wine Show" tasting counter in Piazza Levi, pouring the productions of associated growers from the surrounding hills. Between courses there's the Castello dei Paleologi and the Roman theatre to walk off lunch.
The set-piece is Sunday's Palio del Brentau — a race in which competitors sprint through the old town shouldering the brenta, the traditional 50-litre wooden cask once used to carry wine and water. It starts from Piazza della Bollente, the square built around Acqui's steaming natural spring, and the whole town turns out for it. The evening closes with dinner, music and Latin dancing in the same piazza. More on the town at Acqui Terme.