A day in Castagnole Monferrato — the home of Ruchè

Pour a glass of Ruchè and the roses come first, then a twist of black pepper behind them. It's an aromatic red with nothing else quite like it in Piedmont, which is the more remarkable when you learn that sixty years ago it had nearly vanished. A parish priest, Don Giacomo Cauda, replanted the abandoned rows behind the church here in the 1960s and talked the village into believing in the grape again. Today it's the smallest DOCG in the region, grown in just seven comuni, and Castagnole Monferrato is the one they all look to. Give it a day and the day bends around a single wine.

Start with the story

Before you taste Ruchè, learn where it went and how it came home. The Museo del Ruchè di Casa Ferraris, just off the main square on Via al Castello, is a small museum-cellar under brick arches, with a hand-dug infernot and a short film that tells the priest's story in old family photographs — it lands harder than a wine museum has any right to. Book the museum tour and tasting: €15 gets you the guided visit and a glass, €30 opens five wines with a board of local salami and cheese, and the hosts — sometimes a sommelier who genuinely wants to argue aromas with you — switch to English if you ask. Kids under 13 come free. This is Ferraris Agricola ground, so the wine to reach for is Vigna del Parroco, the parish priest's own vineyard and the only Ruchè cru the ministry recognises. Luca Ferraris bought that plot in 2016, which is a tidy way of closing the circle.

A cellar, or two

If you drink one Ruchè elsewhere in your life, chances are it came from Montalbera. The Morando family farms something like 130 hectares in one unbroken block and grows roughly 60% of all the Ruchè there is; their oak-touched Laccento, a Tre Bicchieri winner, is the bottle that carried the grape out into the world. It's the big house of the appellation and it feels it — a guided visit drops through a long barrique cellar and a room of terracotta amphorae before you taste, the shop's open every day, and they'll run the tour in Italian, English or German. Ring ahead; taste the three Ruchès side by side and pick a fight with yourself over which you prefer.

The quieter pleasure is the small growers, and Castagnole is thick with them. The Crivelli family has been on this hill since around 1860; their Ruchè runs firmer and more Barbera-like than most, they make a pretty sparkling rosé called Neos, and some regulars have driven up every December for thirty years to lay in a Christmas case — tastings are appointment-only and a little Italian goes down well. Gatto Pierfrancesco helped set up the Ruchè museum, so it's fitting his "Loro" Riserva is one of the best in the village; don't come for a panorama, the cellar sits in a working farmhouse courtyard, but the Ruchè and the Barbera Superiore both hover around eleven euros and Edoardo will walk you through in English. And Tommaso Bosco restarted a family estate in 2014 and pours his floral "Oltrevalle" himself, usually with a board of cheese, salami and a bowl of the estate's roasted hazelnuts — call first, he's closed Sundays, and most people leave with more bottles than they meant to.

There's more if you want it, and each rewards a phone call rather than a cold arrival. Massimo Marengo works a tiny cellar with his father Aldo, vine to bottle, and the locals go quiet and just call the Ruchè memorable. Esse Erre is the young estate — Edoardo Rossi, Giulia Montina and Simone Serra put their initials on an old company and actually want you to visit, with walks out into the vines; the catch is they keep to Saturdays, so email ahead. And Tenuta dei Re out at Cascina Nuova is the kind of place where the owner pours for you and the tasting drifts into lunch — ask for Paolo, and ask about the Favorita they age in terracotta jars.

Short on time, or arriving on a day the small cellars are shut? The village Cantina Sociale, founded in 1954 by more than two hundred growers, is the easy, cheap way in — you can taste the rosé straight from the barrel, fill your own containers in bulk the old way, and load up on local jam and honey besides. There's plenty of parking, and the office staff are patient with a carful of questions. One thing to know: they'll pour the bulk wines but not always the bottled ones, so buy a case before you commit to a pallet. It's closed Mondays.

Lunch in the village

Everyone here eats around the wine, and the best value in town is the Osteria il Ruchè: a tasting menu around €25 — mixed antipasto, a primo, a secondo, dessert — in a dining room that looks onto a preserved local crotin, with the agnolotti and the bonet named again and again by everyone who eats there. For something slower, book La Miraja, an agriturismo where lunch is a fixed multi-course meal served family-style under frescoed ceilings; the chef-owner cooks local ingredients with real care, there's a pumpkin fritter for vegetarians, and it feels like eating in someone's home rather than a restaurant.

If you'd rather graze and drink well, La Bottiglieria del Ruché on Via Mazzini is part osteria, part wine bar, with a sunny terrace and a list barely a few euros over cellar prices — the vitello tonnato comes with a drizzle of balsamico, the pistachio croissant is a fair reason to turn up at breakfast, and the owner rents e-bikes and will point you up the right hill. It's the relaxed, all-day room; the kitchen can be uneven, so keep it simple. There's also La Culla di Bacco for a sit-down meal, and in the evening Pizzeria Is Salmagna if the day calls for pizza rather than another tasting menu.

The bench and the courtyard

Walk lunch off up to the Panchina Gigante No. 51, the dark-red giant bench set among the Ferraris vineyards north of the village — one of the oversized benches dotted across these hills, marked by a tall white flag, with a small gravel lot and a short path in and a fountain for walkers and their dogs. Climb up, sit, and the Ruchè rows drop away to the hills beyond; it's at its best near sunset, glass optional but encouraged. Back on the town walls, the Cortile dei camminatori di domande — the old Regina Elena nursery school, its brick-arched courtyard renamed the Courtyard of the Question Walkers in 2018 — opens onto the whole valley. The gate's usually locked, so peer through unless you've timed your visit to a summer night, when it fills for theatre.

If the cellars have closed on you by mid-afternoon, La Bottiglieria's own tasting keeps pouring — €25 for four wines, two young off steel and two barrel-aged, with cooked salami, robiola di Roccaverano and lardo alongside, booked ahead through Winedering. Handy insurance for a day that ran long.

Whatever the season's throwing

Time your day to an event and the village hands you the rest. In mid-May the whole denomination gathers for the Festa del Ruchè at Tenuta La Mercantile, a frescoed 17th-century estate up the hill — buy a ticket, get a glass, and work the tables of roughly twenty growers pouring the same grape argued twenty different ways. In early-to-mid June the Pro Loco throws its biggest weekend, the Sagra del Gran Fritto Misto di Pesce, which fries the sea a hundred kilometres from any coast: six hundred seats under the arches of the Cortile, a dance band each night, cash only, book ahead. Across late June and July, Saturday evenings bring Teatro sotto le stelle — amateur comedies in that same courtyard at nine, €10 with refreshments once the curtain drops.

And on the tenth of August, the night of San Lorenzo, come back after dark for Notte di Stelle e Ruché: a walk along the vineyard road from tasting stop to tasting stop, glass in hand, ending with paper lanterns going up as the Perseids come down — fire rules permitting. Wear shoes you can walk the hill in, and carry a little cash. The stars turn up regardless.