A day in Vignale Monferrato — Grignolino, palazzi and the big bench

Ask anyone in Vignale what to drink and you'll get Grignolino before you finish the question. It's the pale, thin-skinned local red that most of Piedmont gave up growing decades ago — grippy, a little bitter at the edge, nothing like the soft reds people expect here. Vignale kept it. That stubbornness is really what a day in this village is about: Barbera and Malvasia too, sure, but Grignolino is the point of pride, and the reason to come up the hill.

Start with coffee and the view

Begin in the old centre with an espresso at Al Bar della Bottega, half wine bar and half deli, run by two women who know their regulars — Rocchina will pour you a coffee now and a glass of Barbera later without blinking. There's a little shop attached if you want provisions for the car. If it's shut, the small Caffetteria a few doors along does an unhurried morning too.

Then walk the ridge before the day warms up. The Belvedere Melvin Jones gives you the whole sweep of vineyards in a couple of minutes' stroll from the piazza. If you'd rather earn it, the big red Panchina Gigante No. 107 sits out west of the village on the ridge road, past the Accornero vineyards — one of the oversized benches dotted across these hills, and a fair spot to sit and get your bearings over the Barbera rows.

A cellar of Grignolino

This is the heart of it, so pick a winery and book ahead — these are working estates, not drop-in bars. If Grignolino's what you're after, Accornero has coaxed it out of these hillsides for six generations; the old-vine Vigne Vecchie riserva is the bottle worth an argument, and their Barbera cru 'Bricco Battista' is the one people come back for. You can taste through it properly on a booked cellar visit, from a €25 walk-through to a €60 tour out into the vineyard with food alongside, in Italian or English. They're closed Sunday, though.

For something warmer and family-run, the Gaudios up on Bricco Mondalino stake their name on Grignolino too, alongside an unoaked Barbera they call Zerolegno and a sweet Malvasia for the end of lunch. Beatrice and her family run the tastings themselves and move between Italian, English and French without fuss — bring the children, someone usually ends up drawing at the table while the adults taste. Or head to Oreste Buzio in via Piave, where brothers Marco and Andrea farm organic and pour their Grignolino down in the infernot with a plate of salami; turn up near closing and they'll still take you down, and you'll likely leave with more bottles than you meant to.

If you'd rather go organic top to bottom, Nuova Cappelletta has farmed biodynamic since 1984 and is one of the few Demeter-certified estates in all of Piedmont — the tasting is usually free with a purchase, plenty of the bottles come in under €10, and unusually the shop's open Sunday. And for the modern end of the story, Cantina Hic et Nunc is a glass-walled cellar you can watch working while you drink, all zero-dosage sparkling and labels with attitude; book an experience — a stargazing tasting, a truffle hunt, even a mystery dinner — and reckon on €50 and up, with the view doing half the work.

Lunch on the square

Come back into town hungry. Serenella — Le Tre Lasagne sits right on the square with a wine list so long it takes two hands to hold; the kitchen keeps it simple and traditional — the battuta di fassona, the agnolotti, a nut cake to finish — and Laura, one of the three sisters, runs the room in good English. Book a table; people have a way of coming back twice in one trip.

If you want something lighter or later, Osteria della Luna does cheap, good pasta and, oddly for these parts, a serious craft-beer list — Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen next to the local wine. Il Gatto e la Volpe is à la carte by day and a pizzeria at night, with a courtyard that earns its keep in summer and a farinata worth ordering. All of them keep it no-frills; none will rush you.

Palazzo Callori and the Enoteca

After lunch, walk up to Palazzo Callori — grander than a village this size has any right to. Its tuff cellars have held the Enoteca Regionale del Monferrato, the region's wine library, since the late 1970s, and the palace with its infernot chambers is the thing to see in Vignale. A word of warning, though: it runs hot and cold on opening, and more than one visitor has climbed up to find it shut between managers, so it's worth checking ahead or timing your visit to an event.

Because the palazzo is at its best during one. Each summer its terraced high gardens turn into an open-air theatre for Vignale in Danza, one of Italy's oldest dance festivals, running since 1978 — shows start around 21:30 in the Giardini Alti with the vineyards dropping away below the stage, so bring a layer for when the terraces cool. And in mid-October the Autunno Di...Vino weekend fills the same cellars with tastings poured straight from the growers and guided descents into the infernot, timed to the vineyards at their reddest.

A second cellar, or the long way down

The afternoon is for whatever you skipped. Another tasting, if your morning winery whetted the appetite. A slow drift over the whole of the Basso Monferrato on a private hot-air balloon flight that lifts off near the village, if you've booked well ahead and don't mind the €1,380 for the privilege. Or just the passeggiata and an aperitivo back at Al Bar della Bottega — a spritz, a glass of Barbera, a sandwich — while the light goes long over the hills.

For dinner, two very different rooms. Ristorante Universo sits at the top of the village and works the old way: no menu, no choosing, eight or nine seasonal courses that simply start arriving — salami and lardo, ravioli di plin, a roast — for something close to €36 a head. Come with an evening to give it; the pace is the whole idea. Or climb the tight, steep stairs at Trattoria Panoramica Sarroc to a dining room over the valley, best in autumn when the kitchen leans into white truffle. It divides people — book, and don't come starving in a hurry.

If your day lands in late August, you may catch the village throwing itself a party: the Festa di San Bartolomeo, when the Pro Loco fires up the food stands in Piazza del Popolo and local bands play into the night. Bring cash, sit at a long table, and you'll end up sharing it with strangers. That's about as much of Vignale as one day can hold.