Country Life

An Italian Adventure

Cassinasco Festa

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Country life on a human scale. Our comune of Cassinasco is a small but perfectly formed and very friendly village. It lies at the summit of the main road which climbs up through the vineyard-covered hills from the wine town of Canelli in the Belbo valley, and afterwards drops down again to reach the spa town of Acqui Terme in the Bormida valley. The road curves around and below the village proper, so traffic by-passes it, and the village streets are quiet and peaceful. And normally, during the daily siesta, nothing stirs. On festa day however things are rather different.

Just before our country lane joins this main road, there is a wider verge, used as an informal lay-by, where we often see Guido’s little Fiat parked up. Giudo owns a stand of walnut trees just here, and diligently inspects all of his land every day. We decided to park here – there was still room for Giudo, should he arrive - and stroll the remaining half mile into Cassinasco. Our third son, Edward, accompanied us. It was a fine, sunny, spring day in Piedmont, pleasantly warm, and with a light breeze. For us fair-skinned northerners, it is a very sensible time of year to have a festa !

We strolled past the little chapel at the junction of our lane with the main road. The expansive view across the Belbo valley to the hills beyond opened up before us as we walked, and we quickly reached the access road into the village centre. This leads in turn into a small piazza, Piazza Carucco, named in memory of a fallen partisan. There is a small memorial plaque in the corner. Here in the piazza, Patrizia runs a small grocery store, where we drop in daily for informal Italian lessons, and to buy our milk and freshly-baked bread, and any other essentials we might have run out of. It is possible to choose from a variety of loaves and panini, the price of the bread being determined by its weight.

On Festa day, there were two stalls outside Patrizia’s shop, which we decided to visit later, because we could see that the road off the Piazza that runs directly up to the church had been closed to vehicles. In fact, since noon a table had been placed across the road, and we discovered that, for a payment of 12 euros, in return you received a batch of 12 tickets, a wine glass and a beige linen pouch with a strap to put the glass in and hang from your shoulder.

From here a sign directed visitors into the courtyard of the bar, where there were two more tables. At the first, we found that we could exchange one of our tickets for a plate of foccacia and four large slices of delicious, moist salami. At the second, you exchanged another ticket to fill your glass with wine to wash it down with. These wines are produced by the Cerruti family, who have their estate just off the main road, on the way down the hill towards Canelli – we often pass it, and admire its beautiful flower garden, several times a day. Kerrie decided to try the moscato – which was delightfully fresh and fruity, whilst I decided to have a dolcetto, for many the local staple red, to better wash down the salami. There was a convenient wall to stand your plate and wine glass on, and this was pressed into service.

The salami sent me into raptures. It is (truly) the best I have ever tasted. There was no sign on the table to tell us where to buy it, because of course everybody already knows that. So we asked, and are delighted to hear that it comes from an establishment situated in the piazza of the beautiful comune of Bubbio, which is only about 4 kilometres away.

Laura, who gave Edward and Oliver their first lessons in the Italian language, was here, with her mother Mirella, and we caught up on news. In the winter, they live in an apartment in Canelli, but move up to their house in Gibelli hamlet each summer.

Suitably refreshed, we were then directed into the cellar of the bar, where there was a display of work by a local artist hanging on the walls, and visitor information for our local district, the Comunita Montana. The cellar is built from local stone, we understand is over 500 years old, and has been beautifully refurbished, furnished with tables and chairs, and tastefully lit.

Back outside, onward and upward, there were a couple of commercial stalls selling local craftwork – wooden toys, beautifully decorated boxes - and then we come to the cheese. Another ticket, and we had a slice of Robbiola di Roccavanero, our local district’s very own protected-origin cheese, rescued from oblivion about 20 years ago by the Slow Food movement’s equivalent of the Rare Breeds Trust, and now flourishing again.

Light, soft-rinded and slightly dry (as in Wensleydale), this cheese is sold in small wheels about five inches in diameter, and this particular one comes from Roccavanero itself. I engaged the proprietor in conversation, and yes, they sell direct from the farm, and no, you don’t have to telephone first, just turn up. The address is on the label, they couldn’t wait to see us. I intended to buy one on the way back, only to find that I had in fact apparently already bought one, and would now have to carry it around.

Ten more yards up the hill and we were thirsty again – no problem, because two more tickets obtained a slice of home-made hazelnut cake, and another glass of moscato to wash it down with.

The pace was picking up now, there were more people about, and we could hear music. Down the next path is the community centre, and it was busy. For a small village, the facilities provided by this building and the adjacent sports pitches are a credit. At the far end of the hall, there was a large open-sided, wooden–roofed area, for Festa day set up with lines of tables and benches. There were a few spare seats. Beyond this, there was a small stage, embellished with a couple of loudspeakers and a microphone, all sheltering under a sun umbrella. The festa posters bill the musical entertainment as ‘the voice of Mario Valdone’, and it was indeed him, singing arias and Italian love songs, which we could hear through the speakers which are connected to a cd player. We knew it was him because the cd case was on display, leaning against the microphone. Absolutely marvellous.

Meanwhile, the other end of the portico, behind a serving bench, was a hive of activity, as sausages, onion fritters and polenta (a porridge made from ground maize corn, for centuries a staple diet in Northern Italy) were being cooked and prepared. We saw Patrizia, who helps with our vineyards, emerge hot and flustered from above the stove, to say ‘ciao’. She introduced us to Elisa, her cousin, who was one of the servers, and look, there was Paolo, Patrizia’s husband, in a white catering overall, head and shoulders visible above a canvas screen, with his hair peeping out from below a catering hat. Paolo laughed and waved – he is on polenta duty.

Introductions over, Patrizia had to dash back to unravel a queue, so we handed over three tickets and in return received our ‘main course’ , found a seat and started to devour it. There were plastic wine cups on the table. What had we missed, we did not have a ticket for anything else here ? Back on the counter was a huge flagon of wine in a wicker basket, with a flexible plastic tube coming out of the top, leading to a plastic tap. The flagon and tube were full of deep red wine, the tube looking as if it could be part of the apparatus for a wine transfusion. I went to buy some, but found in fact it was free, a basic and quite young table wine but perfect for quaffing with the sausages.

We were now feeling quite sated, and looked cautiously at our remaining tickets. No more food, (except as a vegetarian Kerrie still has her salami ticket, which I was coveting), but we were about to embark on a wine tour !

At the top of the road lies the parish church of Sant’ Ilario, who was not in fact a monk with a sense of humour, but Saint Hilary. There are 10 different Saint Hilary's, but this one is Saint Hilary of Poitiers, who, towards the end of the Roman Empire, was exiled for his beliefs. I've not yet been able to establish the link between Poitiers in Central France and our small village, but I do know that when the wind is in the right direction, we can hear the chimes of St. Hilary’s church bells from our terrace at Casa della Fontana. But first, the church itself was open so we took a look inside.

From the outside, you can see that the building was clearly extended at some point. Today, there is an ancient part, brick-built, at the head of the church, whilst the more recent part, painted white, houses the nave. As we went through the door and let our eyes adjust to the light, it was clear quickly that the clean external lines of the building do not anticipate its detailed and beautiful baroque interior of frescoes and paintings, both on the walls and, in particular, on the ceiling, all of which are well-maintained. There is a fine marble altar, and you have to admire the dedication of former generations of Cassinascese to have built such a fine church on what would have been limited resources.

Cassinasco is the gateway to a group of hill communities whose turbulent past has made this a land of castles and towers. In the Middle Ages, the pass over the hills through Cassinasco was protected by a castle, but the castle was destroyed in 1615 during wars about the succession of power across Monferrato. The castle tower (torre) however survived as a defensive watchtower, and is now preserved. From the viewing platform around its base, there is a splendid vista northwards across and beyond Canelli, and a once-essential line of sight to several other surviving defensive towers in the vicinity. The view will delight you.

In the street between the tower and the church a small, commercial street market had established itself under the shade of flapping temporary white awnings, and here you could buy the usual paraphernalia sold by street markets everywhere. Edward was distracted briefly by a pair of ‘designer’ sunglasses, five euros, but decided to hang on to his ‘credit’ for the moment, as he has a pair of new football boots in mind.

We go to see Karen and Remo Hoher, who are Swiss. They moved to an outlying district of Cassinasco, similar to Regione Sconi where we live, about 15 years ago, where they have raised their family, (like us, four boys), and where they make ‘biological’ wines, primarily barbera, but also some moscato.

Remo believes with a passion that you cannot make great wines without great grapes, and you cannot grow great grapes if you douse them with too many chemicals. None of his barbera is released to the market before it is two years old, and some is aged for another year in oak barriques. Here, Remo says, you also have to be careful, because too much oak and it begins to dominate the taste, to the point that oak-aged reds, wherever in the world they are produced, start to taste the same. We catch up with news of our respective families, sample the moscato, but we won’t buy any biological wine today because we already have some laid up at Casa della Fontana. In the meantime, Edward had latched on to one of Remo’s lads and they nipped off for a spot of international football back at the community centre.

Two other stalls represented Cassinascan wine growers we have not met before, Cantina Cremona from Regione San Massimo, and Azienda Grasseri, just off the Canelli road, and very nice wines they were too – although by now our critical capacities were a little impeded. So we made sure that we collected a business card and promised to visit soon, before rolling back down the hill.

We returned to the café, which of course serves delicious coffee and croissants, and is also the local tobacconist. A selection of Italian daily newspapers lies on the tables inside, although even on a normal day, if you fancy a look, you might have to wait until the football pages have been read. On Festa day, the café is inevitably busy, and in fact seemed to be host to a sizeable group of Cassinascese who are determined not to let anything ephemeral like a festa get in the way of their card and domino games. We enjoyed a café americano each – a shot of espresso, topped up to a measurable volume with boiling water. That word café is important, because if you ask for an americano in one of the more fashionable bars in any town, you are likely to be surprised with a large vermouth-based cocktail - which is actually very nice, unless you are driving !

Back outside, after I had found and finished off Kerrie’s salami, and we each have had another glass of wine (now we were leaving, Kerrie had also bought some to take home) we found one of our elderly neighbours, Luca, sat on a bench talking with one of his friends. Luca is rather sad, because he has a bad leg and has had to put his farmhouse and vineyard up for sale. Although he now lives in an apartment in the village, we saw him every day last summer trying to encourage something positive to emerge from his tomato patch, and he gave us a generous supply of fruit from his fig tree. He told us four people have been to see the farmhouse so far, but nothing further has happened.

Before finally leaving, we talked with Patrizia, outside her shop, and she fortified us both with a quick espresso. Her companion today was selling bottled sauces; we bought some to try. And then found our way back to the car. We were wise to park where we did, because the main road was now littered with seemingly casually abandoned vehicles left in random positions by other visitors to the festa.

We feel very proud that our small village could create something so enjoyable and seemingly ‘plucked out of the air’. The day before, everything was normal, and it was again the following day. But Festa day was very special indeed, and we look forward to next time with considerable anticipation.

E mail: kerrie@anitalianadventure.co.uk

0039 0141 851 154