Day Two in Piedmont, Italy - Tuesday 21st January (part 1)

After a much needed rest from our travelling and massive meal the night before we had an early start to the day where we would be visiting two very different kinds of producer who both made some of the finest wines in Italy!

Our first visit was to the grand estate of Le Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marchesi di Grésy, which has been in the Gresy family since 1797. The estate is now under the control of Alberto di Gresy who has developed not only the architecture, but has also been forward thinking into planting new grape varieties not native to this area. Based in a natural amphitheatre between the Monferrato and Langhe rolling hills this estate has perfect growing conditions for the Nebbiolo grape, and produces some extraordinary Barbaresco.

As we arrived at the estate the sun popped out from behind the clouds and lit up all the vineyards around us. We met Marina in the courtyard, who took us for a guided tour around this magnificent estate and showed us how they make the wine at the estate - right from harvesting, fermenting, filtering, ageing and right to the bottling and packaging of the wines.

After our tour, we sat down to taste some of the wines from the estate. First up were some Sauvignon Blancs and Chardonnays which are fairly new to the estate. We compared a 2000 vintage to a 2012 vintage and Chardonnay and WOW what a taste explosion. Then we moved onto the classic reds from the area including a juicy Dolchetto, and a vertical tasting of some superb Barbarescos from the single Martinenga plot within the Gresy estate. This plot of land has particular exceptional growing conditions for the Nebbiolo grape used for Barbaresco due to its soil composition, aspect to the sun and altitude.

With our palates well and truly spoiled we ventured outside to depart and basked in the sun for a while before heading away for a spot of lunch at one of the unique hillside restaurants.

Catch up tomorrow for the second part of our this day where we made our way over a Barolo Podera.