Welcome, Friends and family our goal with this blog is to help you keep tabs on what we've been up to after moving to Italy in 2007, by sharing some of our experiences with you. We have many of our old favorite places yet we always seem to stumble into something really cool just when we think we've seen everything. Our goal is to share these new experiences, along with an occasional wine or travel tip.
Sincerely,
Robert and Leslie Alexander

Warm & Green Christmas


No white Christmas for us, with mid 50’s cotta was very glad to be on her sun deck

Took this photo from our kitchen balcony Christmas morning. What a difference a
year makes check out the photo below taken one year ago.

We much prefer the “regular” weather were experiencing this winter last year was
almost minnesota like.

Is he coming or going ?

Road trip and snow


We did some scouting this weekend for our spring trips to the Franciacorta
wine region,which is about 3 hoursnorth east of Barbaresco.
Was fun but way too cold.

Our first snow arrived on the 17th of December, only 2 inches but enough for a
white Christmas.The garage is packed full with fire wood so Robert parks under
the bedroom balcony to maintain his recored of never scraping the car here in the
Langhe. He does not miss that old MN sport of scraping and shoveling snow.

Testing out the new stuffa, made it to 93 F

Treiso covered in snow.

Santa


No, it’s not santa doing pull-ups to drop a few pounds. The Christmas decoration
of choice in Italy is Santa climbing a ladder usually hanging over a balcony.

Another sign of Christmas approaching is the ever popular panettone in shop
windows.

This is our new foodie friend Dilip, who moved here to Piemonte from India to mary a
local girl. He and his wife Maria opened an Indian restaurant in Alba a few years
ago. Dilip offered to give Chiaro some lessons, so we threw a party.

It was a hit! The British, Peruvians, Indians, Americans and the local Piemontese
loved it.

Barbera


A couple of weeks ago we went to a giant Barbera
wine tasting that was a great way to compare many different
producers using only one varietal.

There were 4 tables each with about 75 wines to pick from, almost 300 wines in total.

Chiaro and our friend Richard talking a break from some very hard work!

Cotta choosing our next wine to try.