Medieval towers, Moscato vineyards, and the greatest white truffle fair in the world — Piedmont's most underrated city
Asti is the capital of Astigiano, the wine-saturated hills between Turin and Genoa that produce some of Italy's most celebrated bottles: Barbera d'Asti, Dolcetto d'Asti, and Moscato d'Asti — the fragrant, low-alcohol sparkling wine from Canelli and Santo Stefano Belbo that is the antidote to everything heavy and serious about Italian wine. The city itself is a remarkably preserved medieval townscape of brick towers (over 100 once stood; a dozen remain) and Romanesque churches, largely bypassed by the mass tourism that saturates Alba (40km north). The Douja d'Or (September) is Italy's most imp…
Hasta Pompeia was a Roman colony founded in 89 BCE, which became the medieval commune of Asti — one of the most powerful banking and trading cities in 13th-century Europe (Astesi bankers operated across northern Europe, giving the French word for usurer: 'Lombard'). The city's merchant wealth built the forest of brick towers that still define its skyline. Asti was absorbed by the Duchy of Milan in 1387, then by the Savoy in 1531, and became the cultural capital of Piedmont's wine country as French influence shaped the region's cooking and viticulture.