Autumn is the sweetest season of the year: our clothes become soft and warm, the dim light slows down the rhythm of life, fruit adds some sweetness to our days. These suggestions invite use to rediscover unusual places and pleasures, just like the refined holiday farmhouse in the hills of Alto Monferrato that we are going to present to you today: La Bella Vite, by Lidia and Paolo, whose name, which sounds like “life as sweet as vine”, is already a guarantee.


Lidia and Paolo, let’s pretend we have never seen the location of your holiday farmhouse. Would you like to describe it to us with the words of your heart?

The hills with endless lines of grapevine, the untouched and multi-coloured land, whose biodiversity is absolutely spontaneous and natural, the wood that hosts the delicious white truffle of Alto Monferrato: these are the places in our heart. They represent a perfect ecosystem that follows the rhythm of nature and the seasons. However there are also lots of castles, which make this one of the most “castled” areas in Europe (it’s a pity that not so many people are aware of that!). The tiny ancient hamlets like Carpeneto, Cremolino and Trisobbio, the narrow streets in the historical centre of Ovada…all of this allows the visitor to feel a total harmony with nature, despite the proximity to Genoa, Milan and Turin.


Alto Monferrato has recently been added to the list of Human Patrimonies: what do you think of this decision and what does it mean for you?

Actually it’s not completely true that Alto Monferrato has become part of the UNESCO, also because the candidacy itself was declined in a different way: by the way, as usual, the effects tend to be overestimated. What interests us much more is that the rise of tourism that has been taking place recently and that regards an independent tourism looking for relax, wine and food keeps growing followed by the development of information services to introduce the land to the visitors. However the peculiarities of the place should be preserved anyway. If you are looking for discos go somewhere else, while if you want to enjoy nature, visit wine cellars and taste some delicious traditional food, well, come here. You’ll find heaven.


The vineyard in autumn shows off thousands of colours and the wine cellar is incredibly busy. What advice would you give the customers who want to enjoy a weekend in total relax in your holiday farmhouse?

A weekend here in autumn is in and of itself. However if we were to give some advice to our customers we would invite them to admire the colours of the vineyard self-indulgently, to lose themselves in the landscape, wandering without a goal, just for the sake of it. Then they could reach ecstasy in the wine cellars, like ours, or Rocco di Carpeneto and maybe the other cellars that have chosen a natural and biological approach to wine production; among us wine experts we are good friends by the way and we collaborate in a wonderful spirit. Then they could try some restaurant, visit the castles open at the weekend according to the Open Castles initiative and finally reach the Natural Park Of Marcarolo’s shacks. Of course they should also plan to come back soon, as there are many other things to do. Should we list them? Well, for example, Acqui Terme, the medieval churches of Cassine, Gavis’ Fort and, only for shopping addicted, but maybe not for us, the famous Outlet of Serravalle.


How did you develop the idea of La Bella Vite? How did you design and furnish it?

La Bella Vite is a certified eco-bio-holiday farmhouse that originated as project parallel to the launch of our biological wine-producing business, Rocco di Carpeneto. A long personal experience in terms of journeys around the world has brought us to the other side and now we are trying to offer our customers an interesting experience thought for tourists like us. Therefore yes, it’s a holiday farmhouse, but far, far away from the usual rural offers which are always so boring and repetitive. We propose a creative but not intrusive design: this is particularly represented by the two above-ground wooden rooms among the trees, with a special view on the vineyards and far from the main building. Somehow they carry all the suggestions we got while travelling from Australia to Norway, from Canada to Japan. We worked together with architects that are good friends of us, Marco Tarabella and Paolo Scoglio, in order to offer something really peculiar and not so easy to find elsewhere.


The motto that takes you through the day:

Hospitality is a first of all a pleasure and a work only in the second place. For us it is really so. What brought us to juxtapose the resort and the wine-producing business is just a spontaneous passion for hospitality and for the contact with people from around the world. The majority of our guests come from other countries and this year we have come across about twenty different nationalities.

www.labellavite.it

DD