Oh the jet lag. I could not sleep last night even though I was very tired. Sometimes when I travel I have no problem with jet lag, but other times I am stuck for a few days until I get back in-synch. We had a great breakfast this morning that was prepared by the hotel staff. It was a great way to start our Italy adventure. I love breakfast in Italy, the coffee, the warm bread and cheese. We had the morning free to roam around Alba and do some shopping. I showed my mother around the city. I showed her some of my favorite little wine stores and a few of the best fashion stores that envy those of Las Vegas or Beverly Hills. For a small little village in Northern Italy, Alba is incredibly fashion forward. People dress here very comfortable, yet look damn good while doing it. It is a completely different look then how we dress in Utah. I secretly wish I lived in a small Alba like town with its sense of style and incredible food and wine but located in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

We had lunch at Eno Club, a small restaurant in a cave like setting located in the Plaza Savona of Alba. It is one of our regular restaurants that we like to go to each year for both the food and the atmosphere. I had an incredible vitello tonnato as an appetizer. Vitello tonnato is thinly sliced Veal and then is accompanied with a unique mix of tuna and house made mayonnaise and garnished with capers. It is a local dish that I love to try every year.

After lunch we headed over to the Ceretto Winery. We took a quick tour of the winery and learned about their production levels and saw the new tasting rooms that they construction. We have visited this winery every year we have come to Italy. Every year the Ceretto Winery seems to be getting a little bit bigger and more Napa Style. I really like the feel of the small Piemonte region wineries that are the majority here, but I tend to think more and more will start to become more like those of Napa Valley. Ceretto has about eight different vineyards around the region. They recently built what is known as "The Cube" at one of those vineyards. After we tasted 4 of the wines produced at Ceretto we took a short drive over to "The Cube" to see them crushing grapes and starting the fermenting process in large stainless steel containers.

"The Cube" or Bricco Rocche sits on the top of a beautiful hill and looks out over the rolling hills of the Lange Region and only Barolo is produced here. The hills are an intricate patchwork of vineyards with rows and rows of grapes laddering the hills with romantic wineries sitting atop them. Usually in the fall the region is covered in a hazy like mist of clouds, but today was a much clearer day then most I have seen here allowing us to see the breathtaking view.

Tonight we went to a one star Michelin rated restaurant called Vechio Tre Stelle. The restaurant is owned by the same owners that own the little hotel we are staying in. The food was absolutely incredible. We had a great time at dinner and celebrated Chris Whitworth’s Birthday. Chris and Jane Whitworth are from Salt Lake City as well and are putting up with me on this trip. They are wonderful people, very laid back and a lot of fun to vacation with.

I had an incredible cauliflower and celery flan covered in fonduta cheese with black truffles shaved on the top. I then had some hand made little pasta raviolis known as Plin, or little pinched pastas. They are filled with meat and cheese. This was accompanied with a wonderful beef broth that intensified the flavor of the meat plin pasta. I then finished with my second course of Beef cooked for 8 hours in Barbaresco wine and mashed potatoes circling around the plate to hold in some beef gravy sauce. Tonight’s dinner was incredible. We paired our wine with incredible old Barbaresco wines. For dessert we had house made panna cotta and then finished off with amuse-bouche dessert samplings. One of these appeared very phallic, but then again I find many things to be phallic.