The best hill towns in the province of Asti
The province of Asti is made of slopes, and almost every village in it sits on top of one, because the ground below was worth more as vineyard. Barbera and Moscato run in rows down the flanks of the Monferrato and the northern Langhe, and the houses above them are brick, warm red in the low light, with the odd wall of pale tufo where the rock came out of the hill itself. Autumn is the season people plan around: the grape harvest, then the truffle markets, then the fog that fills the valleys and leaves the ridges dry and clear. Kitchens here serve tajarin cut fine as thread, agnolotti dal plin, bagna cauda in the cold months, bollito misto with its tray of sauces, and vermouth that was invented down the road.
Most visitors to Piedmont's wine country point the car at Alba and the Barolo hills, and with reason, given the cellars, the white truffle fair and the restaurant list. The result in October is a queue for parking in Barolo and La Morra, tasting rooms booked out weeks ahead and hotel prices to match. The famous vineyard viewpoints get busy enough that the landscape starts to feel curated rather than worked.
The same hills do not stop at the provincial boundary. North and east of Alba the ridges continue through Asti, past the Belbo and the Tanaro, carrying the same vines, the same brick towers and the same food, with fewer people looking at them. The towns below sit on ground too steep to spread, which is why they stayed small, and why the walk from the edge of each one goes straight into vineyard.
Of the 6 communes we have mapped in the province of Asti, 6 qualify as hill towns: each is an inland hill settlement built on ground too steep to spread. The smallest, Mombaldone, has 197 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best hidden hill towns you can reach by train within 90 minutes of Torino and The best small hill towns you can reach by train in Piemonte.
Mombaldone
Why visit Mombaldone
The village sits at 260 meters on a ridge, fifty kilometers north of Genova and well outside the Barolo and Barbaresco circuits. The Aleramici held the land from 991, when they founded the monastery of San Quintino di Spigno; in 1209 control passed to the Del Carretto, whose descendants still own property in the village.
The castle on the high point fell in 1637 and stands in ruin, a square tower and a stretch of wall, while the walled center below has kept its ring intact around the resident population. The church built into the old moat carries canvases by the Monevi family of Acqui, a 17th-century addition to an 18th-century building.
Bormida-valley badlands open below the walls toward Liguria. The layout reads as a sequence: ruined high point, intact walled ring beneath it, open valley beyond.
What survives is not the seat of power but the perimeter that once served it, outlasting the family and the castle both.
What to see in Mombaldone
- Castello dei Del Carretto. 13th-century castle on the highest point of the ridge, partially demolished in 1637; a square tower and wall fragments survive.
- Chiesa di San Nicolao. 18th-century Baroque parish church by Matteo Zucchi on a hexagonal plan, built into the old castle moat.
- Centro storico murato. Complete medieval walled perimeter, the only one preserved in full in the Langa Astigiana, enclosing the small borgo intact.
How to get to Mombaldone
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 84 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June bring the hills back to green and the walls draw a few weekend walkers from Acqui and Asti. September and October are dry and gold, with truffle weeks in nearby communes pulling small crowds onto the ridge roads. July and August can push past thirty degrees and the centro stays empty between two and six.
Cocconato
Why visit Cocconato
Cocconato sits thirty kilometers east of Torino, on a ridge whose south-facing slope catches enough sun to keep olives, palms and mimosas alive this far north, the reason locals call the area the Riviera del Monferrato. From the tenth century the ridge was held by the Radicati counts, a Manfredian family, as an imperial fief for four hundred years, until 1586: the centro storico that survives is their seat, not a later reconstruction.
The town's two anchors sit close together but answer to different authorities. The civic palace, built in the fifteenth century, faces the seventeenth-century parish church of Santa Maria della Consolazione across the upper piazza, government and religion holding opposite ends of the same small square.
Beyond the built center, the ridge opens onto a belvedere looking south across vineyards toward the Alta Langa and, on clear days, the Monviso massif. Since 1970 the six frazioni of Airali, Brina, Colline Magre, San Carlo, Torre and Tuffo have raced their donkeys in the Palio degli Asini, a modern rivalry laid over an old administrative one.
Cocconato is the only commune in the province of Asti to hold the Bandiera Arancione, a fitting distinction for a ridge that has been organizing the same handful of parts, fief, palace, church, frazioni, for centuries.
What to see in Cocconato
- Palazzo Comunale. Pointed-arch porticoes and terracotta-framed windows on the Late Gothic facade, still the building the ridge town organizes itself around.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria della Consolazione. Seventeenth-century parish church anchoring the upper piazza, the religious counterweight to the medieval civic palace below it.
- Centro storico. Medieval ridge town that was the seat of the Radicati counts from the tenth century until 1586, well preserved on the south-facing slope.
How to get to Cocconato
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Torino is roughly 57 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the months that earn Cocconato its Riviera nickname: dry warm days on the ridge, vineyards in green or gold, and the palms in the lower gardens visibly out of season. July and August are warm and busy, with Cocco Wine at the end of summer drawing crowds into the centro storico. November through March is the quiet half of the year.
Moncalvo
Why visit Moncalvo
Moncalvo sits at 305 meters on a Monferrato ridge, forty-five kilometers east of Torino. It carries the title of smallest city in Italy, granted by Duke Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga in 1705 and confirmed by Victor Amadeus III of Savoy in 1775.
The town was the first capital of the Marquisate of Monferrato, founded by the Aleramici in the 10th century. Guglielmo Caccia, the Counter-Reformation painter known as il Moncalvo, was born here in 1568 and left major canvases in the churches of San Francesco and Sant'Antonio, alongside works by his daughter Orsola.
The synagogue on Piazza Carlo Alberto is the only one in the world built directly on a city's main piazza, a remnant of the Jewish community recorded here since the 1500s. The Fiera Nazionale del Tartufo, documented for more than five centuries, runs the last three weekends of October and pulls the truffle trade north of Alba into this ridge.
What to see in Moncalvo
- Chiesa di San Francesco. Conventual church holding major canvases by Guglielmo Caccia (il Moncalvo) and his daughter Orsola, both 17th century.
- Sinagoga di Moncalvo. Synagogue on Piazza Carlo Alberto, the only one in the world built directly on a city's main square, with 18th-century interior.
- Chiesa di Sant'Antonio. Smaller historic church preserving further works by Guglielmo Caccia and the Moncalvo school of his workshop.
How to get to Moncalvo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Novara is roughly 62 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months the ridge feels right. October is the truffle weeks, when buyers and restaurants book the ridge well ahead and the streets around Piazza Carlo Alberto fill on Saturday and Sunday mornings. July and August push past thirty degrees and the centro empties in the afternoon, though the elevation keeps evenings tolerable. His Majesty the Fat Ox's National Fair falls in February.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Why visit Castagnole delle Lanze
Fifteen kilometers south of Asti, Castagnole delle Lanze lies in the UNESCO Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont, on ground once crossed by a Roman road branching off the Via Aemilia between Acqui and Pollenzo. In the Middle Ages the lands belonged to the counts of Loreto, with Manfredo I the count most tied to the community; their castle, probably destroyed in 1255 when the contado fell, has not survived, and from the thirteenth century the town passed under the Comune of Asti.
The main square and Piazza Balbo hold the two churches that anchor the lower town, while the Parco della Rimembranza occupies the highest ground of the village, looking over the Tinella and Tanaro valleys. What remains is a settlement built in layers: a Roman route, a lost medieval castle, a pair of Baroque churches, and a nineteenth-century tower, each belonging to a different century and none of them replacing the one before it.
What to see in Castagnole delle Lanze
- Chiesa di San Pietro in Vincoli. Parish church of 1681 on the main square, Ligurian-Piedmontese Baroque with a twin-bell-tower façade.
- Chiesa dei Battuti Bianchi. Confraternity church of 1668 in Piazza Balbo, deconsecrated and now used as a space for cultural events.
- Torre di San Robert. Built by Count Paolo Ballada di San Robert, the tower stands at the top of the Parco della Rimembranza and still functions as a lookout over the surrounding hills.
How to get to Castagnole delle Lanze
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Torino is roughly 72 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings the vines into leaf and the Tinella valley into clear light, with the Torre di San Robert opening on weekends. September and October are harvest, the high season for the Langhe-Monferrato hills and the time the Adotta un filare initiative runs its tastings. July and August get hot on the south-facing slopes; mornings in the Parco della Rimembranza and evenings on the main piazza are the cooler hours.
Canelli
Why visit Canelli
Canelli sits at 157 meters on the Belbo, in the south-east corner of the Asti hills where the Langhe and Monferrato meet. The town is the birthplace of Italian sparkling wine: Carlo Gancia produced the first Asti Spumante here in 1865, on the model of Champagne.
Underneath the centro storico runs a network of cellars cut into the tuff by pickaxe and chisel from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, descending as deep as 32 meters and extending about 20 kilometers through the hill below town. They are called the Cattedrali Sotterranee, and they were inscribed in the UNESCO Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont in 2014.
Above ground, the Sternia, a steep stone street, climbs from the Borgo Villanuova past the Torre dei Contini at 371 meters to the Castello Gancia, a medieval fortress transformed into a noble residence by the Scarampi in the early 1600s and still occupied by the Gancia family. The Belbo grows Moscato Bianco, Barbera and hazelnut.
What to see in Canelli
- Cattedrali Sotterranee. Network of tuff-cut cellars under the centro storico, 20 km of tunnels descending to 32 meters, part of the UNESCO Vineyard Landscape since 2014.
- Castello Gancia. Medieval castle on the Sternia hill above town, transformed into a Scarampi residence in the 1600s and now home of the Gancia family.
- La Sternia. Historic stone-paved street climbing through Borgo Villanuova to the castle, the original access road to the hilltop fortress.
How to get to Canelli
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Torino is roughly 82 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months the Belbo hills work best. The vines leaf and harvest in those windows, the cellars stay 12 to 14 degrees year-round, and the climb up the Sternia to the castle is in shade most of the day. July and August get hot in the valley; the Cattedrali Sotterranee are the coolest space in town and double as a refuge between two and five in the afternoon. National Truffle Fair and San Martin Fair falls in November.
Nizza Monferrato
Why visit Nizza Monferrato
Nizza Monferrato sits at 267 meters in the south of the Asti province, thirty kilometers from Asti city. It was founded in 1225 by inhabitants displaced from castles in the Alessandria area, joined the Marquisate of Monferrato in 1264, and grew through the 19th century as the commercial center of the Barbera-growing hills around it.
The medieval grid from that 1225 founding still holds the centro storico together, with Renaissance and 18th-century palazzi lining Via Pio Corsi and Via Carlo Alberto, while the vineyards that made the town's fortune spread out beyond it at 200 to 400 meters. That agricultural hinterland and the market town at its center still explain each other: the Foro Boario, the old cattle market on Piazza Garibaldi, is the physical record of a town that existed to move what the hills produced, and it still does that job as a multipurpose hall for the antiques market and for the November weekend known as Nizza è Bagna Cauda.
At that gathering, long communal tables fill with the Cardo Gobbo, a hunchbacked cardoon grown only here and protected by a Slow Food presidium, alongside Barbera raised to DOCG status in 2014. A town built to trade a hillside's produce has ended up defined by two of that produce's most particular forms.
What to see in Nizza Monferrato
- Piazza Garibaldi and Foro Boario. Main square with the old covered cattle market, now a multipurpose hall used for antiques fairs and the November bagna cauda weekend.
- Chiesa di San Giovanni in Lanero. Baroque parish church on the centro storico, with a tall bell tower visible across the surrounding vineyards.
- Museo Bersano delle Contadinerie. Wine-and-farming museum in a former cellar, with one of the largest collections of historic Piemonte viticulture tools.
How to get to Nizza Monferrato
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Torino is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months the Monferrato hills work best. October is harvest, with the Barbera coming in late and the cellars open for visits. November is the Cardo Gobbo and bagna cauda weekend, the largest event of the year, when the Foro Boario fills with communal tables and the Cantina di Nizza pours through the night. Mercatino dell'antiquariato nicese falls in August.
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