Garbagna

The town sits in the Tortonese hills of eastern Piedmont, forty kilometers from Genova and thirty-five from Alessandria, at the point where the Curone, Grue and Ossona valleys meet. The architecture leans south toward Liguria rather than west toward the wider Piedmontese hill towns: tall houses pressed together, narrow stone streets, carved portals and an aristocratic palace surviving at the center, all giving the place the feel of a Ligurian entroterra village transplanted into Piedmont. The upper Val Curone around the town is the growing ground for the Ciliegia Bella di Garbagna, the deep-red cherry harvested by hand each June, with Garbagna standing as its commercial center.

The same eastern slopes fall inside the Colli Tortonesi DOC, where Pinot Nero is grown alongside the cherry orchards. The town's built form and its produce both point the same direction: a Piedmontese address with a Ligurian character, shaped as much by the valley's geography as by the province it belongs to on the map.