TOUR DEL PIEMONTE “
As many of you know, the school regularly participates in the Banfi Scholastic Tour of Italy. This incredible experience was, at one time, an annual one, in which two students and a faculty member participated. The learning about Italian wine, food and culture it produces is phenomenal. Unfortunately, the trip now occurs on a less regular basis and its absence in the off years left a huge gap in our portfolio of learning opportunities. Thanks to the generosity of Jon (BSBA 1997) and Megan Schlegel, who have a wine importing business and a property in Piemonte, we now fill those gap years in with a trip that is exclusively our own, Fritz Knoebel’s Tour del Piemonte. The inaugural, week-long trip began in late November, 2016. Two seniors, Malia Bacig and Sonya Raab, traveled with Jon and me on an educational journey of a lifetime. Please read on for reflections each of my fellow travelers wrote about the experience.
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- David Corsun
Malia Bacig Italy is a striking country. I had the opportunity to travel to Piedmont, a region in Northern Italy, for a week with Sonya Raab, David Corsutn, and Jon Schlegel. We spent the majority of our time in a small town called Monforte d’Alba. Monforte d’Alba is located in the Barolo region of Piedmont. Barolo wines were the focus of the trip. I have always been interested in wine and wine making, but this trip helped me to infinitely expand my wine knowledge and grow my passion for wine. Wine is a beautifully complicated product that is often made by incredibly impassioned people. The people I met during our week in Italy made a lasting impression on me.
Jon about the town and the latest news. Sonya and I did not speak much Italian and she did not speak any English, but she treated us with such kindness and generosity. When we left, she gave us both a hug and a kiss on the cheek. It was apparent that she truly loved sharing the moment with us and genuinely wanted us to enjoy our experience at their home. It was a very special few hours filled with great wine and cheese. Wine, the focus of this trip, is very complicated, yet strikingly simple. I learned so much throughout the trip. We toured many different wineries and had the opportunity to see the various steps involved in making wine. Touring wineries was a very valuable experience. I am a visual learner and being able to see the different steps required to make wine was very helpful. It was also incredible to see the different scales of production at the various wineries we toured. Learning how to taste wine was also a huge part of the trip. I did not have a comprehensive understanding of how to taste wine before our week in Italy. Many different aspects of a wine can be identified through a tasting. It takes an incredible amount of practice to learn how to identify the various characteristics of a wine through blind tasting; it will take many years to learn how to master wine tasting. One of my favorite moments of the trip was when Jon was able to guess the vintage of a wine without knowing anything other than the wine producer. That was the same day we tasted 40 different wines!
"People who are excited about life and love their work fuel me."
People who are excited about life and love their work fuel me. Every single person we met was passionate about his or her work. Countless individuals opened up their homes and shared their love for life, food, wine, and Italy. It is apparent that Jon has spent a significant amount of time fostering meaningful and deep relationships. I feel extremely lucky to have been exposed to and experienced some of those relationships. We toured Renzo Seghesio’s winery in Monforte d’Alba and had the opportunity to meet him and his wife. His wife made a huge impression on me. We sat down for our tasting and she brought us two different kinds of cheese and fresh breadsticks. She sat with us the entire tasting while commenting on the wines in Italian and speaking with
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Knoebel News | Fall 2017
It is important to note, however, that this trip was so much more than learning about wine. I think this trip helped me to realize the kind of life I want to achieve. I want a life with rich relationships, unbelievable food, flavorful wine, and passion. A perfect example of this is Elisa. We met Elisa at Conterno Fantino. She helps her family with the production of wine at the winery and welcomes visitors and tours. However, she also lives in the Alps for part of
