Giulio"The wine cellar I inherited from my father," says Giulio Perin. "Most of it has been moved in here, but I have 5,000 bottles at home that I can supplement with."
Around the bar counter in an 800-year-old cellar in Monforte d'Alba, Piedmont's finest wine producers are enjoying a glass while discussing the latest vintage. It smells of damp, dust and mould. In the corners, candles flicker. Behind the bar stands pharmacist Giulio Perin the village's answer to a loveable eccentric who has finally realised his great dream: the hotel Le Case della Saracca, with its accompanying restaurant and an unpretentious treasure map filled with reasonably priced wines.
His father was a winemaker who sold the estate in 1974 but never stopped collecting. Now all the great vintages stand here from Mussolini's Italy to sought-after new releases.
Giulio"My father bought the wines in the 1960s and 70s, when prices were moderate. I am very grateful for that today. It allows me to give my guests that little something extra."
Wine and ruin.
Since 1995, brothers Giulio and Paolo Perin have been buying up house after house in one of the narrowest alleyways of their childhood village, Monforte d'Alba. Their architect friend Marco Poncellini joined the project, bringing their ideas to life. So what drives a pharmacist to build a hotel inside thousand-year-old ruins?
"I was tired of working with sick people. I wanted to use my creativity instead. To create something," says Giulio Perin. "The buildings are between 500 and 1,000 years old. To me, they are the perfect setting for the hotel I have always dreamed of."
The renovation took time and Perin had a hand in everything. In 2002, the first rooms were ready to let; by 2008, the entire renovation was complete. Today the hotel consists of four houses in a row, all connected by glass bridges, secret passages through ancient walls and artistic staircases of hand-forged wrought iron.
Generous.
In the steep alleyway paved with centuries-old stones, both GPS and maps fall short. Old stone houses packed tightly together, separated by narrow lanes and steep streets. Monforte d'Alba, perched on top of a hill, is the most beautiful and most vibrant village in the Barolo region of Piedmont.
Giulio Perin lets guests choose their own room. None of the rooms have numbers instead they carry original names such as "The Crystal Room" or "The Mouse Door Room," which hint at what awaits behind the door: dim lighting, beds suspended from cables and taps descending from the ceiling, alongside well-worn chairs and chests of drawers.
And generosity comes naturally here: the entire minibar is complimentary.
Giulio"But I recommend everyone to have breakfast down in the village," says Perin with a smile. "It is much better than here."
A building within a building.
The last house to be acquired became home to the restaurant Perin had long envisioned. But the building presented greater challenges than expected.
"It is very tall and narrow. Nobody knew what it had been used for. The closest we could determine was some kind of silo."
The solution was to construct a steel framework inside the building, allowing guests to stand at the bottom and look up through floor after floor, each separated by thick glass panels. Short skirts are impractical here with a table on every landing. The counter is laden with local sausages and cured meats. Giulio Perin stumbles between wine crates on the floor as he chats with guests. The stencilled wine list is worn and marked with pencil lines and stains from happy occasions. In the glasses, brick-red drops. The aroma of cherry, truffle and nuts, the hallmark of the region's celebrated nebbiolo grape fills the room. The hotel owner is thoroughly enjoying himself at work.
"I am always here," he says. "I would sleep behind the bar if it came to that."
