Bologna Food Valley Tour

Our Experience - Bologna Food Valley Tour

In a way, this tour was one of the reasons we returned to Italy in the first place. During our previous trip to Rome, we learned more about Parmigiano Reggiano and traditional balsamic vinegar and became fascinated by just how much history, regulation, and craftsmanship goes into products that we had previously taken for granted. We knew that if we returned to Italy, we wanted to visit Emilia-Romagna and actually see how some of them were made. The Bologna Food Valley Small Group Factory Tasting and Winery Lunch gave us the opportunity to do exactly that.

Our group of around 16 people left Bologna by minibus and headed first to a Parmigiano Reggiano factory — easily one of the highlights of the entire experience. This wasn't simply a tasting or a quick look through a window. We walked through the working factory and literally watched Parmigiano Reggiano being made while learning about the incredibly strict DOP requirements governing its production. Seeing the process happening directly in front of us gave us an entirely new appreciation for something we've eaten countless times.

And then we ate cheese. So. Much. Cheese. The tasting afterward included an almost ridiculous amount of Parmigiano Reggiano and other cheese products. Usually we're not the people surrendering during a food tasting, but eventually even we had to admit defeat. When you've reached the point where you're tapping out because you've consumed enough Parmigiano to become approximately 4% cheese yourself, you certainly can't accuse the tour of being stingy with the samples.

From there, we continued to a traditional balsamic producer, where the aging process was just as fascinating. We walked through rooms filled with barrels and learned how the balsamic develops over years and even generations, with some of the vinegar we encountered connected to aging processes stretching back as far as 150 years. After seeing the barrels and learning about the process, it was naturally time to eat again.

Our balsamic tasting included several different ways of experiencing the product, including — because apparently we hadn't eaten enough of it yet — more cheese. The biggest surprise, however, was trying balsamic with frozen custard or gelato. It sounds like one of those combinations you agree to try because you're on a food tour and then politely pretend to understand. Nope. Trust us on this one: it was actually really good.

Next came Fattoria Moretto, where we moved from cheese and balsamic into another Emilia-Romagna specialty: Lambrusco. And if your idea of Lambrusco comes entirely from versions you've encountered outside Italy, tasting it here may be a surprise. We toured the vineyard and winemaking facilities, learned more about how their wines are produced, and even picked grapes directly from the vines to taste. We probably could have stayed in the vineyard all afternoon eating grapes and been perfectly content.

Eventually we managed to leave the vines behind and headed inside for a guided tasting of all six of Fattoria Moretto's wines, accompanied by — you guessed it — more snacks. We enjoyed the wines enough that we bought two bottles to bring with us. It certainly didn't hurt that, in addition to being delicious, we found the bottles surprisingly affordable compared with what we might expect to pay for similar wines.

At this point, any reasonable person might assume the tour was finished. We had eaten an absurd quantity of Parmigiano, tasted balsamic, eaten more cheese, tried balsamic with dessert, sampled grapes, tasted six wines, and eaten additional snacks. Emilia-Romagna, however, apparently considered all of that an appetizer.

Our final stop was a well-known local restaurant for a traditional Italian lunch — and yes, this meant the full experience. Appetizers were followed by pasta, meat, sides, wine, dessert, tiramisu, and espresso. By the end, we were completely stuffed, but it was a fitting conclusion to a day built almost entirely around discovering just how seriously this region takes its food and wine.

This was also the most expensive tour we've ever booked, so expectations were understandably high. We would have appreciated a little more explanation and storytelling from our main guide throughout portions of the day, particularly given the price. That said, the individual production visits were fascinating, we were given an enormous amount of food and wine, and the opportunity to watch Parmigiano Reggiano being made, explore traditional balsamic production, and visit a Lambrusco vineyard made this an experience unlike anything else we did in Italy.

Best of all, despite everything packed into the tour, we returned to Bologna with enough time left to enjoy the city that evening. Considering we started the day watching cheese being made and ended it after Parmigiano, balsamic, gelato, fresh grapes, six Lambruscos, a full Italian lunch, tiramisu, espresso, and more wine than we're probably remembering, we'd say Emilia-Romagna successfully accomplished its mission of making sure we didn't go hungry.