By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

CASTIGLIONE FALLETTO, Italy, Sept. 17, 2025 — You drive through the countryside in the northwest of this nation, in what is probably the global center of wine production. You notice that every little town up on a hilltop — and there are dozens of them — seems to have an old castle as a centerpiece.

This is so different from anything we know, you’re thinking.

But then you arrive here in Castiglione Falletto, pop. 654, where Iowa’s Kyle Krause in 2016 became the owner of the historic Vietti winery, which is located right behind this town’s castle that dates to the 11th century. You show up for the 2:30 p.m. tour and wine-tasting you’ve scheduled, as we RicheBurgers did Tuesday afternoon with our friend Amy Namowitz Worthen, who divides her time between homes in Des Moines and Venice, Italy.

And it turns out the other four people in your tour group — who did their own scheduling at the winery — are Iowans, too, or nearly so. Nancy and Marc DeLong, of Minburn, Iowa, natives of Oelwein who went to the same high school as my wife Mary Riche, were traveling with their friends Carol Haas, a native of Griswold, Iowa, and Jerry Gose, who now live in Omaha.

My goodness, we had an impromptu Iowa party!

Our tour guide at host at the Vietti winery was Veronica Alessandria. She is shown here welcoming us on the company’s terrace that overlooks the vast vineyards, which cover much of the Barolo region in northwestern Italy. Kyle Krause, of the Des Moines area in Iowa, former owner of a chain of convenience stores in the U.S. and now the owner of two wineries, a fine hotel and two soccer teams in Italy, is at work in the U.S. during our visit. (Photo by Mary Riche)

Our group around the table for the wine tasting at the Vietti winery. Clockwise from the front left are Veronica Alessandria, a host at the winery; then Marc and Nancy DeLong, of Minburn, Iowa; Carol Haas and Jerry Gose, of Omaha; Amy Worthen, of Venice, Italy, and Des Moines, and Mary Riche, of Des Moines.

The Vietti winery is actually the second one Kyle Krause bought in this area of Italy. The other is Enrico Serafino, which Krause purchased in 2015, and which we three from Des Moines are touring on Wednesday afternoon. And we are staying nearby at the elegant Casa di Langa boutique hotel and spa, which Krause purchased in 2017 as an abandoned construction project, oversaw the fantastic completion of, and opened it in 2021. I’ll be writing about the hotel in a column this coming weekend.

Consider today’s column a report on agriculture in Italy.

Yes, winemaking, as it is done here, is certainly big-time farming.

The Vietti winery has been in production since the 1870s, under leadership of several generations of the Vietti family, on about 49 acres of hilly land, perfect for a vineyard. Many other wineries grew up around it in recent times, and it wasn’t as competitive as it once had been.

“When Kyle Krause purchased Vietti, we had new capital to invest in expansion,” said Veronica Alessandra, a local middle school teacher who also serves as a host and guide for tour groups. “We added land and now have about 83 acres in the area. We added another wine cellar five minutes away in this town, put new offices in over there, now have about 40 total employees, and are now making 700,000 bottles, more or less, per year.”

She said “there were some questions among local people when we learned that the Vietti family was selling their winery to someone from another country. There wasn’t outside ownership like that among the wineries in this area. But Kyle put more money into this winery, improved it and was always trusting what our winemakers wanted to do. Now, nobody even asks anymore if it was a good thing. I think it’s been good for everybody.”

As part of a tour, our group had a tasting opportunity and those who tried them reported that “tasting these elegant wines was even better than hearing about them,” as Mary Riche said.

In another aspect of agriculture, there’s cheesemaking, which is what Arianna and Alessandro Boasso do at their small farm a 45-minute drive away from the wine country.

Now 43 and 44 years old, the Boassos — who grew up in a nearby town of Alba and did not start out to be farmers — “found this place 18 years ago.” They started redeveloping a house dating to 1850, bought a little more land and now have a total of about 42 acres.

“We do regenerative agriculture, protecting and growing the biodiversity that is naturally here, and are part of the ‘slow-food movement’ that actually began in this area in the 1980s,” Arianna told us. “We usually have about 50 goats and 50 sheep, and they are the source of our milk for cheesemaking. Then we also have them slaughtered for their meat by a local butcher.”

Arianna Boasso holds two of the cheeses she makes at her farm. Most are sold in the uncovered form, but some are sold in the distinctive jars to meet some customers’ preferences for longer storage. She is shown in the cooler that she and her husband Alessandro Boasso use for aging their cheeses. (Photo by Mary Riche)

This view of the back side of the Boasso farmhouse show the several additions that have been made since construction on it began in about 1850. The nearest village to their farm is Mombarcaro, a name which translates as “the mountain of the boat,”so named because from the hilltop community, you can see the sea. (Photo by Mary Riche)

The key to their operation is maintaining and improving their pastures.

“We do not plow our land at all,” Arianna said, “because that would disturb the biodiversity. Instead, we do what’s called ‘rational’ pasturing. We grow different varieties of grasses — we now have about 35 — in different parts of the pastures. Then we move the animals every day, to gently force them to eat all the different varieties at one time or another. What they eat, and when they eat it, determines the flavors of the different cheeses we make.”

As they have expanded, they also have started planting fruit trees on the fence rows of the pastures. “We now have about 300 trees, and plan to plant more,” she said. “The trees give us their fruit, so now we also make and bottle our own apple cider, which we ferment for different varieties. And the trees also give our animals — especially our sheep — the shade they need, especially in the hotter seasons.”

They have also added beekeeping and honey production at their farm.

They sell all of their products at farmers’ markets and a few stores in the area.

The Boassos also use solar energy to power most of their electrical needs, including for their impressive small dairy operations.

And is it a good life?

“Yes, it is a good way to live out here,” Arianna concluded. “When I was younger, I loved to spend time in London, Paris, other great cities. I still like to go to visit them occasionally, but now it’s not for more than two days. Then they start to drive me crazy and I want to come back home to the farm.”

Let me conclude today by noting that since there is so much fascinating history in Italy, it’s not too surprising when you wind up traveling on a highway that not only has deep history but has also been a key in economic development. Not only in Italy, but also in 10 other nations across Europe, into the Middle East and beyond.

Monday, when we were driving from the city of Florence to the west coast of Italy, then northwest up the coast and on toward the French border, we were traveling on “E80.”

Two things we learned about that highway: 1) It must have been one of the greatest engineering feats ever to build it, as in just the 127 miles we were driving from Pisa to Savona, a mountainous area right along the coast, we passed through more than 100 tunnels! 2) “E80” is also known as the Trans-European Motorway that stretches from Lisbon, Portugal, to Gurbulak, Turkey. That means in its 3,792 miles, it crosses or touches Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran.

Has anybody ever driven the whole way? Probably some Iowan!

One unusual set of tunnels we drove through on highway E80 in northwestern Italy.

 

Freshly-made cheeses at “Pascoli di Amaltea,” the name of the Boasso farm. That name translates as “Pastures of Amaltea,” and she was a goddess who fed Zeus in Greek mythology. (Photo by Mary Riche)

A variety of eight different cheeses we sampled. (Photo by Mary Riche)

 

The farmhouse dining area, set for visitors. (Photo by Mary Riche)

The Boasso farm story was featured in 2015 in the “Republica” national newspaper in Italy. The headline translates, “Alessandro and Arianna: A story of love of the land and of the sheep.” (Photo by Amy Namowitz Worthen)

In one of the Vietti wine cellars, our host and tour guide Veronica Alessandria with a huge barrel of wine in storage.

More storage in the multi-level wine cellar. Walking among the barrels are Nancy and Marc DeLong, of Minburn, Iowa, and Carol Haas and Jerry Gose, of Omaha. (Photo by Mary Riche)

Vineyards as far as the eye can see! (Photo by Mary Riche)

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