What is Cortemilia known for?

Capital of the IGP hazelnut variety that supplies the world's premium confectionery, grown on the Alta Langa slopes around town. Annual August hazelnut festival, the town's biggest event and a key date in the Alta Langa agricultural calendar. Romanesque Pieve di Santa Maria on the Monteoliveto slope, built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Cortemilia is a comune in the province of Cuneo, Piedmont region of Italy, about 101 kilometers from Torino.

Piedmont · Cuneo

Cortemilia

An Alta Langa townsplit by the Bormida, capital of the Tonda Gentile di Langa hazelnut.

101 km / 63 mi

Nearest hub (Torino)

2,152

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Città della Nocciola

Why come

Cortemilia sitson the Bormida river, in the heart of the Alta Langa, seventy kilometers southeast of Torino. The river splits the town into two historic borghi, San Michele on one side and San Pantaleo on the other, connected by a Romanesque bridge. The settlement is pre-Roman in origin but expanded under Roman administration, attested by tombstones found around the centro storico. The Pieve di Santa Maria, on the slope of Monteoliveto outside the town, was built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Romanesque stone, surrounded now by olives and vineyards. What defines Cortemilia is the hazelnut. The town is the recognized capital of the Tonda Gentile di Langa, the IGP variety that supplies most of the world's premium hazelnut paste and confectionery. The Alta Langa hills around Cortemilia provide most of the 8 to 9 percent of Italian hazelnut output that comes from Piedmont. Every August the town runs the Sagra della Nocciola.

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Gallery

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Known for

Pieve di Santa Maria
Twelfth-thirteenth-century Romanesque parish church on the Monteoliveto slope, surrounded by hazelnut groves and olives.
Torre Medievale di Cortemilia
Cylindrical medieval tower on the upper hill, the surviving element of the lost castle that controlled the Bormida crossing.
Ponte sul Bormida
Stone bridge connecting the two historic borghi of San Michele and San Pantaleo on opposite banks of the river.
Hazelnut groves of the Alta Langa
The terraced groves of Tonda Gentile around Cortemilia, source of most IGP hazelnut production in Piedmont.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June brings the hazelnut groves into leaf and the Bormida back to a clean spring flow. September and October are harvest months: the Tonda Gentile is picked, the festival energy continues from August, and the Alta Langa light turns hard and gold. July and August reach the low thirties in the valley bottom; the Sagra della Nocciola fills the town in mid-August regardless. November through March is quiet. Fog moves up the Bormida on cold mornings. Many restaurants reduce hours. The hazelnut paste producers are at their busiest behind closed doors.