Europe's No. 2 Wine Region for 2027, and the Other Langhe Harvest
A travel ranking puts Langhe, Roero and Monferrato second in Europe. A Caritas report shows who picked this year's grapes.
Il Vino Bello ·
Last week brought two very different reports on the same hills. A Brussels travel portal ranked Langhe, Roero and Monferrato the second-best wine region in Europe for 2027. Within days, the Caritas of the Diocese of Alba published a dossier on the people who picked this year's grapes, and called the 2026 season one of the worst it has seen. Both are worth reading before you plan an autumn trip.
What the ranking measured
The list comes from European Best Destinations, a non-profit based in Brussels that publishes yearly rankings of places to visit in Europe. Its panel started with more than 90 wine territories and narrowed them to twelve finalists, judged on heritage and authenticity, grape varieties and winemaking styles, wine tourism infrastructure, landscape and outdoor activities, food and specialised hospitality, sustainability and accessibility. In other words, the whole trip, not only the glass.
Langhe, Roero and Monferrato scored 18.8 out of 20 as a wine destination and 9.7 out of 10 for wine experiences. Only Štajerska, in north-eastern Slovenia, finished higher, with 19.5. Ribeira Sacra in Galicia came third with 18.5, ahead of Austria's Kamptal and Chianti Rufina in Tuscany. Italy has four regions in the twelve, more than any other country: after Piemonte and Rufina come Etna in seventh place and the Valle d'Aosta in tenth. France does not appear until sixth, with Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.
Nebbiolo, truffles and the colour of October
Three things carried the result, according to the announcement reported by Targatocn: the white truffle of Alba, Nebbiolo, and the autumn landscape. Time Out's report on the list notes that the ranking flags autumn as the best time to go, when the truffle season opens and the vineyards change colour. The hills are also a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2014, in six components that include the Langa of Barolo, the hills of Barbaresco, the castle of Grinzane Cavour, Nizza and Barbera, Canelli and Asti Spumante, and the Monferrato of the infernot.
"A recognition that honours the daily work and the team spirit of an area that has stayed at the top of tourists' preferences, in Italy and in Europe, for years," said Mariano Rabino, president of the tourism board (our translation). He added that the area cannot stand still in a sector that keeps changing.
The visitors are already coming. Figures compiled by the Cuneo Chamber of Commerce from the Regione's tourism observatory give the Langhe Monferrato Roero area 761,274 arrivals and 1,731,116 overnight stays in 2025, up 9.6% and 11.9% on 2024. Italians made up 38.6% of the nights, followed by visitors from Switzerland (11.0%), Germany (8.9%), the Netherlands (6.6%), France (5.3%) and the United States (5.1%).
The other harvest
The Caritas dossier, titled "L'altra vendemmia" (the other harvest) and made public by Bishop Marco Brunetti, describes the picking that does not make it into the wine stories. It counts more than 6,000 workers in this year's harvest in Langhe and Roero, about 3,000 of them seasonal and mostly from abroad. In and around Alba it found 16 makeshift settlements, a number never recorded before, with some 25 people camped in the Parco Tanaro area and others in gardens, garages, basements, underpasses and under bridges. It reports beds rented for as much as 200 to 300 euro a month, undeclared and partly declared work, pay below union minimums and long days without rest. The people Caritas met in Alba, it notes, are less than 5% of those picking every day; about the rest, little is known.
The Caritas canteen in via Pola served 4,500 meals during the harvest, against a usual 2,500, and recorded about 2,000 uses of its showers. The report points to the growing use of contractors that supply crews to wineries, and says it would have liked to see more estates hire pickers directly and house them decently. It also sets the conditions it found against the hills' UNESCO status, and concludes that for "the other harvest", 2026 was one of the worst years. Brunetti called the situation "unacceptable for a city and an area as well-off as ours" (our translation) and asked for lasting, structural solutions rather than emergency ones.
This is not a new problem. A protocol against labour exploitation in Alba, Langhe and Roero, led by the Prefecture of Cuneo, was tried in 2024 and renewed in September 2025, with the Regione, the comuni, unions, employers' associations and the Barolo and Barbaresco consorzio among the signatories. Enrico Solavagione of the Cisl union in Cuneo put it this way: the great majority of farms are sound, and they are being asked to cooperate. The Cgil is blunter, calling the exploitation well known but "still serious and little tackled" (our translation). On Saturday 24 October, Caritas, Libera, Arci and the Cgil, Cisl and Uil unions will march in Alba against exploitation in the vineyards.
Visiting well this autumn
None of this is a reason to stay away. It is a reason to travel with open eyes, and to spend where the work is done well. Book cellar visits directly with estates, buy at the cellar door, and ask the questions you would ask about any farm: who picks here, and are they employed by the estate? Some producers on our site describe holding Equalitas certification, a sustainability standard that, in its own words, covers social, environmental and economic pillars. Among them are G.D. Vajra, Casa E. di Mirafiore, Pertinace, Cascina Lanzarotti, Carlin de Paolo, Cantine Volpi and the Cantina Alice Bel Colle cooperative. A certificate is not the whole answer, but it is a fair place to start a conversation.
If you are going in the next few weeks, our guides to autumn Barolo and Barbaresco tastings, the Sunday castle visits of Narrar Castelli e Vini and Bagna Cauda Day in late November are a good start.
Sources
- https://www.tastinglife.it/2026/10/13/langhe-monferrato-e-roero-al-secondo-posto-tra-le-migliori-destinazioni-vinicole-deuropa-per-il-2027/ (13 Oct 2026)
- https://www.targatocn.it/2026/10/12/leggi-notizia/argomenti/attualita/articolo/langhe-monferrato-roero-tra-le-migliori-destinazioni-vinicole-deuropa-per-il-202-premiata-la-capac.html (12 Oct 2026)
- https://www.timeout.com/news/europes-best-wine-region-2027-slovenia-100926 (October 2026)
- https://siviaggia.it/notizie/migliori-regioni-vinicole-europa-european-best-destinations-classifica-2027/604665/ (October 2026)
- https://www.targatocn.it/2026/10/12/leggi-notizia/argomenti/agricoltura-10/articolo/vendemmia-2026-la-denuncia-della-caritas-di-alba-16-accampamenti-di-fortuna-e-lavoratori-senza-tut-1.html (12 Oct 2026)
- https://www.targatocn.it/2026/10/17/leggi-notizia/argomenti/attualita/articolo/caporalato-e-sfruttamento-nei-vigneti-di-langhe-e-roero-associazione-e-sindacati-lanciano-la-mobili-1.html (17 Oct 2026)
- https://www.cn.camcom.it/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/RapportoCuneo/RapportoCuneo2026/Turismo.pdf (Rapporto Cuneo 2026, tourism chapter)
- https://cn.camcom.it/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Studi/protocollo%20Alba_2026riv.pdf (Prefecture of Cuneo protocol text)
- https://www.equalitas.it/