An autumn to savour

From chestnuts to wine

Ticino brings autumn to your glass and your plate. Between the grape harvest, the roasting pan, and a table by Lake Maggiore, September unfolds through taste – an experience that lingers long after your stay.

It all begins with Merlot. It's shaped the canton for over a hundred years, and in the wineries around Ascona, you'll find wines that are hardly alike: dense and barrique-aged, cold-fermented and light, or as Bianco di Merlot – white wine pressed from red grapes, light, crisp, almost salty. During the grape harvest, many wineries open their doors. You can hear the press, smell the fermentation, and taste the wines.

Then, there’s the fire. Chestnuts have been a staple food here for centuries, and in autumn, you can still sense this in the region: “Marroni” straight from the embers, chestnut flour for pasta and bread, honey, vermicelli, and dark sauces for game. Slow food, long before the term even existed. If you want to see where it all comes from, go for a walk in the Maggia valley near Moghegno through the old woods, past Grà, the dry stone houses. The walk is short, the leaf litter deep, and from your hotel in Ticino by the lake you’ll be there in just over half an hour. If you’re looking for a view from above, take the cable car up to Mt Cimetta: below you lies Lake Maggiore, surrounded by slopes shifting from chestnut brown to beech yellow.

On the way back from the trail, you’ll pass the Grotto: a restaurant that began as a cool stone cellar. Granite tables beneath chestnut trees, polenta from a copper cauldron, luganighe sausages, cheese, and a Merlot from the vineyard just two bends away. And during the “Autunno Gastronomico”, mushrooms, pumpkin, game, and chestnuts dominate the region’s menus for weeks on end. In early October, the harvest arrives at the lake: the “Chestnut Festival” on the first weekend and the “Autumn Festival” on the second weekend of October, both right on Ascona’s lakeside promenade.

At al Pontile, you'll find risotto and fish from the lake. Vista Lakefront Boutique Hotel sits in the heart of this scene, directly on the waterfront: coffee with a view of the lake in the morning, the chestnut grove at lunchtime, the winery in the afternoon, and in the evening, a table from which you can see the lakeshore.