B&Bs and guest houses for sale in Piedmont

The vineyard landscape of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2014, and the visitor economy that grew around it is the reason this category exists. Alba fills for the truffle fair in the autumn; the wine towns are busy from spring through harvest; cyclists, walkers and food travellers fill the shoulder seasons. Then there is winter, which is quiet, and which any honest set of figures has to account for.

The legal shape of the business matters more than buyers expect, because Italy distinguishes carefully between them. A bed and breakfast is a limited, often owner-occupied arrangement with a cap on rooms. Affittacamere is a commercial accommodation licence with its own requirements. An agriturismo is something else again: it is an agricultural business that also takes guests, so it requires a genuine working farm behind it and brings its own rules and its own tax treatment. These are not interchangeable, and a building marketed as one may not be licensed for another.

So the first questions are about paperwork rather than bedrooms. Which licence does the property hold, is it current, does it transfer with the sale or must it be reapplied for, and does the building actually comply with the fire, accessibility and food-handling requirements that go with it? A property that was run informally for years may need real work to be licensed properly today.

After that, look at the practical things: whether owner accommodation is genuinely separate from guest accommodation, how many rooms have their own bathroom, where guests park, and what the kitchen is rated for.

Location drives occupancy more than the building does. Alba and the Barolo villages command the highest rates and fill earliest, because that is where the wine tourism concentrates and where the truffle fair lands every autumn. Barbaresco and Neive follow. Out in the Monferrato you buy more building for the money and you work harder for the bookings, though the gap has closed as the Langhe has got busier and more expensive to stay in.

The practical test is drive time to Alba. Inside twenty minutes you are selling a wine-country base and you can price accordingly; beyond about forty you are selling somewhere quiet and beautiful, which is a real market but a different one, with a shorter season and lower rates. Look at the actual booking calendar month by month before you believe anybody's annual figure.