September in Piedmont

Your itinerary sounds good. It would be so more easier if you would rent a rental car. We enjoyed doing almost the same itinerary but had a car.

I had a brief stay in Asti and Alba without a car once. It was just a couple days breaking up a trip to the coast, so it was okay, but I would like to return with a car. We planned to hike but were stymied by rain.
That said, if you have the budget and research capacity to find tours and drivers, it can work. The bus will get you from town to town, but I’d try the tourist office first and see how easy it is to find drivers for wine excursions.
Or, consider a car just for Neive and Alba.

The old part of Neive is fairly small - we explored it entirely in less than an hour, and there weren't any significant attractions. There is a new part of Neive we didn't visit, but it also seems small. I think w/o a car for 3 or 4 nights, you'd feel very isolated, though it's a beautiful scenic area for walking and for biking if you're comfortable with hills.

Thank you - Neive seemed quite small.  We have decided on 3 nights - one day will be getting there (we can store luggage at our prior rental so won't be getting there until late afternoon), one day we are planning on doing the loop walk to Barbaresco and back and the other day may be a wine tour or wine tasting.

We did a few days in Alba in 2019 and met Evan Byrne, a Brit expat wine geek living in Alba, who drove us around the Langhe for a day. We wish we could have done two days.

In July we will be in the Veneto and have convinced Evan to drive to Verona to take us on another tour in that region. Needless to say we found him extremely good.

You can contact him through his website Piemontemio.com.

Have fun.

Thank you - we will look Evan up!