Long overshadowed by Nebbiolo, Freisa is reclaiming its place among Piedmont’s prized native grapes. With a bold personality and growing support from pioneering winemakers, this once-overlooked variety is drawing new attention both at home and abroad.
A largely unsung red variety, Freisa is native to Piedmont – grown mostly in the Chieri, Monferrato and Langhe subregions – where it sits alongside Italian heavyweight and close relative Nebbiolo. Freisa produces a wine light ruby in colour, rich and perfumed with a typically sweet spice and red berry character, which fits given that its name comes from the Latin for strawberry, ‘fresia’.
Cascina Gilli, in the northern part of Piedmont’s Asti region, has been growing Freisa, along with other native varieties, since the 1980s. This month, it unveiled its first single vineyard Freisa – Freisa d’Asti Il Forno 2024 – a still wine made from 80-year-old Freisa vines at its Vigna del Forno vineyard. The grapes undergo a seven-day maceration on the skins, with frequent pump-overs to encourage colour extraction while controlling the release of tannins. The wine is then aged in steel tanks and bottled the following year. “For Il Forno 2024, we opted to slightly shorten the ageing period in steel,” explains Gianpiero Gerbi, winemaker at Cascina Gilli. “It was a deliberate decision, made to let the wine express its freshness, balance, and fruit, while leaving space for time to refine it naturally.”
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