Langhe Freisa DOC
Grape: Freisa

Fragrant red berry fruit, fresh lime flowers, deliciously delicate aromas. Intense peppery fruit, deceptively full and decidedly unique.
This vineyard was unaffected by the spring frosts that plagued the vintage and the age of the vines did much to nullify the challenges of one of the driest years on record; in fact, the stars seem to have aligned themselves, this is a great wine. 2000 bottles made

link to Brezza producer page

Brezza is rightly famed for their Nebbiolo, the Freisa is a bit of an ‘insider’ wine – there is very little made. It is an extremely rare grape variety which is abused and twisted into some bizarre guises, fortunately there are some astonishing examples lighting its path to greatness (wishful thinking on my part). Usually Freisa is semi-sparkling, it can be sweet or dry (maybe something in between), Brezza prefers to make an elegant, classic, still and dry red wine.
The vineyard is close to the village of Barolo, it is less than an acre of west facing slope, planted at just over four and a half thousand plants per hectare in a tradition Guyot system. It is relatively high at three hundred metres, this helps develop the aromatic elements within the wine. The Freisa was planted in 1991, the quality of fruit is now very special, the inconsistent yield each year is a challenge.
The grapes are picked by hand, transported a short distance to the cellar in shallow boxes, bunches are sorted again before being crushed and fermented on the skins for six days at around 26˚C. The wine is then decanted into old tonneaux (500 litre French old) for six months, in this time it goes through a full malolactic conversion.