Piedmont Club - September 2026

This month's Piedmont club sits at the two far ends of the region. One is a grape most people have never knowingly had, from a producer that's barely eight years old. The other is a single-vineyard Barolo with thirteen years on it. Both are, in their own way, wines that reward you for not going with the obvious choice.

Frasca La Guaragna Grignolino d'Asti 2024

Let's clear this up immediately, because I will get asked: this has nothing to do with Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder. No ownership, no partnership, no connection at all. The restaurant takes its name from the Friulian tradition of hanging a branch - a frasca - outside the farmhouse to signal that the new wine was ready to sell. This winery is named for Curt Frasca, an Italian-American who founded the estate in 2018 with local winemaker Matteo Gerbi. 

The estate runs 22 hectares across Nizza Monferrato, Agliano Terme and Moasca. Barbera is the centerpiece, which makes sense given where they sit - Nizza is the most serious DOCG Barbera has - but they also work through Grignolino, Freisa, Arneis, Cortese, Favorita and Riesling. This one is 100% Grignolino off roughly 25-year-old vines in Agliano Terme, on limestone-clay that runs through that stretch of Monferrato.

It pours pale - genuinely pale, close enough to a dark rosé that people assume it's going to be simple and soft - and then it does the opposite. It's bright and lifted, there's cherry and something floral, and then the tannin arrives and grips. It's baby Nebbiolo, more or less: the same trick of a light color hiding real structure, the same high acid, the same rose-and-red-fruit register. If you like Nebbiolo and you've never had this grape, you're going to recognize a relative.

The reason for that tannin is built into the name. Grignolino comes from Piedmontese dialect for pips, and the grape carries far more seeds per berry than average - that's where the structure comes from, not the skins. It's also the reason nobody's getting rich planting it. It ripens unevenly, it's prone to millerandage and fungal pressure, it oxidizes easily, and getting color out of it is a losing battle. Plantings dropped about 18% in a decade, from roughly 918 hectares in 2008 to 751 by 2018. Grapes like this survive because a handful of people, like hopefully everyone in this club, are stubborn about them.

Put a light chill on it, somewhere around 55-60 degrees. It's terrific with salumi, with anything fried, with pizza. Don't put it in the cellar and forget about it for 10 years - drink it fresh. 

Enzo Boglietti Barolo Case Nere 2013

Brothers Enzo and Gianni Boglietti started this estate in La Morra in 1991, right in the middle of the modernist moment - barriques, shorter macerations, the whole argument that consumed Barolo for a decade. Like most of that generation, they've drifted toward the middle ground since, and the wines are better for it. They've been certified organic since the 2017 vintage, so this 2013 predates the paperwork, though the direction of travel was already set.

Case Nere sits in La Morra between Fossati and Cerequio, southeast-facing at around 350 meters, on silty clay with patches of heavier clay and not much organic matter. Being neighbors with Cerequio is not nothing - that's one of the great names in the commune - and the vineyard has a core of vines around sixty years old alongside a younger block.

2013 was a classic, structured vintage that resulted from a relatively cool year. High acid, real tannic backbone, and generally read as a vintage of perfume and finesse rather than muscle. I opened this a few days ago and it showed a darker side than I expected for the year - more depth and less overt prettiness than the 2013 reputation suggests. What matters more is that it's landed in a great middle stage. There's still plenty of fruit, and it's picked up the tar, roses and truffle I want out of Barolo. Thirteen years is often an awkward window for these wines, caught between the fruit and the maturity. 2013 is just starting to get through it. 

Fans of this wine should also pick up one of the 2009 Fosatti bottles before they sell out - both came from a library release directly from the estate. 

That's it for September. Next Piedmont club release is in November - come see us before then and keep