Our Story

Frasca La Guaragna was born from an unlikely meeting between Curt Frasca, an Italian-American entrepreneur with a background in the music industry, and Matteo Gerbi, a winemaker who had trained at two of Piedmont's most celebrated estates, Gaja and Bruno Giacosa. Their first vintage was produced in 2019, making this one of the newer estates in the Briffa portfolio, but the vineyards they work with are anything but young.

The estate is based in Nizza Monferrato and manages approximately 22 to 25 hectares across four principal vineyard areas: La Guaragna, at 10 hectares the largest and the one that gives the estate its name; Agliano Terme; Moasca; and the town of Nizza Monferrato itself. Across these parcels, the average vine age ranges from 35 to 40 years for the Nizza DOCG bottlings, rising to 90 to 95 years for the exceptional La Veja expression. The soils are the classic Piedmontese combination of clay and limestone, with the Calcareous Tufa that gives this specific part of the Monferrato its structure and ageing capacity.

The focus of the project is Barbera, the grape that has always dominated these hillsides but has historically played second fiddle to Barolo and Barbaresco in terms of international recognition. Frasca La Guaragna's ambition is to demonstrate what Barbera at its best, from old vines, farmed with care and vinified with precision, can genuinely achieve.

The Barbera d'Asti DOCG is the estate's introduction: a blend of fruit from all four vineyard areas, expressing the variety's signature acidity, deep ruby colour, and lush dark cherry fruit with a freshness that makes it one of Italy's most food-friendly reds. Above it sits the Nizza DOCG, which takes only fruit from the most distinguished parcels and represents one of Italy's newest and most deliberately serious appellations. The Nizza La Veja, sourced from those 90-plus-year-old vines and released only in exceptional vintages, is the estate's most complex statement.

Alongside the Barbera range, the estate produces the Monferrato Bianco Sej, a blend of Arneis and Rhine Riesling that demonstrates the breadth of Frasca La Guaragna's ambitions and offers a distinctive, mineral white wine that has no close comparison in the wider Italian market.

Briffa Wine Selections is the exclusive importer of Frasca La Guaragna wines in Malta. Explore Piedmont's next great estate and order online.