Paitin Langhe Freisa Bonina 2023

Paitin Langhe Freisa Bonina expresses rose petal, pine, dried herbs, crushed red fruit, and orange peel, with real energy and firm tannins. A light chill does it no harm. Hand-harvested on marl limestone, fermented in stainless with a ten-day maceration, then aged in old Slavonian casks.

The Pasquero-Elia family has farmed here since 1796 and has been bottling Barbaresco since 1893 — but the Freisa story is a revival: Giuseppe Elia's old plants were vinified until 1968, and after a sixty-year gap Giovanni, Silvano, and their nephew Luca restarted production in 2018, specifically to make the case for a grape that was quietly disappearing from the Langhe.

Food pairing: Salumi and tajarin, sausage and lentils, pizza, roast pork, or a trattoria dinner of no particular ambition