Why it matters
The producer
Balbiano farms Freisa and nothing else. The estate sits in Andezeno, a village in the Collina Torinese hills south-east of Turin, and has been doing exactly this since Melchiorre Balbiano founded it on 14 September 1941. His son Francesco carried it forward; his grandson Luca now leads it. Three generations, one grape, eighty-plus years.
That singularity is also a declaration. Freisa is a native Piedmontese red variety that most of the regional wine world has quietly filed behind Nebbiolo and Barbera. Balbiano has spent its entire existence making the opposite argument: that Freisa, farmed well and vinified across its full range of styles, is worth a producer's complete attention. Luca Balbiano served as president of the Consorzio Tutela e Valorizzazione delle DOC Freisa di Chieri e Collina Torinese, and in 2019 founded the Urban Vineyards Association to protect the heritage value of city-embedded vineyards across Europe. The advocacy and the winemaking are part of the same project.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Andezeno sits in the Collina Torinese, a range of low hills rising south-east of Turin along the Po plain. The denomination covers a compact wine zone close to the city, cooler and more elevated than the plain below, with enough altitude to keep natural acidity in the fruit. The Collina Torinese DOC label appears on Balbiano's main estate wines.
The Freisa di Chieri DOC draws a tighter circle around the town of Chieri and the surrounding slopes, specifically designating wines made from Freisa grown in this sub-zone. Villa della Regina, the baroque royal palace on the hill of Superga at Turin's eastern edge, falls inside this circle. Freisa di Chieri DOC appears on the urban vineyard wine and on the estate's frizzante.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Balbiano works roughly seven hectares in the Collina Torinese, with the additional urban plot at Villa della Regina. All DOC wines are Freisa.
For the Freisa di Chieri Frizzante, the winery uses tank refermentation: the base wine undergoes a second fermentation in sealed stainless-steel vessels, which builds carbon dioxide and dissolves it into the wine without any of the oxidative contact or secondary compounds that come from extended bottle ageing. The bubbles are soft rather than persistent, and the tannin from the Freisa grape stays gentle.
Wines to know
The range in view
Freisa is the only grape in the Balbiano range. Its natural character, firm acidity, moderate tannin, and aromas of red fruit, violet, and a faint herbal note, runs through every bottle. The cellar choices determine the style.
Freisa di Chieri Frizzante is the estate's most approachable wine. One hundred percent Freisa, refermented in stainless-steel tanks, it carries red fruit on the nose, a dry palate, light effervescence, and soft tannins. There is no oak contact. The wine is made to be opened young.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Freisa di Chieri Frizzante. It is 100% Freisa refermented in stainless steel, dry, with light effervescence and soft tannins. The wine asks nothing except a cold glass and something on the table: cured meats, local cheeses, or a simple pasta. Its directness is the point. Freisa's red-fruit character and firm acidity come through without any winemaking layer added by oak, lees ageing, or extended bottle time. This is the grape unmediated, made in a style the Turin hills have favoured for generations. Once the frizzante is clear in the glass, the move to Cherium Brut's Classic Method complexity or the still Villa della Regina wine makes sense by contrast.