Why it matters
The producer
Frasca is a Piemontese estate assembled from old vines and a cross-Atlantic partnership. The Frasca family, Americans with Italian roots, came to the Monferrato hills with a clear intention: acquire mature vineyard land and build a label rather than plant and wait. They brought in Matteo Gerbi, who grew up in Asti and had spent his working years at Gaja, Vajra, and Bruno Giacosa, three houses that shaped the modern Langhe, before returning to his home province with something to prove on his own terms.
The estate name for the vineyard holding is La Guaragna. Frasca is the label. The 22 hectares spread across three municipalities near Nizza Monferrato and Moasca, in the rolling Monferrato hills east of Asti. Vine age across the holding runs from 40 to 80 years old. Gerbi runs the vineyards and the cellar, and the wines that come out carry the marks of his Langhe education: attentiveness to site, minimal intervention, and a willingness to push old Piemontese varieties into territory most producers leave unexplored.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Nizza Monferrato and Moasca sit in the Asti province, in the Monferrato hills east of the Langhe. The Monferrato is a gentler landscape than the Barolo and Barbaresco country to the west, lower and more varied in aspect, with a long tradition of Barbera d'Asti as the principal appellation red. Freisa d'Asti and Grignolino d'Asti are older denominations that once covered much more of the Piemontese table and have since retreated to a smaller circle of committed producers.
The hills around Nizza Monferrato and Moasca give Barbera grapes enough warmth and elevation to build both colour and acidity. Freisa, an ancient Piemontese variety with a close genetic relationship to Nebbiolo, carries naturally high tannin and floral aromas on these soils. What ends up in the bottle depends heavily on what the cellar chooses to emphasise: Freisa can be light and fragrant or dark and grip-heavy, depending on maceration length and fermentation method.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The La Guaragna parcels carry vine material between 40 and 80 years old. Old vines in Piemonte tend to produce smaller yields with more concentrated fruit and naturally lower sugar accumulation, which in practice means better-defined aromas and a longer acid line in the finished wine. Gerbi works with soft pressing and extended maceration across the range, methods that extract colour and tannin gradually rather than forcefully.
For the Freisa d'Asti from Moasca, 30% of the grapes go through whole-cluster fermentation: stems included, no destemming. Whole-cluster work in Freisa adds a savoury, slightly spiced quality and firms the tannin frame significantly. The remaining 70% is destemmed and fermented conventionally. The wine then ages in large neutral oak, which softens without adding flavour. The choice to use whole clusters with a grape that already carries notable tannin is deliberate: it pushes the Moasca Freisa toward a denser, more age-worthy style than the light, early-drinking bottlings that dominate the appellation.
Wines to know
The range in view
Frasca makes wine from five Piemontese varieties. The three named appellation bottlings that form the core of the range are Barbera d'Asti, Freisa d'Asti, and Grignolino d'Asti.
Barbera d'Asti is the most planted red appellation in this part of Piemonte. Barbera gives deep colour, high acidity, and low tannin relative to Nebbiolo, and on clay-limestone soils at Monferrato elevations it builds a concentrated mid-palate with dark cherry and dried herb character. The extended maceration at Frasca deepens colour and draws out the grape's natural plum and blackberry fruit.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Freisa d'Asti from Moasca. It is 100% Freisa, 20-year-old vines, 30% whole-cluster fermented and aged in large neutral oak. The nose is immediate: raspberry and rose, clean and precise, with a mineral undercurrent from the clay-limestone soils. The palate is more serious than the nose prepares you for, with a firm, savoury tannin frame and bright acidity that carries through to the finish. This is not the light, early-drinking Freisa most of the appellation produces. It is denser, more gripping, and worth decanting.