Summer Wolff 'Gio Gio' Vino Rosso 2021

Press 4 Red • March 2023 Direct Press Selection

Summer Wolff has worked in nearly every part of the wine industry, beginning in restaurants, which led to private client sales for an importer, which led to her starting two import companies, including Indie Wineries and now Hootenanny WInes. Since 2008 she has lived with her husband Fabrizio Iuli in the small Monferrato village where his family has made wines for over 100 years. 2021 saw her start her own wine label. Though she is actively involved in Cascina Iuli, she felt that she would never be respected as a winemaker until her name was on the bottle.

The 'Gio Gio' Rosso, named for her first son, is 100% Freisa from her neighbor, Rosalba, who has farmed organically for decades. Rosalba (who is in her 70s) drives the tractor, works the land, and with her daughters, had one of the first organic food stores in the area. The wine is fermented in a mix of steel and the traditional local concrete vats. It's a balanced, detailed take on Friesa, which used to be made only into sweet wines and I find can get hot and clunky in the wrong hands. This is not the case here. it has chew tannins, snappy cranberry acids, silky black cherry, and a touch of cooling basil on the finish. It's full of clarity, vibrance, and just enough earth to make it undeniably Piemontese while not sacrificing anything in the way of pleasurably fresh quaffability. Jonathan Kemp