Italy · Langhe

Ca' del Baio

Fourth-generation Treiso estate farming Nebbiolo in the Asili cru since 1870, with Barbaresco built for a decade of cellaring.

The producer

Ca' del Baio is a family estate in Treiso, a hilltop commune within the Barbaresco DOCG about three kilometres south of the town of Barbaresco itself. Giuseppe Grasso arrived from Calosso in 1870 with four children and bought the Cascina Vallegranda farmhouse. Four generations later, Giulio Grasso runs the same property. In 2016, Gambero Rosso named him Viticulturist of the Year in the Italian Wine Guide.

The range covers three grapes across three appellations: Nebbiolo in Barbaresco Asili DOCG, Barbera in Barbera d'Alba Paolina DOC, and Dolcetto in Dolcetto d'Alba Lodoli DOC. The cellar uses large casks for some wines and barriques for others, with fruit kept ahead of wood across the board. The Barbaresco Asili, from a cru with vines planted between 1957 and 1999, is approachable at three years from vintage and reaches its peak after ten to fifteen years in favourable vintages.

Known for

Barbaresco Asili DOCG from the Treiso cru, with Nebbiolo vines spanning four decades of planting.

Notable facts

The story

The First Grafted Vines

Luigi Grasso, known in the family as Vigin, had been farming the Treiso land for years when he decided, in 1921, to plant grafted vines. He was replacing the inherited field stock with rootstock chosen for its fit to the hillside parcels, and he did it with his wife Maria Teresa's blessing, a detail the estate still records. Grafted vines were not unknown in Piemonte by then, but the commitment on Cascina Vallegranda was real: new planting costs, new stock, and a wait of several years before the vines produced anything worth bottling. Those original plantings, and the ones laid down in their wake over the following decades, became the foundation of every wine Ca' del Baio produces today.

From the atlas

Ca' del Baio

At A Glance

The Producer

In 1870 Giuseppe Grasso packed up his four children and left Calosso, in the province of Asti, for a farmhouse called Cascina Vallegranda on the hills above Treiso. He bought the property, put down roots in the Barbaresco DOCG zone, and started a family estate that four generations later still operates from the same address. The Grasso name is common enough in Piemonte to cause confusion; Ca' del Baio is the Treiso branch, and the current owner is Giulio Grasso, born 1959, who has run the estate through the modern period. In 2016, Gambero Rosso named him Viticulturist of the Year in the Italian Wine Guide, a recognition that placed the estate alongside much larger and better-known names in the Barbaresco zone.

The house philosophy is fruit before wood. Some wines age in large casks, some in barriques, but the target across the range is balanced vine development and a wine where the fruit character leads and the oak follows quietly behind it.

Place

Treiso is a commune on the southern hillside of the Tanaro valley, set within the Barbaresco DOCG but about three kilometres south of the town of Barbaresco itself. The terrain is hillier and more fragmented than the flatter slopes closer to the river, and Treiso has its own recognised cru vineyards, including Asili. The Barbaresco DOCG covers a small cluster of communes in the southern Langhe and is built around Nebbiolo, the grape that produces Barbaresco and Barolo. Within that zone, Treiso gives wines with its own topographic character, cooled by altitude and shaped by the specific exposure of each hillside parcel. The label for Ca' del Baio's flagship reads Barbaresco Asili DOCG: the DOCG names the zone, Asili names the specific cru within Treiso, and Nebbiolo is the only permitted grape.

Soil And Site

The Asili cru sits within the Barbaresco zone in Treiso. Ca' del Baio holds vines in Asili with plantings dating from around 1957 through to 1999, giving the estate a range of vine ages across the same cru. The Dolcetto d'Alba Lodoli vineyard dates to 1961. No precise soil profile for the Asili parcels is confirmed in the estate's published sources, though Treiso's general character is limestone and clay-based Langhe soils.

Story

Giuseppe Grasso's move to Treiso in 1870 was a farming decision as much as a family one. He came with four children and bought a farmhouse. His eldest son Luigi, known in the family as Vigin, took over the property and in 1921 planted the first grafted vines on the farm, a shift that replaced field blends and inherited rootstock with a deliberate viticultural investment. Luigi's wife Maria Teresa gave her blessing to the planting, a detail the estate still records.

The next significant turn came in 1965, when Ernesto Grasso began vinifying grapes from the Vallegranda parcels separately, moving the estate toward cru-specific expression rather than a single blended wine. That decision fixed the direction the estate would follow: individual vineyard blocks treated on their own terms, each wine drawing from a specific named source. Giulio Grasso inherited this framework and, under his direction, the Barbaresco Asili became the estate's clearest statement of what Treiso Nebbiolo can do. The Gambero Rosso award in 2016 acknowledged that work publicly.

Vineyards And Cellar

The Asili vines span roughly four decades of planting, from 1957 to 1999. The Dolcetto d'Alba Lodoli parcel dates to 1961 and has spent over sixty years putting down roots in Treiso soil, which helps explain the directness and depth of the wine despite its short ageing window. The Barbera d'Alba Paolina draws from multiple parcels across the estate.

In the cellar, the estate uses large casks for some wines and barriques for others, choosing the vessel by the wine's character rather than applying a single formula. The guiding principle is that fruit notes should be primary in the finished bottle. Some wines mature in large casks and others in barriques. The result across the range is wines with round texture, clear fruit, and no excess extraction.

Wines

The range covers three grapes, three appellations, and three very different drinking windows.

Barbaresco Asili DOCG is the estate's Nebbiolo from the Asili cru. This is Langhe's most demanding grape in one of the zone's recognised parcels. The wine carries the grip, acidity, and structural depth that Nebbiolo produces on altitude-cooled hillside clay in Treiso: firm tannin, lifted red fruit, and a long finish with bitter cherry and dried rose. At three years from vintage it opens sufficiently to drink; at ten to fifteen years in favourable vintages it reaches its fuller depth. Patient cellaring is rewarded here in a way that few wines from the estate's price range can claim.

Barbera d'Alba Paolina DOC is one hundred percent Barbera assembled from multiple parcels. It pours deep ruby with violet reflections and opens with currant and raspberry, clean and direct on the nose. In the mouth it is velvety and rich, with a persistent finish that is fuller than the lightness of the colour might suggest. Drinkable from one year after vintage and holds for five to eight years, sometimes longer in strong vintages.

Dolcetto d'Alba Lodoli DOC is the estate's everyday wine, sourced from a single parcel planted in 1961. Dolcetto in Piemonte is the grape for the table, not the cellar: fresh, fruit-forward, low in the kind of acid grip that defines Nebbiolo and Barbera, with its own characteristic bitter almond note on the finish. The Lodoli wine maintains freshness for two to four years and is best approached as a wine for the spring and summer after harvest.

In The Glass

Across the range, Ca' del Baio wines lean toward fruit expression over oak weight. The Dolcetto d'Alba Lodoli is the most immediately approachable: fresh dark fruit on the nose, a soft, round entry, and the clean bitter-almond finish that is Dolcetto's regional signature. It is a wine that comes to you rather than asking you to wait.

The Barbera d'Alba Paolina asks for a little more time but not much: the currant and raspberry aromatics open quickly, and the palate gives velvety weight without the high tannin of Nebbiolo. Barbera carries acidity rather than tannin as its structural backbone, which is why the Paolina feels both rich and fresh at the same time, leaving a clean, persistent finish rather than a drying grip.

The Barbaresco Asili is built differently. Nebbiolo from Treiso delivers firm tannin, lifted floral aromatics, dried rose and cherry on the nose, and a palate that starts tight and opens slowly with time in glass or in bottle. The acidity is high and the finish long, with a mineral austerity in young vintages that softens into complexity over a decade or more. This is the wine that rewards patience in the cellar and deliberate attention in the glass.

A Bottle To Understand It

Barbaresco Asili DOCG. The cru wine, the flagship, the bottle that puts Ca' del Baio's address and ambition in the clearest focus. It is Nebbiolo from a named parcel in Treiso, aged in a mix of large cask and barrique, with fruit kept at the front and oak in the background. In the glass it gives dried cherry, rose, and a firm tannin line that softens at the edges. The acidity is bright and the finish long. Open it at three years from vintage for an introduction to what Treiso Nebbiolo produces, or put it down for a decade to find what the cru adds when the tannin integrates and the fruit deepens.

Anecdote

Luigi Grasso, known in the family as Vigin, was Giuseppe's eldest son, and by 1921 he had been farming the Treiso land for years. That year he decided to plant grafted vines, replacing the inherited field stock with rootstock chosen for its suitability to the hillside parcels. He did it with his wife Maria Teresa's blessing, which the estate still remembers as a detail worth recording. Grafted vines were not a novelty in Piemonte in 1921, but the decision to invest in them on Cascina Vallegranda was a commitment: new stock, new planting costs, and a wait of several years before the vines produced anything worth bottling. Those vines, and the ones planted in their wake over the following decades, became the foundation of every wine Ca' del Baio produces today.

Final Word

Ca' del Baio is a fourth-generation Treiso estate that has spent over a century building toward one clear expression: Nebbiolo from the Asili cru, farmed carefully and bottled with fruit as the priority. The Dolcetto and Barbera in the range are genuine and approachable wines made to the same honest standard. Giulio Grasso's Gambero Rosso recognition in 2016 was not a surprise to anyone who had followed the estate's steady work from 1870 to the present.

Sources

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