Italy · Monferrato & Asti

Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio

Small family estate in Vinchio, Monferrato, run by Davide Laiolo on six personally managed hectares. Two wines: a varietal Viognier white and a varietal Nebbiolo rosé.

The producer

Davide Laiolo farms six hectares in Vinchio and makes exactly two wines. One is a Viognier white in a region better known for Barolo and Barbaresco. The other is a Nebbiolo rosé. The estate sits in the Monferrato hills of Asti province, on a slope selected for its soil character and exposure, with rows planted perpendicular to the hillside in the traditional local pattern. Davide manages every vine himself, calibrating the green harvest vine by vine to what each plant can ripen fully before removing the rest.

Both bottles carry the Piemonte DOC designation and travel through Nordic retail markets. Viognier has almost no foothold in Piemonte, and Nebbiolo vinified as a rosé is equally uncommon. Neither wine is a regional template; both are the direct consequence of choices made on one hillside by one person, guided by an idea his grandfather Gino gave him.

Known for

Viognier white and Nebbiolo rosé in Piemonte, both made as standalone varieties outside the dominant Barolo and Barbaresco templates.

Notable facts

The story

Gino's Conviction

Davide Laiolo was sixteen when his grandfather Gino died. The two had worked together in the family cellar and vineyards since Davide was small, and Gino had passed on one idea above all others: that wine quality is made in the field, not corrected later in the cellar. When Davide built Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio on Strada San Giorgio in Vinchio, that inherited conviction became the estate's stated premise. He farms the six hectares personally. He plants the rows perpendicular to the hillside, as local tradition requires. He walks every vine during the growing season and removes the bunches that the plant cannot ripen fully, adjusting the crop vine by vine rather than block by block. Gino's name does not appear on the label. The method does.

From the atlas

Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio

At A Glance

The Producer

Davide Laiolo farms six hectares in Vinchio and makes exactly two wines. One is a Viognier white in a region better known for Barolo and Barbaresco. The other is a Nebbiolo rosé. Neither bottle is a detour from something more serious; both are the point.

The estate is registered as Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio di Laiolo Davide, based at Strada San Giorgio in Vinchio, a hillside commune set inside the Monferrato zone of Asti province. Davide manages every row of vine himself. The rows run perpendicular to the hillside in the traditional Monferrato pattern, the same layout his grandfather Gino farmed before him.

The estate calls itself the second generation of a family tradition, and that phrase carries weight here. Davide did not inherit a going concern and rename it. He built the estate around one idea Gino had passed to him: that wine quality is determined in the vineyard before anything else.

Place

Vinchio is a small commune in the Monferrato hills, the broad rolling zone of Asti province that sits south and east of the Langhe, where Barolo and Barbaresco occupy the wine conversation. Monferrato produces wine under a looser set of appellations, the most geographically inclusive of which is Piemonte DOC, a regional designation that covers varietal whites and rosés that fall outside the tighter village-level rules of Barolo, Barbaresco, and Nizza.

Both Biancoluna and La Giorgina carry the Piemonte DOC label. Viognier and a Nebbiolo rosé fit there because neither wine matches the varietal or colour requirements of any of the named Monferrato sub-appellations. The DOC is broad, but the wine inside it is specific: two grapes chosen deliberately, on a hill selected for its soil and exposure, in six hectares managed by one person.

The estate tasting room overlooks hills inside the Piedmontese wine landscape recognised by UNESCO, a designation that covers the vineyard terrain of Langhe, Monferrato, and Asti.

Soil And Site

The packet does not supply soil type, vine age, or elevation figures for the Vinchio parcels, so those specifics are not claimed here. What is sourced: the six hectares are all in Vinchio, the vineyard sites were chosen for their soil characteristics and exposure, and the rows follow the traditional Monferrato layout, planted perpendicular to the line of steepest slope. That orientation maximises sun exposure on each vine face and helps drainage on hillside ground.

Each year Davide thins the excess fruit, calibrating the amount left on each individual vine to what it can bring to full ripeness. The green harvest is not a blanket reduction across the estate; it is adjusted vine by vine.

Story

Davide Laiolo grew up working in the family cellar and vineyards alongside his grandfather Gino. When Gino died, Davide was sixteen. What remained was Gino's fixed conviction that the vineyard, not the cellar, makes wine. Davide carried that idea forward and built Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio around it.

The estate that came from that inheritance is deliberately small and deliberately unconventional. Piemonte's most commercially powerful grapes are Nebbiolo in red and Moscato in white. Davide planted Viognier, a Rhône grape with almost no foothold in Piemonte, and chose to vinify Nebbiolo not as a red but as a rosé. Both decisions required confidence that the place and the farming would carry the wine without leaning on a famous regional template.

The modern winery sits surrounded by the estate's own vineyards. A historic barrel room adjoins it. The estate offers cellar visits that move from the Barbera vineyard outside through the winery and into that older space.

Vineyards And Cellar

The six hectares in Vinchio are managed personally by Davide. Site selection was made on the basis of soil character and aspect. The rows run perpendicular to the slope in the traditional Monferrato pattern, a layout that keeps each vine face oriented for maximum light and allows water to drain cleanly down the hillside rather than pooling.

Green harvest is applied every year. The yield from each vine is limited to what that vine can ripen fully. Bunches left beyond that threshold are removed, concentrating the plant's energy into fewer, better-developed grapes.

Biancoluna is fermented at controlled temperatures. No oak vessel is confirmed in the packet, and the aromatic profile of the 2023 suggests the wine was handled without significant wood contact: peach and acacia read clearly, without the vanilla or toast that barrel fermentation would introduce.

La Giorgina follows a clear technical sequence: brief skin contact with Nebbiolo grapes in the press, then a fermentation of approximately ten to twelve days in stainless steel at controlled temperature. The brief maceration extracts colour and some aromatic character from the Nebbiolo skins without pulling the full tannin load that a red-wine fermentation would produce.

Wines

Two wines. Different grapes, different colours, and no structural overlap.

Biancoluna is made entirely from Viognier, the white grape native to the northern Rhône valley in France. Viognier is almost invisible in Piemonte, where white wine production is dominated by Moscato, Arneis, and Cortese. Biancoluna 2023 carries yellow-fleshed fruit on the nose, with acacia flowers and peach. The palate is medium-bodied, with balanced acidity that keeps the wine from reading as heavy or oily. Nuts and a faint walnut bitterness appear on the finish. The wine is dry.

La Giorgina is a varietal Nebbiolo rosé, carrying the Piemonte DOC designation. Nebbiolo is the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco, where it produces deeply tannic, long-lived red wines. Here, brief skin contact in the press and temperature-controlled fermentation in steel produce a pale pink wine with a softer tannic presence. Fresh red fruit and dried flowers carry from the nose into the mouth, where firm but measured tannins give the wine some grip without weight. Strawberry and a slightly bitter finish close it. The mouthfeel is silky by Nebbiolo standards.

Both wines are sold under the Piemonte DOC appellation and are available through Nordic retail markets, including Sweden.

In The Glass

Biancoluna opens with peach, acacia blossom, and yellow-fleshed fruit. The nose is lightly perfumed rather than heavily aromatic, which is unusual for Viognier at its most expressive. On the palate the wine is medium-bodied, with enough acidity to keep the fruit from becoming flat or broad. Wood anemone floats in the background of the nose. The finish carries a walnut-bitter note that adds a dry, slightly savoury edge to what is otherwise a fruit-forward, florally scented wine.

La Giorgina is pale in colour, with red fruit and dried flowers on the nose that signal Nebbiolo even before the palate. In the mouth it has more presence than most Piemonte rosés: the tannins are real, firm rather than soft, but they are contained within a silky texture. Strawberry comes forward at mid-palate. A slightly bitter note marks the end, consistent with the Nebbiolo grape even in a lighter-coloured wine.

The two wines do not taste like each other. One is white, floral, and dry with a nutty finish. The other is pink, structured by Nebbiolo tannin, and built around red fruit. Together they represent the range in full.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with La Giorgina. A Nebbiolo rosé from a six-hectare Monferrato estate is an unusual bottle. The wine is vinified from brief skin contact in the press and ten to twelve days of fermentation in stainless steel. La Giorgina is pale pink, with real but contained tannins, red fruit, dried flowers, strawberry at the centre of the palate, and a clean, slightly bitter finish. Nebbiolo always leaves a mark on the finish, and La Giorgina does too, even without the full tannin weight of a Barolo. The grape character is unmistakable. The colour is not what most people expect from Nebbiolo, and that gap between expectation and experience is what opens up the estate and the person behind it.

Anecdote

Davide Laiolo was sixteen when his grandfather Gino died. The two had worked together in the family cellar and vineyards since Davide was small, and Gino had passed on one idea above all others: that wine quality is made in the field, not corrected later in the cellar. When Davide built Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio on Strada San Giorgio in Vinchio, that inherited conviction became the estate's stated premise. He farms the six hectares personally. He plants the rows perpendicular to the hillside, as local tradition requires. He walks every vine during the growing season and removes the bunches that the plant cannot ripen fully, adjusting the crop vine by vine rather than block by block. Gino's name does not appear on the label. The method does.

Final Word

Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio makes two bottles from two grapes that Piemonte rarely showcases: Viognier and Nebbiolo vinified as a rosé. The estate is six hectares, personally farmed, in Vinchio in the Monferrato hills. What the bottles carry is not an echo of Barolo or a cheaper route into the Langhe. They are the direct consequence of one man farming a hillside he knows well, guided by an idea his grandfather gave him.

Sources

Open Tenuta Bricco San Giorgio in the interactive map →