Grignolino: Monferrato's Pale, Pip-Filled Red and Its Second Life
A pale red with a firm grip: where Grignolino comes from, its three DOCs, and the long-aged Monferace now winning top awards.
Il Vino Bello ·
Pour a glass of Grignolino and you may wonder what you are holding. It is pale, sometimes barely deeper than a rosé, yet it grips the tongue like a far darker wine. Il Sole 24 Ore once summed it up as "the whitest of the reds, or the reddest of the whites" (our translation). Luigi Veronelli, as Bibenda recalls, called it "anarchico e testabalorda", anarchic and pig-headed. This autumn Gambero Rosso's new guide says Grignolino's happy run continues, "light in colour but anything but simple" (our translation). Here is how to make sense of it.
A name from the pips
The production rules for Grignolino d'Asti give two possible origins for the name. The likelier one is grignòle, the Piedmontese word for grape seeds, which the berries have in abundance. The other is grignare, Asti dialect for laughing, or, as Bibenda puts it, the grin that the tannins draw on a drinker's face.
Those seeds matter. They are where much of the wine's tannin comes from, and Dino Bertolino of Tenuta Olim Bauda told Wine Spectator in 2023 that seed tannins are completely different from skin tannins and can be "very green and much more aggressive" when unripe. Some cellars simply take the seeds out: Ca' de Lion ferments on the skins for about five days with the seeds removed, and the Barbera dei Sei Castelli cooperative removes them at the start of fermentation.
The grape is not easy in the vineyard either. The Asti rules call it "very demanding" about climate and soil, "difficult to grow and to vinify" (our translation), and Wikipedia notes it is prone to millerandage, bunches with berries that ripen unevenly.
Old roots in the hills between Asti and Casale
How old Grignolino is depends on whom you read. The Asti rules say the first records date from the end of the 1700s, though the grape was probably already making light chiaretti in the 1500s, and place its home in the hills between Asti and Casale Monferrato. Supporters of the Monferace project, quoted by Bibenda, go further back: to a lease of 1249 that mentions "Berbesine" vines (Barbesino is an old synonym for the grape) and a 1337 inventory of the abbey of San Giusto di Susa that names a wine called "Grignolerii".
It was once a prestigious red. Bibenda writes that it was loved by the House of Savoy and that at the 1953 national wine competition it shared the podium with Barolo and Barbaresco. The vine diseases that swept Europe later shrank its area, the Asti rules say, and in recent decades much of it was sold as everyday or bulk wine. Gino Bardone, of the restaurant Del Belbo Da Bardon near Nizza Monferrato, told Wine Spectator that in the 1960s and 1970s Grignolino was a wine for the well-to-do, who opened a meal with it and finished with Barolo.
Three names on the label
Grignolino is bottled under three DOCs:
- Grignolino d'Asti (since 1973): 35 comuni in the province of Asti, hillside vineyards only, up to 10% Freisa allowed. The rules forbid words such as "superiore" and make the vintage compulsory.
- Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese (since 1974): 34 comuni around Casale Monferrato in the province of Alessandria, on hills between 120 and 350 metres. The latest text published by the Regione asks for at least 95% Grignolino and adds a Riserva, aged at least 30 months with 18 in wood, and a metodo classico rosé with at least 18 months on the lees.
- Piemonte Grignolino, under the regional Piemonte DOC.
The volumes are small. In 2023 Il Sole 24 Ore put Grignolino d'Asti and Piemonte Grignolino at about a million bottles each and the Casalese at about 430,000, and Dante Garrone, then president of the Grignolino d'Asti producers' association, put the total at around two and a half million.
Two styles: young and very old
Most of the Grignolino on our site is made to drink young: a short maceration, steel tanks and bottling within months. Olim Bauda's Isolavilla is fermented in steel with indigenous yeasts, according to Wine Spectator. Braida's Limonte, named among Bibenda's 5 Grappoli for 2027, spends about four months in steel and two in bottle. Even a Barolo house makes one: Cavallotto's Grign, a Langhe DOC, macerates for five days under a submerged cap. In the Casalese, look for Sulin's Arillus and Paolo Angelini's Arbian, and for gentle experiments such as Montalbera's Lanfora, aged in terracotta amphorae from Impruneta.
The other style is a deliberate return to the past. The Monferace association, founded in 2013 and named after the old name of the Aleramic Monferrato, set itself a strict code, as described by Bibenda: pure Grignolino from calcareous, silty and clay soils, at least 40 months of ageing with at least 24 in wooden casks, and a yearly blind tasting by a panel. Tenuta Santa Caterina's Monferace, a Grignolino d'Asti, won Tre Bicchieri in Gambero Rosso's new guide for its 2021 vintage, after the 2020 took the same award a year earlier. Other bottlings on our site include the Monferace of Liedholm, Tenuta Tenaglia and Cinque Quinti, Cascina Faletta's Indelebile, with 36 months in oak tonneaux and 12 in bottle, and Sulin's Brasal.
How to drink it
Garrone's advice in Il Sole 24 Ore is to stop treating it like a big red that needs red meat: it suits vegetarian dishes, pizza and focaccia, and, served cooler, even fish. Gianni Bertolino told Wine Spectator that it is now sommeliers who ask to put it on their lists. The old, long-aged style has older table habits behind it: a mid-twentieth-century text by Dina Rebaudengo, quoted by LaLa Wine, describes a Grignolino aged five years, two in cask and three in bottle, as fragrant, harmonious and excellent with roasts. That is the tradition the Monferace producers are trying to bring back.
Sources
- https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/vino/degustazioni/tre-bicchieri-2027-migliori-piemonte/ (16 Oct 2026)
- https://liedholm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bibenda_24_1_25_monferace.pdf (Bibenda, 24 Jan 2025)
- https://aisitalia.it/Disciplinari/Piemonte/DOC/Grignolino%20d'Asti.pdf (Grignolino d'Asti DOC rules)
- https://www.regione.piemonte.it/web/media/52463/download (Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese DOC rules, consolidated text)
- https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/grignolino-nobile-ribelle-che-piace-millenials-produzione-del-7percento-AE65eG7C (17 Apr 2023)
- https://www.winespectator.com/articles/the-comeback-of-a-cool-piedmont-red (18 Jan 2023)
- https://liedholm.com/en/i-ribelli-del-monferace-e-il-grignolino-di-una-volta (excerpt of LaLa Wine, 15 Jun 2021)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grignolino