# Valentìne: A Burgundian Chardonnay from Treiso

_Valentina Grasso's tribute to a harvest spent in Meursault_

> Il Vino Bello, 2026-09-12. Il Vino Bello editorial (https://ilvinobello.com/editorial/valentine-ca-del-baio-burgundy-chardonnay).

Ca' del Baio is, first and foremost, a Barbaresco house: four generations of the Grasso family farming Asili, Pora, Vallegrande and Marcarini, some of the most storied crus in the appellation. Valentìne is something else entirely, and it exists because one member of that family went looking for a different kind of education.

In 2013, Valentina Grasso spent the harvest working at Domaine de Montille in Meursault, one of Burgundy's benchmark addresses for white winemaking. She came home with a different way of thinking about Chardonnay, and a small parcel of the estate's oldest vines, planted in 1985, to try it on. The result carries her name.

**The technique is unmistakably Burgundian.** Grapes are pressed and the must is left to decant overnight at room temperature, an unhurried, hands-off step that would be unusual almost anywhere else in Piemonte. Fermentation begins during the transfer into two 500-litre French oak barriques, with weekly batonnage, stirring the lees back into suspension, to build texture without adding overt oak flavour. The wine then moves to steel to rest before bottling, unfiltered.

**In the glass**, Valentìne shows a fresh, mineral bouquet somewhere between wet stone, lemon oil and honey, with a saline, savoury finish that owes more to Saint-Aubin than to anywhere in the Langhe. It is a genuinely serious Chardonnay, made in small enough volume that it rarely leaves the estate's own tasting room, and worth seeking out specifically for what it represents: proof that a house built on Nebbiolo can still take a real risk on something else, and make it work.

We tasted this one over dinner (rather than sending it in for formal review), and it may be one of the better Chardonnays we have had all year: fresh, restrained, and far less oaky than its Burgundian inspiration might suggest, with a long, clean finish that kept us pouring. Serve it properly cold, around 10°C, alongside white fish, delicate risotto, or simply on its own.