Giulia Negri

Giulia Negri is a young winemaker who knows what she wants. Since taking over her parent’s estate at the tender age of 23, she has been producing elegant, terroir-driven wines that have shaken up the accepted Piedmont order and attracted international acclaim. 

As nicknames go, ‘Barolo Girl’ could hardly be more apt. Giulia Negri claimed this sobriquet for herself from none other than Piedmont’s Barolo Boys – such greats as Elio Altare and Angelo Gaja who set Barolo alight with their own innovations back in the day. 

Defying categorisation

Negri is turning Barolo on its head like her predecessors did, but she defies categorisation despite the Barolo Girl moniker. A modernist she is not, given that she affords her grapes around one and a half months of skin contact in 60-hectolitre oak fermenters before maturing her wines for long periods. She has three different Barolo crus that each spend up to 30 months in 2,500-litre vessels made of Slavonian oak. Negri also makes Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, so she is no traditionalist either. These go into small French oak vessels – not your typical barrels, but tonneaux and 350-litre casks, of which only a small percentage are new. Unconventional, mineral-driven and elegant, Negri’s wines are quite simply out of this world. 

Making waves with her first Barolo

Giulia Negri is a remarkable young woman. She was only 20 when she began experimenting with her own cuvées at her parents’ winery. After studying biotech and travelling to Burgundy, she took over the estate aged 23. Her first-ever Barolo, a 2007, went straight into the Wine Enthusiast Top 100. Already known as a ‘garagiste’ at this early stage, Negri has been making waves ever since. 

“There are only four of us here who take care of everything – vineyards, cellar, office, and travelling halfway around the world to sell our wines and our ethos. Unfortunately, the quantities that we produce are very small in some years. Our high-altitude vineyards are a great asset to have as the world gets warmer, but we have been increasingly hit by hail and other severe weather events in recent years.”

Giulia Negri

giulianegri.com