Photo by Dai Grésy

Some properties are built to impress visitors. Dai Grésy was simply never built to be anything other than a home, which is precisely what makes it worth writing about. Set along the ridge of Monte Aribaldo where the hills fold gently between Barbaresco and Treiso, this eleven-room agriturismo occupies a farmhouse the di Grésy family has owned since 1650. After a four-year restoration, it reopened not as a hotel dressed up to look rustic, but as something closer to an invitation into a working wine family’s private world.

An Estate With Eighteenth-Century Roots

The di Grésy name carries weight in this corner of Piedmont long before a guest ever checks in. As Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marchesi di Grésy, the family has been making wine here since 1797, when they acquired the Barbaresco cellars that still carry their name today. They remain the sole owners of Martinenga, one of the most celebrated single vineyard crus in all of Barbaresco, a distinction that puts them in genuinely rare company among Italian wine producers. Ludovica and Alessandro di Grésy, siblings who now oversee the agriturismo, grew up in a household built around an open door policy, and that upbringing is easy to feel the moment a guest walks into the shared living room downstairs, where couches gather around a fireplace and evening pours of Barbaresco tend to lead to long conversation.

Interiors That Let the Vineyard Do the Talking

Rather than lean on ornament, the renovation favored natural and recycled materials and a plastic-free approach that runs through every corner of the building. Each of the nine rooms and two apartments was decorated on its own terms, and every window opens onto a slightly different fold of vineyard, so that the view itself becomes part of the room’s design. The overall effect reads less like a boutique hotel and more like the kind of well-appointed family house a guest might be lucky enough to be invited to stay in. An outdoor pool overlooks the vines, a sauna and small gym round out the amenities, and none of it announces itself. It simply works, quietly, the way a well-run estate tends to.

Where the Wine Estate Meets the Dinner Table

Dai Grésy functions best as a launching point into serious wine country, and the family has made that exploration effortless for guests. The kitchen cooks exclusively for those staying on property, drawing heavily from the estate’s own garden and neighboring farms, with breakfast included throughout a stay. On selected evenings, dinner moves into the restored cellar beneath the main house, a vaulted brick and stone room that once anchored the farm’s daily work and now hosts seasonal menus built around the family’s own bottles. A short five-minute drive away in Martinenga, guided tastings walk guests through generations of Nebbiolo and Barbaresco releases inside the same cellars the family has tended since the eighteenth century.

Outside the estate, the villages of Treiso and Barbaresco reward unhurried wandering rather than a list of sights to check off, and autumn brings its own reasons to visit in the form of truffle hunts, fresh hazelnuts, and raw milk cheese. La Ciau del Tornavento and Osteria dell’Unione, both nearby in Treiso, are worth reserving well ahead of time, especially once truffle season arrives.

What to Know Before Booking

Turin and Milan are both under ninety minutes away, which makes Dai Grésy an easy addition to a broader Piedmont itinerary or a fitting destination on its own for a wine-focused weekend. A car, however, is non-negotiable. The property sits genuinely in the countryside, surrounded by working vineyards rather than a village center, so this is not a stay for travelers hoping to walk to dinner. With only eleven total rooms and apartments, availability tightens considerably during the September and October harvest, and two nights tends to be the minimum needed to fit in both a Martinenga tasting and a cellar dinner.

Couples and small groups traveling together tend to get the most out of a stay here, along with wine enthusiasts who would rather visit a family estate directly than book a commercial tasting room.

We’re always happy to help build the right pacing around a stay here, whether that means pairing it with a few nights in Barolo or arranging a private tasting at Martinenga in advance of your arrival.