Brian Terrizzi’s passion for Italian wine informs everything he does at Giornata. A refugee from the world of finance, he landed his first wine job at California’s Rosenblum Cellars and later apprenticed at the famed Isole e Olena Winery in Chianti Classico, Tuscany. He uses not just Italian varieties but employs an “Italian philosophy” when vinifying his wines, striving for “balance and subtlety rather than intensity and extraction.”

The French Camp Vineyard is another site that once supplied Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm with fruit for his Italian-inspired wines. Situated at an elevation of 1,600 feet, it is rooted in soils of sandy loam and falls within the Highlands District of the Paso Robles AVA. There is only a single acre of Aglianico at this 1,500-acre vineyard, making this bottling a relative rarity.

Sourced from an especially warm pocket of Paso Robles, Giornata's “French Camp” Aglianico nevertheless comes in at 14% a.b.v. and has retained plenty of balancing acidity. It displays a deep, brooding ruby-black hue in the glass, bursting with aromas of mulberry, blackberry, dark chocolate, tar, violet, warm spice, and loamy earth. It is sleek by Aglianico standards, with relatively soft—but present—tannins lending it immediate drinkability. Keep the temperature closer to 55-60 degrees to point up the dark fruit and earth notes.