Cortese wine is the grape behind one of northern Italy's most recognised dry whites. The producers below grow it in Piedmont, where the variety has been cultivated for centuries.
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Cortese is one of Piedmont's oldest white grapes, cultivated in the province of Alessandria for at least three centuries. Its best-known expression is Gavi — or Cortese di Gavi — a DOCG appellation in the south of the region where the grape produces wines of firm acidity, restrained fruit and a distinct mineral edge. The same grape grown elsewhere in Piedmont can taste measurably different: lighter soils give a leaner style, heavier clay pushes the wine toward more body. On Free Grape Society, each bottle is shipped directly from the grower's own cellar.
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A wine case on Free Grape Society is a producer's own selection of six bottles — put together as the recommendation they would make if you walked into their cellar. For Cortese producers, that often means tracing the grape across different soil parcels or showing how the wine changes with a year or two of bottle age. Free Grape Society is a society of producers, independent experts and wine lovers, not a shop.
The growers below all work with Cortese, mostly in Piedmont's Gavi and Monferrato zones, where the grape's acidity and mineral profile are most pronounced. Cortese is a variety where site genuinely matters — two estates a few kilometres apart can produce wines with noticeably different texture and length. The wine-advice service is there if you would like a recommendation before you choose.
Cortese is not a widely reviewed grape outside Italy, which makes an independent perspective worth having. Wine experts on Free Grape Society review wines they have personally tasted, and their notes are visible on each wine page and on the expert's own profile. Several of the experts below have reviewed Cortese wines featured on this page.
Browse the Cortese wines above, add bottles to your basket and check out. Each bottle ships directly from the producer's cellar, so orders from different producers are dispatched separately. Free shipping is included, and you can pay by card or Klarna.
Send a photo to Free Grape Society customer support within 7 days of delivery. We will arrange a replacement or a refund. Because producers ship directly, quality issues are handled with the producer's direct involvement. Shared responsibility is built into how FGS works.
Yes. Add wines from different producers to the same basket and check out once. Because each producer ships from their own cellar, the bottles arrive in separate deliveries — usually within 4 to 14 days of each order being placed.
Average delivery is 8 to 9 days from order to door. The full range is 4 to 14 days depending on the producer's location and your delivery address. Wines ship directly from the producer's cellar, not from a central warehouse.
Start with the appellation: Gavi DOCG is the benchmark for Cortese, with the highest-regarded sites sitting in the commune of Gavi itself. Outside that zone, look at the producer's notes on soil type — sandy soils give lighter, more aromatic wines; heavier clay adds structure. The wine-advice service can help if you want a direct recommendation.
Free Grape Society works with independent producers who grow and bottle their own wine. Wines are tasted before listing. The Cortese producers here are based primarily in Piedmont, particularly in and around the Gavi DOCG zone, and they sell and ship directly — no importer or warehouse in the chain.
The independent wine experts listed on this page have tasted and reviewed Cortese wines personally. Browse their profiles to read their notes, or use the wine-advice form to ask a question directly — you will hear back from an expert who knows the grape.
Free Grape Society only lists wine from producers who grow and bottle their own grapes. Supermarket-branded Cortese is typically produced by large négociants buying in bulk — there is no grower behind the label. The wines here come from estates where the person who tended the vines is the same person who bottled the wine.
Rarely at an independent producer level. Gavi appears in specialist wine shops across Europe, but it is almost always from large commercial producers distributed through importers. Small-estate Cortese from individual growers is hard to find outside Italy unless you buy directly — which is what Free Grape Society is built for.
Cortese is a white grape from Piedmont in northwest Italy, grown almost exclusively in the southeastern corner of the region. Its most recognised expression is Gavi, a dry white wine produced around the town of Gavi in the Monferrato hills, where the variety has been documented for centuries. The grape ripens relatively early and does well in the area's combination of cool nights and warm days, which preserves the natural acidity that defines the style. Outside Gavi, Cortese also appears in Colli Tortonesi and Monferrato Bianco, where producers work with it in slightly different soil conditions and sometimes with longer skin contact or fermentation in larger vessels. The wines tend to be pale, crisp, and light-bodied, with citrus and almond characteristics that make them particularly suited to seafood and lighter dishes. To explore what Piedmont's independent producers are doing with the grape, the Piedmont wines and Piedmont wineries pages are a good place to start.
Cortese produces wines that are typically dry, high in acidity, and restrained in weight. The aromas tend toward citrus peel, green apple, and white blossom, with a flinty or mineral quality that comes through especially in wines from the Gavi DOCG zone. Oak is used sparingly or not at all by most producers, which keeps the fruit profile clean and the finish dry. Because the acidity stays pronounced, Cortese pairs naturally with delicate food: grilled fish, shellfish, light pasta with cream or butter, and fresh cheeses. It also works well as an aperitivo wine, served cold with very little food. Producers who grow it close to the Ligurian coast sometimes make wines with a slightly more saline edge, reflecting the geography. For a broader view of what Italian white wines look like across the country's regions, the white wines from Italy page shows the full range available from independent growers.
Most of the Cortese wine sold in European markets passes through an importer and a distributor before it reaches the shelf, which means the price includes several layers of margin the producer never sees. On Free Grape Society, producers ship directly from their own cellar to the buyer, with no importer or warehouse in between. That changes both the price and what arrives: the wine is stored and handled by the people who made it until it leaves for your door. Free Grape Society is a society of producers, independent experts and wine lovers, not a shop. The producers listed here have chosen to work this way, and each one controls their own prices, their own descriptions, and how they present their wines. If you want to explore more of what Piedmont offers beyond Cortese, the Piedmont wines and Italian wines pages cover the full range of independent producers working across the region and the country. For producers working with other Italian white varieties, Garganega, Verdicchio, and Vermentino are also worth exploring.
