The story of Giornata starts in 2005, the year Brian and Stephanie Terrizzi got married, learned they were expecting twins, and decided, with what looks in hindsight like beautiful recklessness, to start a winery devoted to Italian grapes in a region famous for the exact opposite. Brian made the first barrel in a backyard shed in Fresno. Two decades later they are pouring Nebbiolo and Vermentino in their own Tin City room, the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance has named them Wine Industry Persons of the Year, and the argument they set out to make, that Italian varieties belong on the Central Coast, has been settled in their favor.

A marriage, twins, and a bet on Italy

Giornata, which means a day’s work in Italian, began the year Brian and Stephanie Terrizzi married in 2005, found out they were having twins, and committed to building a winery anyway. They harvested Nebbiolo in Paso Robles that first year, and Brian crafted the inaugural barrel in a backyard shed in Fresno. From the start the dream was singular and a little stubborn: to make wine with a genuine Italian sensibility on California soil.

The couple did the work that the dream required, traveling to Italy regularly to learn the grapes at their source and farming with an obsessive attention to detail. In 2012 they moved Giornata into its own Tin City facility, right next door to Field Recordings, planting themselves at the center of the district that was becoming the most exciting corner of Paso. Brian has been making the case for Italian varieties on the Central Coast since 2009, and in 2025 the region honored both Terrizzis, alongside their Etto pasta project, as its Wine Industry Persons of the Year.

People told the Terrizzis it was impossible to succeed with Italian grapes in Paso Robles. Twenty years and a Persons of the Year award later, the wines have made the case for them.

Tin City, and Italian grapes in California sun

Giornata pours in Tin City, the cluster of metal buildings just south of downtown Paso Robles that has become a magnet for artisanal winemakers, brewers and distillers. The room sits on Marquita Avenue, a short step off the main Limestone Way strip, in the same dense, walkable knot of producers that makes Tin City such an easy place to spend an afternoon.

The genius of Giornata is the match between grape and ground. Brian and Stephanie work almost entirely with Italian varieties, Nebbiolo, Barbera, Vermentino, Sangiovese, Aglianico and Fiano, grown in Paso Robles and the cooler Edna Valley. Paso warm days and cold nights echo parts of Italy well enough that these grapes, which can be fussy and difficult, find real expression here: the structure and perfume of Nebbiolo, the bright acidity of Barbera, the salty freshness of Vermentino. It took conviction to plant them and skill to make them sing, and Giornata has both.

The wines: Italy, made in California

Nebbiolo is the heart of Giornata, the noble, demanding grape of Barolo and Barbaresco, here giving pale, perfumed, firmly structured reds with notes of rose, tar and red cherry, the kind of wine that unfolds slowly and rewards patience. Barbera brings the opposite energy, juicy and high in acid, a red built for the dinner table. On the white side, Vermentino is the standout, crisp and saline and made for seafood, with Fiano adding texture and Aglianico and Sangiovese rounding out the reds.

What ties them together is that Italian sensibility, wines made to go with food rather than to dominate it, with freshness and savor rather than weight. Tasting through the Giornata lineup is the closest thing Paso Robles offers to a trip down the Italian peninsula, from the Piedmont hills to the coast, all grown under a California sun.

What to pour it with

Italian grapes were bred over centuries to sit beside Italian food, and the pairings almost make themselves. Nebbiolo, with its firm tannin and high acid, is a classic with rich, fatty dishes like braised beef, osso buco or anything with truffle, the tannin cutting the fat while the acid keeps the plate lively. Barbera, juicy and acidic, is the everyday red for tomato-sauced pasta, pizza and grilled sausage, because its acidity slices straight through tomato, olive oil and cured meat.

Vermentino is a seafood wine to its core: its saline brightness and citrus flatter grilled fish, shellfish, fried calamari and a squeeze of lemon, the acid scrubbing richness and resetting the palate. The rule across the Giornata lineup is to think Italian table, where acid and savor matter more than power, and to let the wine do what it was built to do, which is make the meal better.

Giornata: common questions