Photo courtesy of Sperino Lessona

Lessona Alto Piemonte
Dreamy Nebbiolo

Piemonte is more than just Barolo, Barbaresco and Gattinara. The Alto Piemonte is full of historical and impressive wine regions that while tiny and limited in export offer some tremendous wines. The best of Alto Piemonte are known to rival many famous names of Barolo and Barbaresco, yet yield wines that are truly artisan in unique.

The DOC of Lessona is only 23 hectares under vine surrounding the village of Lessona. Here Nebbiolo is king, planted in the marine sandy soils that are unique in Piemonte. Much of the spotlight on Lessona since 2002 is due in part to the return of the De Marchi family. Paolo De Marchi, the then owner of Isole e Olena in Chianti, returned to Lessona to follow his passion for this unique style of northern Nebbiolo and to rebuild his family’s ancestral property. 

Sperino has been the passion project of Paolo and Luca De Marchi for over twenty years. The father and son team have spared no expense, cut no corners, and have settled into letting time produce one of the finest expressions of northern Nebbiolo yet. The 2015 Lessona is beautiful. A near Alpine expression of Nebbiolo that is woodsy and floral simultaneously. The marine sandy soils impart a salinity in the wine that works nicely with the medium power that is Lessona and the intense rosehip that follows through the bouquet to the finish. 

There is ample structure in Sperino’s Lessona and the 2015 will require a decant of 30 minutes to really get the wine going, but when it does get going the nose becomes explosive and the textural unfurl.

Cheers,
Jeremy