Proprietà Sperino
Appellation: Lessona, Bramaterra
Proprietor: De Marchi family
First Vintage: 2004
Size: 8 hectares
Farming Practice: Organic practices
Hundred Year Revival
In once-celebrated Alto Piemonte, “three generations of industry managed to wipe out 25 generations of viticulture.” Paolo and Luca de Marchi are showing what a century’s worth of wine lovers have been missing.
When Paolo de Marchi took Jim on a road trip to Piemonte around the turn of the millennium to reveal his next big idea, the winemaker had spent a quarter-century orchestrating one of the most compelling transformations in the modern history of Chianti. At Isole e Olena, he had blazed a path out of the benighted fiasco straw-bottle era by restoring the high-toned polish that distinguishes truly terroir-driven Tuscan sangiovese from a swelling sea of Overwrought International Red. So as their cramped Japanese compact wheezed its way into the foothills of Mount Matterhorn, all Jim could think was: Why? And why here?
That’s when Paolo pulled off the road, darted out of the driver’s seat, and plunged his hand into the soil.
“See!” he exclaimed, lifting a handful and letting the tawny grains trickle through his fingers. “Sand! Pure sand!”
A few clicks later he did it again, triumphantly, serving up another scoop of what sets the shoestring-size Lessona appellation apart from its bigger and better-known neighbors Gattinara and Ghemme. Volcanic and granitic soils abound in the Alto Piemonte, cut here and there with clay. But the de Marchi family’s old summer haunt in Lessona sat atop an ancient seabed. In the Sperino property’s sand Paolo saw several things: Perfect drainage for this famously rainy area. Some of the most acidic vineyard soil on earth—which promised to boost the vines’ uptake of its mineral bounty. And not least, a chance for him and his son Luca de Marchi to resurrect one of Italy’s most storied wine regions from a century of near-total death.
In the 1800s Lessona’s nebbiolos were esteemed well beyond Barolo or Barbaresco. At the turn of the 20th century the region boasted hundreds of hectares of vines and customers from Europe to North America. But a catastrophic 1905 hailstorm wreaked widespread havoc—and a demoralized populace turned to wage labor in textile mills in the aftermath. The pristine water favored cashmere production, and Italy was bent on catching up with northern Europe. As Luca would later say, “Just three generations of industry managed to wipe out 25 generations of viticulture.” All across Alto Piemonte, vineyards were swallowed up by woods and wild boar.
Sperino had bottled its last vintage in 1904. Then time might as well have just stopped. The town seemed to consist of a few dozen octogenarians. Paolo led Jim to a house off the main piazza, and down a dank set of stairs. “This will be the cellar,” he declared. Hmm. It was certainly dusty enough. They walked into the kitchen. Was it a time capsule, a reliquary, or a reality check on de Marchi’s wild dream? Jim noticed a calendar pinned to a wall—open to July 1921.
To say that Paolo and Luca turned the page is an understatement. After producing their first vintage in 2004, they’ve gone from strength to strength, applying precision techniques in the cellar to coax Burgundian finesse from the vineyards they revived—including on the pebbly volcanic hillsides of neighboring Bramaterra. In this gnarly and almost surreal strip of Alto Piemonte, where palm trees grow alongside cypresses in the protected lee of the snowcapped Monte Rosa massif, nebbiolo fermented with native yeasts expresses vivid, fleet-footed flashes of red fruit, pine needles, chanterelles, and a savory salinity that hums with energetic immediacy. Its tannins are softer and more delicate than in Barolo, its aromatic profile more complex than in Alba. In some bottlings—notably the Uvaggio—a splash of vespolina adds a spicy balsamic snap, while a drop of fruity croatina imparts a subtly creamy finish.
Fingers crossed against hailstorms—whose constant threat gives an existential frisson to this comeback story—father and son are now all-in on what surely ranks among the most important historical wine restoration projects in Europe. With all due respect to de Marchi’s great-great-grandparents, there’s never been a better time to drink from these hallowed hillsides.
Wines:
Varietal/Blend: Nebbiolo (80%), Vespolina (15% ) and Croatina (5%)
Vineyard Area: Drawn from vines in Lessona as well as two hectares of vines in the Madonna degli Angeli vineyard of Bramaterra.
Soil: Lessona is mostly marine sands from the pliocene period on igneous rock, mixed with more recent glacial sediment. The soil is acid (pH 4.5 – 5.5) rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, magnesium, aluminum and zinc. Soils in Bramaterra are composed of pebbles on a base of igneous rock, which is close to the surface and veined with china clay. pH here is 5-6.
Elevation: 290 - 350 meters in Lessona, 350-420 meters in Bramaterra
Vinification: Hand-harvested into small boxes, grapes are sorted while on the conveyor belt, then destemmed and gently pressed then fed by gravity into the fermentation tank. Fermentation with natural yeasts in open topped wooden fermenters. Skin maceration lasts 23 days, with regular punch-downs. The wine then remains 12 months sur lie.
Maturation: Aged for 22 months in a mix of barrique, barrel and 15-hectolier oval casks
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Nebbiolo (80%), Vespolina (15%) and Croatina (5%)
Vineyard Area: From one hectare of the three total hectares owned by Proprietà Sperino in the vineyard of Madonna degli Angeli within the commune of Brusnengo. The vines are 60 years old.
Soil: Granite and porphyry on a base of igneous rock emerging from the fossil Valsesia supervolcano. pH in this vineyard is around 5.
Elevation: 350-420 meters
Exposure: Southeast-south-southwest
Vinification: Grapes are picked by hand and placed into small boxes before arriving at the winery. Bunches are then sorted on a conveyor belt, de-stemmed, gently pressed and gravity-fed into the fermentation tank. A co-fermentation of the three varieties occurs with natural yeasts in open-top wood fermenters. Skin maceration lasts about three weeks with regular punch-downs followed by 10 months on the lees.
Maturation: Malolactic fermentation and subsequent aging in 15-hectoliter oval casks for 21 months and further aged two years in bottle before release.
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Nebbiolo
Vineyard Area: From four vineyards in Lessona: Ormeggio, Castagnola, Covà and Monfalcone
Soil: Marine sands from the pliocene period on igneous rock, mixed with more recent glacial sediment. The soil is acidic (pH 4.5 - 5.5) and rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, magnesium, aluminum and zinc
Elevation: 290 to 350 meters
Exposure: Southeast-south-southwest
Vinification: Hand-harvested into small boxes, grapes are sorted while on the conveyor belt, destemmed, gently pressed and then fed by gravity into the fermentation tank. Fermentation with natural yeasts in open topped wooden fermenters. Skin maceration lasts 21 days, with regular punch-downs. The wine then remains 18 months sur lie.
Maturation: Aged in 15-hectoliter oval casks for 32 months
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Nebbiolo
Vineyard Area: Exclusively from old Nebbiolo vines planted on round terraces in a vineyard called Covà located in the commune of Castello.
Soil: Marine sands from the pliocene period on igneous rock, mixed with more recent glacial sediment. pH of the soil is 4.5 to 5.5 — rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, magnesium, aluminum and zinc.
Elevation: 330 meters
Exposure: East, southeast, south, southwest and west
Vinification: Grapes from all over the vineyard are picked by hand at the same time in order to a lend a diversity of maturity from the various exposures. Bunches are then placed in small boxes before arriving at the winery. They are sorted on a conveyor belt, de-stemmed, gently pressed and then gravity-fed into the fermentation tank. Fermentation occurs with natural yeasts in open-top wood fermenters, but with a submerged cap — an ancient technique noted by Felice Sperino in the late-nineteenth century. Skin maceration lasts 25 days with regular punch-downs followed by 12 months on the lees.
Maturation: Aged in 15-hectoliter oval casks for 34 months and further aged four years in bottle before release.
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Nebbiolo (90%) and Vespolina (10%)
Vineyard Area: Grapes for this wine are grown in the Ormeggio, Castagnola and Belvedere vineyards in Lessona of the Orolungo growing area. They are also grown in the 45 to 90-year-old Madonna degli Angeli vineyard in Brusnengo of the Forte growing area, which is part of the Bramaterra D.O.C.
Soil: In the Lessona vineyards, soils comprise marine sands from the pliocene period on igneous rock, mixed with more recent glacial sediment. The soil is acid (pH 4.5-5.5) rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, magnesium, aluminum and zinc. Soils in the Madonna degli Angeli vineyard are composed of pebbles on a base of igneous rock which is close to the surface and veined with china clay. pH here is 5-6.
Elevation: 290 to 350 meters in Lessona, 350 to 420 meters in Madonna degli Angeli
Vinification: Grapes are sorted while on the conveyor belt, then destemmed and gently pressed then fed by gravity into the fermentation tank. Skin maceration lasts 12 hours. The wine then remained 3 months sur lie. Bottling: February 2018. Further ageing in bottle for some time before release.
Maturation: Aged in tank and further in bottle
Marketing Materials:
