Lessona is a small town situated 12 kilometers east of Biella. The land is made up of hilly ridges that lie in the forefront of a mountainous backdrop formed by the Alps to the north. These mountains create a unique situation, acting as a protective barrier against cold northern weather, and creating a unique microclimate that is warmer than one might expect for a region this far north.
History
Castles & Nobility
Like much of Alto Piemonte, woods now occupy the land where vines once grew. Unlike the much of Alto Piemonte, however, Lessona became well known because of the nobility who owned summer homes there, and as a result, also vineyards. In fact, driving through the town of Lessona, you’ll notice ornate 15th-century (?) castles that once belonged to the Savoi (?) nobility. Luca de Marchi of Proprietà Sperino attributes this to one of the reasons why the once important winemaking tradition in Lessona was forgotten here even more so than in the rest of Alto Piemonte. With the abandonment of vineyard land in the 1850s (?; link to article), the nobility picked up and left, leaving no one to tend to the vines. In Gattinara and Ghemme, on the other hand, farmers continued to work the land to produce wine for personal consumption even though they stopped producing commercially.
The World's First Single-Vineyard Bottling
For anyone interested in the modern history and evolution of wine, Lessona’s viticultural history is fascinating one. As a wine student, we learn about the “first delimited wine regions” of the world - Tokaj in 1737, the Douro in 1756 and Jurançon in the 1400s. What most people don’t know is that by 1647, there was a map of 500 of Lessona's vineyards, or crus. What is even harder to believe is that long before it was common for producers to bottle their production, Tenuta Sella, a producer in the region, bottled a wine labeled with the cru “San Sebastiano allo Zoppa”, quite possibly making it the world’s first ever single-vineyard bottling.
Rise & Decline
During its viticulture heyday in the late 1800s / early 1900s, Lessona was one of Italy's most important winegrowing regions, with 40,000 hectares planted to vine. Today there are 20. Along with the rest of Alto Piemonte, this shrinkage of vine acreage was a culmination of events - the devastating “18--” hail (which completely wiped out two vintages), American vine diseases (powdery mildew (?) and Phylloxera) and the booming textile industry in Biella. As a result, farmers left the land to work in the factories where wages were guaranteed and not at the whims of nature or pests. Producers were further incentivized to abandon winemaking because of the challenging viticultural characteristics of the region: Lessona’s extremely acidic soils produce minuscule yields, so mass production was not an option. It was therefore uneconomical to pursue winemaking at a time when the market was not prepared to pay for quality.
New Beginnings
In the 1900s (?), Tenuta Sella was the only winery that continued to produce on a commercial scale. Despite this, Lessona never regained market presence as its owners, a huge banking firm, gave away most of their production to their employees (as holiday gifts ?). Lessona’s fate began to change in the early 1990s when the famed Tuscan winemaker, Paolo de Marchi, returned to his family estate to restart production at Proprietà Sperino (link to PP page) with his son Luca de Marchi.
“Non siamo vini di montagna qua” - Luca de Marchi
Climate & Terroir
A Unique Micro-Climate
Lessona is located in the commune of Biella on the right bank of the Sesia River. Its vineyards sit between 200 and 500 meters, so elevation is not a determining climatic feature of the region. Unlike Valtellina, Trentino-Alto Adige and Valle d’Aosta, which are all considered mountain wine regions, Lessona’s vineyards lie in a favored sheltered position on the valley floor beneath the mountains.
The Alps here are extremely vertical and form a wall that acts as a protective barrier against cold northern weather (the plate of Africa ran into Alto Piemonte so fast that the land was pushed straight up out of the ground). In fact, as cold winds arrive from the north, they hit the mountains, pass over the vineyards of Lessona and fall on the vineyards of Monferrato.
At the same time, the Alps create a rain shadow effect, bringing plenty of sun during the winter (the sunniest season) in addition to warm Fohn winds from Switzerland. The combination of these two factors mean higher average winter temperatures (it rarely snows here!) between 5-6*C (41-43*F) that result in an early bud break. And thanks to the mild winters, frost is not an issue despite the early bud break.
Summers are also mild because of cooling winds from Alpine glaciers - temperatures don’t go above 85*F, ensuring a long, even growing season with a late harvest. In fact, the growing season here is 2-3 weeks (on average) longer than in the Langhe. Cool summers prevent fruit from becoming overripe and produce wines with gentle tannins (because of the long, even growing season), paler colors (since warmth develops polyphenols) and elevated aromatics (heat burns aromatics).
This long growing season is very important for the Nebbiolo grape which needs a long growing season to fully ripen phenolically. It is thanks to these factors that wines from Lessona have fully-mature fruit, elegant tannins and lifted floral aromatics (not because of colder weather and higher elevation that many attribute characteristics of these wines to!).
Sandy Soils
Lessona’s soils are not only unique among the world, but they are also unique among all of Alto Piemonte. Lessona was once covered by sea, and its ancient marine sand deposits (link to soils of Alto Piemonte article) with shell fossils are a result of this. These soils are extremely acidic, containing very little lime. In fact, these soils contain a pH level that ranges from 4.5 to 5.5, making them some of the most acidic wine-growing soils in the world.
Normally, limestone blocks metals in the soils, preventing vines from taking minerals from the soil. In Lessona where there is no lime in the soils, all of these minerals are thus available to the vine, which produces wines high in potassium with a signature saline quality. These highly acidic soils produce very limited quantities, which is one of the reasons why people abandoned viticulture here.
Vineyards
To begin with, very few producers are actually making any mention of vineyards on labels, despite them being legally permitted to do so under the DOC. This is not because Lessona does not have a history of recognized single vineyards, in fact, quite the opposite as true. As mentioned above, the commune of Lessona first delimited the region’s vineyards into 500 crus in the year 1647.
Below are the most famous single-vineyards of Lessona and their respective producers:
Belvedere
Ormeggio
Castagnola
Rava
Cova
Monopole vineyard of Proprietà Sperino and the de Marchi's most-prized cru. They have been bottling this a single vineyard since (199?) but yet to release it commercially (it will be released as a vertical available only for top restaurants around the globe).
San Sebastiano dello Zoppo: monopole vineyard of Tenuta Sella, the winery purchased the vineyard in 1671, but believe that the actual vineyard dates back to 1436. They labeled and bottled this as a single vineyard for the first time in 1674.
The Grapes
Nebbiolo is the main grape of Lessona. It is called Spanna here in reference to its unique biotype. The other varieties permitted in the blend (at up to 15%) are Vespolina and Uva Rara (aka Bonarda Novarese).
See The Grapes of Alto Piemonte for more info on these grapes.