Sperino Coste delle Seisia Uvaggio 2016

Winemaking is a tradition that gets carefully passed from generation to generation. In the case of Proprietà Sperino, a couple of those generations were skipped but Paolo and Luca de Marchi are now the stewards of a 200 year old tradition and are making some of the most exciting wine in the world. Their ancestor, Dr Felice Sperino, stopped making wine in 1904 in Lessona, in the very shadow of the Alps, an hour and half northwest of Milano. In the 18th and 19th century, this area of northern Piemonte was the very center of fine wine in Italy. In the fine, silty, yellow sand of Lessona, Felice and his ancestors grew and made world-class Nebbiolo-based wines, the famed grape of Barolo and Barbaresco. But right around the turn of the 20th century, people started to abandon the vineyards of northern Piemonte. There were many reasons, two World Wars, mass migration of people, the industrial resurgence in and around Milan…for a poor farmer, it became silly to grow grapes in an Alpine climate when you could earn double working for Fiat! So, in 1904, Sperino made its last vintage of wine and the world slowly forgot about Lessona.

That is until 2004 when Paolo and Luca reopened Felice’s estate and reintroduced the world to the seductive wines of Lessona.

The 2016 Uvaggio from the “new”regime of Proprietà Sperino is so unique in the world of Italian wine. It has incredible balance, with sweet, pure fruit yet it is framed by a mineral structure and sense of salinity that is utterly distinctive. It’s a wine that seemingly has one foot in Burgundy and one in Piedmont, I believe lovers of either wines will be new converts to the very old charms of Lessona.