More about Tenuta Sella

We almost lost the glorious wines of the Alto Piedmonte. This beautiful land in the foothills of the Alps (and less than 100 miles from Barolo and Barbaresco) was the historic, beating heart of Nebbiolo: more production than the Langhe, and a greater reputation, too. But farming the slopes is hard work and after phylloxera, brutal frosts, and economic dislocation, most of the vineyards went fallow.

But not all of them. The Sella family had been farming vines in the Alto Piemonte since 1671, and they never gave up. They even replanted their vineyards in the high-altitude appellation of Lessona in the mid-1960s, when almost everyone else had abandoned the region. From 1970 until 2006, they were essentially the only producer keeping Lessona alive.

Today, of course, the wines of Alto Piemonte are being rediscovered. Sella isn’t the only game in Lessona anymore, but they are still among the greatest producers in the region. They farm those 60-year-old vines with great love and attention, giving us a pure and delicious expression of their mountainous terroir. Lessona’s soils aren’t like the Langhe’s; they are ancient, high-acid marine sands with a distinctive orange-yellow hue, and they make an expression of Nebbiolo (called Spanna up here) that is more ethereal, perfumed, lifted, and mineral.

The Sella family takes the long view when it comes to their release schedule. They hold back bottles until they feel they’re ready.