Proprietà Sperino 'Uvaggio'

Tasting Notes

Vibrant ruby red in the glass, this wine has a spicy nose. The palate is fresh and juicy, packed with attractive red fruits. It has a great texture thanks to the supple, approachable tannins and well-balanced acidity. More savoury and mineral notes come through on the long finish.

Producer

This splendid 10 hectare hillside estate is situated in the small town of Lessona, near Biella in northern Piemonte. It passed into the De Marchi family (of top Chianti Classico estate, Isole e Olena) through their relative, Felice Sperino, a passionate viticulturist and professor in Turin.

Since the 1970s, Paolo De Marchi has dreamed of revitalising the Sperino estate, a dream that has come to fruition with the help of his elder son, Luca, who now runs the estate and makes the wines with Paolo’s guidance.

The wines are consistently superb. They are very Burgundian in style, light in colour yet intense, scented and long. Their ‘Rosa del Rosa’ rosato is a lovely Nebbiolo rosé with a mineral and savoury character. The ‘Uvaggio’, a blend of Nebbiolo, Vespolina and Croatina, is supple yet grainy with a hint of roses on the finish. The Lessona is majestic. Made solely from Nebbiolo, it is intense yet velvety, thanks to the soil in this zone that yields softer tannins in the grapes than those found in Nebbiolo from the Langhe. Their top wine, ‘L Franc ******’, is an elegant and beautifully balanced Cabernet Franc. The grapes for the Bramaterra DOC come from the almost 40-year-old Madonna degli Angeli vineyards in Brusnengo. Medium-bodied with delicate tannins, the wine displays aromas of red fruits, pepper and black tea. The single vineyard `Vigna Covà` is located in Castello, in the village of Lessona on a rounded hill at 350 metres above sea level. This wine is silky and rounded with flavours of dark fruit and clove; it has a slight herbaceous note, ripe tannins and a finely integrated finish.

Vineyards

Grapes for this wine were grown in the Ormeggio, Castagnola and Belvedere vineyards in Lessona in the Orolungo region. The altitude is between 290-350 metres above sea level. Soils are sandy, acidic (pH 4.5 - 5.5) and rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, manganese, aluminium and zinc. Some fruit was also sourced from the 35 year old Madonna degli Angeli vineyard in Brusnengo in the Forte region which is included in the Bramaterra D.O.C. The soils in Lessona are unique: they have originated from a super-volcano explosion 280 million years ago, which was then covered by the sea before resurfacing with the formation of the Alps. This left in Lessona marine sands from the Pliocene period (known as “Ori di Lessona”) on an igneous rock subsoil, mixed with more recent glacial sediment.