Why it matters
The producer
In 1671, a notarial document recorded Comino Sella as the purchaser of vineyard parcels in Lessona, a small commune in the Biella hills of northern Piemonte. The Sella family were textile industrialists, among the driving forces behind the wool and weaving trade that made Biella one of the wealthiest industrial towns in nineteenth-century Italy. They treated the Lessona vineyards as what they were: a sound investment, an extension of capital into land. What they left behind is one of the oldest documented wine operations in Piemonte, now making Nebbiolo-led reds from two geologically distinct estates under winemaker Riccardo Giovannini.
Lessona and Bramaterra are small appellations. Most wine buyers have never encountered either name. Tenute Sella is the producer most closely identified with both.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Lessona sits in the Biella hills, about forty kilometres north of the Langhe, where Nebbiolo grows on soils that have nothing in common with the Barolo or Barbaresco limestone-clay mix. The Lessona vineyard soils are Pliocene marine sands, interspersed with patches of clayey loess and valley floors rich in fossil shell deposits. Soil pH runs between 4.2 and 5.5, strongly acidic. On these ancient sea-floor sediments, Nebbiolo produces wines of moderate body and high natural acidity, with a red-fruit character that is lighter in weight than a Langhe expression but capable of long development in bottle.
Neither Lessona DOC nor Bramaterra DOC is large. Their obscurity is part of what makes them interesting: this is Nebbiolo territory with three and a half centuries of documented estate history and almost no international footprint.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Almost all vineyard work across the Lessona parcels is performed by hand, from winter pruning through harvest. The vines are trained in rows and Guyot-pruned at eight to twelve buds. Soil cultivation is limited to once per year at most; fertilization comes from manure and mown grass returned to the sub-row, which reduces nitrogen input while maintaining organic matter in the sandy soils. Each vineyard is picked by hand and vinified separately.
In the cellar, Lessona ferments in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks with pump-overs and rack-and-return to manage extraction during the 24-day maceration. Malolactic fermentation follows by simultaneous inoculation. Élevage runs 24 months in 25-hectolitre Slavonian oak casks, a vessel size that allows slow oxygen exchange without adding dominant oak character.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range is built around three appellations, each with a distinct geological base.
Lessona DOC is the flagship. Nebbiolo dominates at approximately 85 to 90 percent, with Vespolina making up the balance. Vespolina adds aromatic lift and freshness without adding body or tannin weight. The wine spends 24 months in Slavonian oak before release. On the glass, it is firm but not heavy, with red cherry, dried rose, and a finish that tightens rather than softens as it develops.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Lessona DOC. It is the oldest documented terroir in the estate, Nebbiolo on Pliocene marine sands with a 350-year paper trail, and the clearest way to understand what the Biella hills produce when the grape is grown far from the Langhe. The wine is moderately weighted, with firm dry tannins, a prominent acid line, and red cherry and dried rose on the nose. No oak dominance: the 24 months in Slavonian casks frame the wine without covering the fruit. Drink it at eight to twelve years from vintage, when the acidity and tannin have begun to integrate and the red fruit has started its shift toward more earthy, mineral complexity.