Coste della Sesia Rosso Uvaggio Proprietà Sperino
I’ll never forget Paolo De Marchi’s gracious reply to an obnoxious guest at a winemaker’s dinner in Philadelphia, who asked why the centerpiece wine at such an important event was the 2002 vintage of Cepparello.

“Wine Spectator  rated Chianti only 79 points in 2002!” the aggrieved attendee whined.

“But every vintage is a gift, and I love this wine,” Paolo said.

For more than thirty years at  Isole e Olena  in Chianti Classico, Paolo De Marchi has produced some of the greatest wines ever to come out of Italy, including the  Cabernet Sauvignon Collezione De Marchi 2001  and the  Cepparello 1997. 

But he always nurtured another dream: to bring back the wine of  Proprietà Sperino,  the original De Marchi family estate in Lessona, in the Alpine foothills of northern Piemonte, where the last vintage had been harvested in1952.

This classic wine is the realization of Paolo’s dream:  Nebbiolo,  the noble grape of Barolo and Barbaresco, co-fermented with about 15% each of  Vespolina  and  Croatina;  a classic Lessona marriage of aromatic finesse and deep complexity, with a fine Pinot Noir-like structure that reminds me of Burgundy more than Barolo.

Proprietà Sperino:
If you scoop up the soil in Lessona only a half-hour after a heavy rain, it runs through your fingers like sand in an hourglass. The climate is dry, and a cool breeze blows down from the Alps to the north. A hundred years ago, the wines grown here by Felice Sperino, Paolo De Marchi’s great, great uncle, were the most expensive wines in Italy. Today, after ten years of arduous work replanting the vineyards and renovating the winery, Paolo and his son Lucca have given new life to Proprietà Sperino, and are now the vanguard of the renaissance of this historic wine growing area.

This wine:
In the glass, this wine has a brilliant, saturated deep ruby color. On the nose, red currants, pine needles and dried flowers are seasoned with discrete baking spices and vanilla that comes from the mix of old and new large barrels. On the palate, the wine is graceful, like  Vosne-Romanée  more than Barbaresco, with a lingering bright finish.

As always at Moore Brothers, this wine was shipped and delivered to us in refrigerated containers, so it tastes exactly the same as it tastes at the renovated winery in Lessona, and was perfect when I brought it to Modomio  and drank it with braised short ribs, porcini, and roasted  barbabietole. 

I thank you again for your continued support of family farms, and for your participation in the stewardship of this special heritage that belongs to all of us.

Greg Moore