Tenuta Sella
9/21/2009 -
(Sebastiano Sella finds his childhood height on a wall of markings dating back to the mid-1800s, photo: Jamie Wolff)
To hear the tales you might not think that our wine trips abroad are a lot of work, but come along sometime and you’ll see what I mean. Nonetheless, almost all winery visits are a pleasure, even allowing for poor communication (generally the result of our English-centric lives) or the occasional disappointment with the wines. A couple of months after coming back from northern Italy – dozens of visits, hundreds of wines tasted – one of the highlights remains an afternoon at Tenuta Sella in Piemonte.
Sella’s an old place, long-held by the same family; this is common-place in Italy, whether your great great great grandpa was a banker – as with the Sella family - or a farmer. But unlike, for example the Tuscan equivalent, where gazillions are plowed into polishing baronial properties, Sella isn’t anywhere fashionable, and the house that gives onto the vineyards hasn’t been updated at all since the 1870’s with the exception of a bit of wiring and two bathrooms – both added about 100 years ago. In the smaller photo above, Sebastiano Sella finds his childhood height on a wall of markings dating back to the mid-1800s. It’s an intensely atmospheric place that amplified our sense of being somewhere slightly secret – certainly off the beaten path. The local wine district is called Lessona; like many other places in Italy what once was a thriving wine producting region is now much reduced by the pressures of modern life. The Sella family have (almost) single-handedly kept Lessona alive; we can’t find any other examples, but we were told that – speaking of Tuscany – one of the princes of Chianti was establishing a winery in Lessona.
The wine regulations in Lessona call for a minimum of 75% Nebbiolo, and a max of 25% of the local grapes Bonarda and Vespolina.; Bonarda gives body and fruit, and Vespolina – a white wine grape - a bit of delicacy to the wine – a la Viognier in your Cote Rotie.
