From the atlas
Tenute Sella
At A Glance
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| Location | Lessona, province of Biella, northern Piemonte |
| Appellations | Lessona DOC, Bramaterra DOC, Coste della Sesia DOC |
| Key Grape | Nebbiolo (with Vespolina, Croatina, Bonarda) |
| Winemaker | Riccardo Giovannini |
| Founded | 1671 (documented vineyard acquisition) |
| Style | Firm, age-worthy Nebbiolo-led reds, moderate body |
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
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.
Bramaterra, a few kilometres away, is built on volcanic red porphyry, the rock disintegrated over centuries by weather into a mineral-rich, strongly acidic substrate. The Sella holding there covers approximately twenty hectares in a single contiguous block, at elevations between 270 and 350 metres. Porphyry soils pull more grip and mineral definition into the wine. The two estates share firm tannin and good acidity as structural constants, but the soils make wines that feel and smell different from each other.
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.
Soil And Site
The Lessona parcels carry Pliocene marine sands at their core, a soil type that drains freely and warms quickly, keeping vine stress low while limiting the density that heavier clay soils provide. The fossil shell deposits add calcium without raising pH significantly above the 4.2 to 5.5 range. Nebbiolo on these sands tends toward floral aromatics, red cherry, and a mid-weight frame rather than the more tannic, extracted profile the same grape produces on Langhe marlstone.
The Bramaterra estate sits on a block of disintegrated red porphyry, volcanic in origin, with clay deposits of varying depth across the slope. The porphyry base gives a firmer mineral quality to the wine, and the elevation, between 270 and 350 metres, extends the growing season enough to support full Nebbiolo ripeness without losing the acidity that defines the Biella hill style.
Story
Comino Sella bought his first Lessona vineyards in 1671 with profits from the family's textile trade. For two centuries, the Sella family expanded across both industries in parallel: wool and weaving made them wealthy; the Lessona parcels grew in parallel as a secondary holding.
By 1870, the family had produced a politician significant enough to shape modern Italy. Quintino Sella, born in Biella, served as finance minister in the Risorgimento government. When Italian unification was toasted that year, Quintino chose his family's Lessona. Not Barolo, not Chianti: a wine from an obscure Biella hills appellation that most of his contemporaries had never heard of. The choice said something about how the family regarded the place.
In the early 1880s, Carlo Sella acquired further plots in Bramaterra on behalf of the family heirs, extending the estate into its second geological zone. By 1902, Sella wines had taken a gold-medal diploma at an international wine and olive-oil exhibition in Milan. The two appellations remained small, and the family's primary business remained textiles, but the winemaking commitment held.
Today the estate keeps the traditional cellar methods that have defined it: separate parcel vinification, long maceration, Slavonian oak ageing. The vines in Lessona average around forty years old; those in Bramaterra, around forty-five.
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.
The same approach, separate parcels, traditional methods, Slavonian wood, applies in Bramaterra. The I Porfidi selection comes from a single parcel on Bramaterra's highest ground, planted in 1933, the oldest vines on the estate.
Wines
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.
Bramaterra DOC blends Nebbiolo with Croatina, Bonarda, and Vespolina from the volcanic porphyry estate. The porphyry base gives a harder mineral edge and more grip than the Lessona, while the permitted co-fermented varieties add some dark fruit and spice to the red-fruit Nebbiolo frame. It is slightly denser in feel than the Lessona, with the same firm acidity running through the mid-palate.
I Porfidi is a single-vineyard selection from the 1933 planting on Bramaterra's highest hill. Older vines on porphyry, lower yields, more concentrated extract. It represents the oldest material on the estate and has a tighter, more age-demanding profile than the standard Bramaterra.
Coste della Sesia DOC covers a broader appellation across the Biella and Vercelli hills and functions as an entry point to the Biella Nebbiolo style at a lighter and earlier-drinking register.
In The Glass
Lessona opens with dried rose, red cherry, and a faint iron-mineral note that comes from the acidic marine sand soils. In the mouth, the body is moderate: this is not the weight of a Langhe Nebbiolo. The acidity is prominent and structured, carrying the wine through the mid-palate without any sense of heaviness. The tannins are firm and dry, present without being coarse. The Slavonian oak adds some grip and a faint tobacco edge on the finish but does not dominate the red-fruit character. With age, the cherry darkens toward dried fruit and the iron note sharpens.
Bramaterra is fuller in the mid-palate, with the porphyry soils adding a more mineral, almost graphite quality to the nose. The dark fruit from Croatina and Bonarda rounds out what would otherwise be a purely red-fruit Nebbiolo profile. Acidity remains high. The finish is longer and firmer than Lessona, with more grip on the back palate.
I Porfidi concentrates both the mineral quality and the fruit into a tighter frame, the 1933 vines producing less volume and more extract per berry. It asks for more time in bottle before the tannins begin to open.
A Bottle To Understand It
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.
Anecdote
In 1870, with Italian unification newly accomplished and the country's political class gathered to mark the occasion, finance minister Quintino Sella chose a bottle of Lessona for the toast. Quintino had been born in Biella, and the Sella family's vineyards in Lessona had been documented since 1671. He did not reach for Barolo, the grape of Piedmontese kings, or Chianti, already the most legible Italian wine name abroad. He poured his family's wine from an obscure Biella hills appellation that most people in the room would have been hard pressed to locate on a map. The wine came from a place that mattered to him because his family had put money into its soil for two centuries, not because anyone else had yet decided it was worth knowing about. Lessona made it to the minister's table on those terms alone.
Final Word
Tenute Sella is not a producer that trades on fashion or appellation fame. It operates in two small DOCs that most Piemonte buyers overlook, makes wines by methods that have not changed significantly in generations, and carries a documented land history that predates almost every famous name in Italian wine. The Lessona and Bramaterra DOCs reward patience: firm acidity, dry tannins, and a red-fruit and mineral character that develops slowly and holds for a long time. If you want a different Nebbiolo, one with no connection to the Langhe hierarchy, start here.
Sources
- https://tenutesella.it/storia/
- https://tenutesella.it/tenute/
- https://www.astrumwinecellars.com/producer/tenute-sella/
- https://tenutesella.it/product/lessona/
- https://www.munskankarna.se/sv/vinlocus/tillfalligt-sortiment-21-november-2025/lessona-2019
- https://sociovino.com/products/lessona-tenute-sella