Alpine Soul: Exploring Alto Piemonte & Canavese

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | FEBRUARY 27, 2025

I continue to be deeply impressed with the wines of Alto Piemonte and Canavese. Each year, I taste more wines from these appellations, a testament to a vibrant scene that continues to grow. Readers in search of wines that speak to the essence of site, variety and vintage, all delivered with cool-climate vibrancy, will find all that and more in this patchwork of small appellations in Northern Italy.

Some of the many highlights in my tastings of wines from Alto Piemonte and Canavese.

Some Background

This report covers wines from Alto Piemonte and Canavese, two regions that are inextricably linked by soils, climate and grape varieties but separated for administrative and political reasons. Alto Piemonte includes towns in the provinces of Vercelli and Novara, both of which have traditionally been linked to Milan. Canavese and its main town, Ivrea, are in the province of Torino. Biella straddles Alto Piemonte and Canavese, thus forming a link between the two regions.

Alto Piemonte and its appellations (Lessona, Bramaterra, Gattinara, Fara, Sizzano, Ghemme and Boca) spans approximately 670 hectares (1655 acres) of vineyards. To put that figure into perspective, Alto Piemonte is about one-third the size of Barolo and smaller than Barbaresco in terms of planted hectares. Canavese encompasses about 425 hectares (1,050 acres) of vineyards. Its most prestigious appellations are Carema and Erbaluce di Caluso, which lie near Alto Piemonte. Carema, at the very north of Canavese, has seen a noticeable increase in activity in recent years yet encompasses only about 20 hectares (50 acres) of vines, a surface area that could fit entirely within the Monvigliero cru in Barolo, with room to spare.

Following a period of neglect and abandon in the vineyards, Alto Piemonte and Canavese are now hotbeds of activity. Conterno-Nervi has become the most important and visible producer in Alto Piemonte. Roberto Conterno’s significant investments and total obsession with quality are hardly news. More importantly for the region, however, is that his wines are now seen in the best shops and on the lists of the finest restaurants all over the world, places where Gattinara and Alto Piemonte scarcely had a presence before. I have seen the Conterno-Nervi wines recently in restaurants such as the Polo Bar in New York City and the private club Oswald’s in London, where the straight Gattinara is currently offered by the glass.

In Carema, American importer Neal Rosenthal acquired Ferrando in 2023, the estate he has represented since 1980. That’s a strong endorsement from one of the best palates in the business. Young producers continue to bring their energy and ambition, rounding out what has become an extremely spirited community.

Challenges remain, however. Alto Piemonte and Canavese have their own producer consortiums. Historically, producers in Canavese have not been willing to share the Erbaluce variety in name with Alto Piemonte. That remains a major point of division. Another challenge is that Alto Piemonte and Canavese are large regions by total surface area, but with a relatively small percentage of vineyards, especially compared with areas to the south, such as Barolo and Barbaresco. From the practical standpoint of the wine lover, consumer and the wine trade, Alto Piemonte and Canavese should probably be one region with smaller nested appellations. Especially in today’s world of over-information and wine saturation, appellations need to have both a critical mass and a number of top producers in order to have visibility with both the wine-buying public and the trade, but there is also a natural tension with the understandable desire to have small, well-defined regions and appellations. Winemakers also benefit from being surrounded by other similarly-minded, quality-driven producers, and that is sometimes lacking here. Admittedly, these are not easy problems to solve.

In Appreciation of Vespolina

In recent years I have become increasingly enamored with Vespolina, a variety that in the past was mostly used as a blender alongside Nebbiolo and Croatina. The decade or so has seen a growth in mono-variety bottlings that fill an entry-level niche for many estates, in the way Dolcetto and Barbera do in the Langhe. Vespolina is a tricky variety. It is hard to farm and tends to oxidize in winemaking. Producers have learned to deal with those challenges. Some exalt the aromatic side of Vespolina, while others go for more of a fruit-forward style. Many Vespolinas today are undeniably appealing and full of character.

 Thoughts on Recent Vintages

Alto Piemonte and Canavese include numerous appellations, each with their own production guidelines with respect to permitted varieties. Releases are often staggered across multiple vintages, as is the case throughout Piedmont, creating some challenges in understanding vintages at the outset because information is incomplete. Lastly, Alto Piemonte is a young region with regard to today’s wines. That means that entry-level bottlings are often as good or better than some top wines because they are less forced in winemaking and aging. All of this makes getting a grasp on vintages harder than in most other regions throughout the world. Then again, that is part of the joy in exploring these wines.

Le Pianelle in Bramaterra is one of the relatively new entrants in Alto Piemonte.

2022 – Hot and Dry

I am more cautiously optimistic about 2022 than I was a year ago. Two thousand twenty-two was the hottest and driest year since records have been kept. Producers reported harvesting Nebbiolo in August for the first time ever. Heat index and average temperatures were both above normal, while rainfall was less than half of the historical average over the last 20 years. It is important to note that these averages are already skewed to the higher end because of the number of vintages with broadly similar qualities within that time frame. In other words, a longer historical average would further amplify how much of a departure 2022 was from the norm.

In tasting, the 2022s are much better than the data might suggest. The wines don’t have the dimension or complexity of the best years, but they also do not seem excessively penalized beyond that. None of the top wines have been released yet, so it is too early to know for certain how the vintage was expressed in the very best sites, vineyards that in the past acquired their reputation largely because of exposure. 

2023 – A Freak

Two-thousand twenty-three is even harder to understand than 2022. It’s a vintage that highlights first the importance of interpreting technical data rather than just repeating it and second focusing on how the wines taste rather than just looking at numbers. Analytically, 2023 was marked by average temperatures above the 20-year average, although not at the level of 2022. Rainfall was 50% more than a normal year, while the heat index was below the historical average. In short, we are looking at a year that was both very hot and very rainy. What happened?

Following a very dry winter in 2022, the growing season got off to an early start. Spring and early summer were characterized by frequent and heavy rains. Disease pressure from Peronospora (downy mildew) was high, forcing producers to treat their vineyards often. These conditions were especially challenging for growers who tend to favor less intervention. In 2023, the choice was to treat the vines or risk losing the crop. Rain continued through July and August but then stopped before the critical pre-harvest and harvest period. That turned out to be the saving grace.

The 2023s I have tasted so far present lovely forward fruit and expressive aromatics. I expect to see some variability, but I am also encouraged by what I have tasted up until the time of this writing.

Coda

I have followed Alto Piemonte since the mid-1990s, when I grabbed a bottle of Antoniolo’s 1990 Gattinara Osso San Grato from my parents’ shop and was absolutely blown away. I have never been more excited about Alto Piemonte and Canavese than I am today. For the inquisitive wine lover, Alto Piemonte and Canavese are old-school regions largely untouched by the wealth that now permeates through so many other parts of the world. There’s so much on offer in Alto Piemonte and Canavese that inevitably the most important wines and appellations get most of the attention. I suppose there are worse problems to have, although that is really a shame. I am just as impressed with wines from lesser-known appellations and varieties, including the aforementioned Vespolina and Erbaluce di Caluso, one of the most distinctive whites in all of Piedmont. As a group, the wines here offer incredible expression of place and variety at prices that encourage exploration. Last but certainly not least, Alto Piemonte also excels with Rosé, a category we cover separately because of timing. 

There is something genuine about these wines, something fragile, that is incredibly appealing in a world that is increasingly standardized. The wines aren’t always perfect. Readers will have to accept some ups and downs, even at top estates, and perhaps even a bit of imperfection here and there. In that sense, the wines have a human quality that is incredibly attractive.

I tasted most of these wines in Alto Piemonte in November 2024, with subsequent tastings in my office through February 2025. Readers who want to learn more about Alto Piemonte will find plenty of information in my previous articles, all linked below.

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