Sizzano DOC

One commune on the eastern side of the Sesia valley, and the smallest of the Novarese Nebbiolo denominations. Sizzano sits directly beside Fara, makes a wine of the same construction, and has fewer than a dozen hectares in production.

The Terroir The registered file gives the geology carefully. The zone lies on a long morainic hill running on a north-south axis: a predominantly clayey plateau divided into two strips, the fruit of fluvio-glacial terracing that enriched it with heterogeneous alluvial layers. The soils are deeper and more clayey in the upper part of the hill, stonier, looser and richer in skeleton along the more westerly slopes descending to the valley floor. That division is the practical fact of the appellation: the upper ground gives structure, the western flank gives perfume.

The History The file offers two pieces of evidence and they are a good pair. The tithes paid to the bishops of Novara in the Renaissance establish that the wine was valuable enough to tax; and the interest of Cavour in more modern times places it in the nineteenth-century project to modernise Piedmontese wine. Cavour was a serious and practical viticulturist before he was a statesman, and his attention is a meaningful endorsement.

Grape Varieties Nebbiolo at a minimum of 50 per cent — called Spanna locally — with Vespolina and Uva Rara alone or together making up the balance. A riserva is registered. Vespolina brings black pepper and lifts the aromatics; Uva Rara softens the tannin and fills the middle.

The Critical Take Sizzano is Alto Piemonte at its most obscure, and the wines reward the search: pale garnet, tar and dried rose, with the acidity high and the tannin fine rather than large. Against Gattinara it is softer and quicker; against Barolo it is a different argument entirely, because the soils here are acidic glacial and volcanic debris rather than calcareous marl. The whole denomination produces less wine than one Langhe estate, and the price still has not caught up with the quality.

Fara and Sizzano The two sit within a few kilometres of each other on the same morainic ridge and make the same blend under different names. Fara is the more northerly and slightly the gentler; Sizzano has marginally more structure. Neither has more than a handful of producers. Between them they are the best illustration in Italy of how finely a small region can divide ground that outsiders would treat as one place.

At the Table Novarese cooking: tapulon, risotto with Gorgonzola, braised beef, game, and mountain toma. Serve at 16–17°C and give a riserva ten years.

Benchmark Producers Bianchi and Dessilani.