Piedmont is the home of Nebbiolo, but in addition to the famous Langhe, this vine also offers pleasant surprises in Upper Piedmont, between the provinces of Novara, Vercelli and Biella, where the climate is cooler and more ventilated, with geologically very different soils that give rise to little-known but very interesting DOCGs, including Boca, Lessona, Bramaterra, Fara and Sizzano, as well as the better-known DOCGs Ghemme and Gattinara. In this area Nebbiolo is more elegant, lean, dry, savoury and fresh.
The area of Boca (450-500m above sea level) was brought into vogue in the mid-1990s thanks to Christoph Künzli and Le Piane. Christoph Künzli, a Swiss wine importer of long standing with his company Scala Vini, was invited to visit Boca in 1995 on one of his many trips to Italy by his friend the oenologist Alexander Trofl. There, he met the vine-dresser Antonio Cerri, now in his eighties and tired, who was the last to produce in this area. The once much more extensive appellation had been reduced to just 10 hectares of vines, but Christoph was fascinated by this generous and wild land, rich in woods and hills.
The soil is acidic and rich in bright pink volcanic tuffs and porphyries, so friable as to become dust and very poor in humus (linked to the explosion of the Valsesia supervolcano around 280 Ma). These are unique conditions, which can be traced back to the volcanic islands of southern Italy, and are linked to a dry, breezy pre-Alpine climate with marked temperature fluctuations. Christoph Künzli decided to move here, and with the death of Cerri at the end of the 90s, he bought the vineyards, the cellar and the warehouse, maintaining the acts and practices of wine-making (no technology, spontaneous fermentation, long maceration, large barrels, ageing for up to 4 years) as if he were now the new guardian of that ancient knowledge and that place.
Cerri's winery - Campo delle Piane - simply becomes Le Piane. He put together more than 80 micro-plantings, often taken from the woods, replanted Nebbiolo and reached the current surface area of 11 hectares, 2 of which with vines over 100 years old (planted between 1910 and 1920 with the "maggiorina" training system, a sort of pergola sapling). After 30 years of work to enhance the value of a Nebbiolo always considered minor, Le Piane is the greatest representative of Boca, a real point of reference.
