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Vineyards, wines and hospitality
at Lessona, Biella

Villa Guelpa

Villa Guelpa is our family home and winecellar, together with our vineyards in Alto Piemonte ... it is also our Passion. It is a bold and courageous project with strong links to the past but with hopes and ambitions for the future, inspired by the incredible variety of soils and intriguing variations that Nebbiolo assumes even when the vineyards are separated by a few meters. Villa Guelpa itself was built in Lessona in the late 1800s, adjacent to the hillside vineyard and on the banks of the Strona stream, It was sold, renovated and enlarged in the 1930s as the manor house of an important textile factory, now we continue its future with wine production.

Our lands

nel cuore dell’Alto Piemonte

GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The geological history of Alto Piemonte is incredible: it all started when, about 300 million years ago, there was only one single continent, the Pangea which was dotted with numerous huge volcanoes. One of them, geographically located near to us in Valsesia, exploded with a power greater than 250 atomic bombs. The immense volcano became extinct and about 150 million years ago when the mountain range of the Alps formed from the fracture and division of continents, the Supervulcano of Valsesia bent and arranged itself horizontally making visible on the surface what was once the internal layers of the volcano.

THE SOILS

The legacy left is that of some very rare, very acidic soils, totally devoid of limestone, which, spread over the whole territory of Alto Piemonte, range from the alluvial pebbles of the hills of Salussola and Dorzano near Lake Viverone, to the siliceous sands of Mottalciata, to the very ancient soils of Lessona, to the volcanic porphyry of Bramaterra and again to the more recent alluvial soils, with a sandy texture, of Sizzano. This is all in an area with a particularly favorable, mild climatic characteristics which are characterised by excellent diurnal temperature differences between day and night. There is a higher than average rainfall and excellent both direct and diffused sunlight because here we are at a quite high Latitude.

LA Storia

Ours is a history of quality viticulture, which has archaic roots, made by knowledgable men who understood and were able to exploit the territorial uniqueness and climatic characteristics to the highest levels in making wines that had a clear identity. Obviously all this was made possible by the precious Nebbiolo grape, formerly called spinea grape, of central Italic origin but which finds its home and maximum expression close to the Alpine mountain range. It was in the Middle Ages that experience and skills were refined thanks to the knowledge of the monks of the Cluniac Abbeys, who have been finding excellence in quality cultivation and winemaking techniques since the fifteenth century. The subsequent periods saw the affirmation of fine wines from Alto Piemonte that were bottled and shipped to courts throughout Europe.

The Cellar

We make wine in a small but historic cellar in the beating heart of the new ‘Alto Piedmonte’ Renaissance located in Lessona. We use old concrete tanks for young wines and Slavonian oak barrels for aging wines made only from our vineyards. As far as Sizzano is concerned, it was our great statesman Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, who in addition to being one of the greatest strategists of the (Italian unification) Risorgimento was also owner of vast land estates, farms, businessman as well as Minister of Agriculture and Prime Minister in the mid-nineteenth century, who wrote the famous letter in which he said: "I naively confess that your excellent Sizzano wine has almost convinced me of the possibility of making luxury wines in Piedmont. This wine possesses in a high degree, what the quality of the wines of France and the bouquet is generally lacking in our own. The bouquet of Sizzano does not resemble that of Bordeaux, but rather the bouquet of Burgundy, which for certain delicious qualities such as Clos-Vougeot and Romanet, enjoys the first fruits on all the wines of France, so it is now proven that the Novarese hills can compete with the Burgundy hills, and that to win the fight you only need owners who he diligent the manufacture of wine and rich and elegant gluttons who establish their reputation ". In 1870, after the capture of Rome, it was with a Lessona that he toasted the Unification of Italy celebrating the glories of Nebbiolo over other Piedmontese and northern Italian grape varieties.

Our wines

Sono l’espressione della nostra terra, del posto in cui viviamo, del lavoro e delle scelte.
Il nostro obiettivo è nel renderli inconfondibili, eleganti, fini e caratteristici.

Lessona
DOC

Sizzano
DOC

Longitudine 8.26

Longitudine 8.10

Longitudine 8.11

The Manor House

Tastings, hospitality and much more

Le Camere

Staying at Villa Guelpa in Lessona means having a relaxing stay in contact with nature. The four rooms, newly renovated, are available to our guests and are situated in the former manor house. The rooms are of various sizes and all equipped with a private bathroom, wifi and all kinds of comfort in the name of peace and hospitality.

ROOM

Vespolina

ROOM

Nebbiolo

ROOM

Erbaluce

ROOM

Croatina

Notizie

Le ultime notizie da Villa Guelpa

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Villa Guelpa

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