Imazio Nebbiolo Spanna 2019

Azienda Agricola Imazio is a small family estate based at Via Novara 94 in the historic centre of Ghemme, in the Novara province of Piedmont. The family's connection to this land is documented in archival records going back to the 1700s, making Imazio one of the older continuously operating agricultural operations in the zone. The estate produces both wine and honey — its apiaries are located on the Colline Novaresi for acacia honey and in the Valsesia mountains for chestnut, linden, and rhododendron honey — with every stage of production managed within the estate itself.

In wine, Imazio focuses exclusively on the native varieties of Alto Piemonte. The estate's Nebbiolo Spanna comes from the Colline Novaresi DOC designation and represents the estate's most accessible expression of the grape, while the Ghemme DOCG — aged one to three years in oak botti — is its most structured and age-worthy wine. The Imazio range also includes wines from Vespolina, Erbaluce, and Bonarda, all indigenous to the Novara hills.

The producer is described in coverage of the zone as biodynamic, placing Imazio among the most committed practitioners of sustainable viticulture in a region that has seen growing interest in organic and natural farming. ICEA organic certification confirms the estate's approach. The winemaking philosophy across the range is minimal intervention: extended maceration, no added sulfur, and aging in neutral vessels — specifically fiberglass for the Colline Novaresi Spanna — to preserve the fresh, volcanic mineral character of the grapes without the softening or aromatic influence of oak. Production quantities are small, and international distribution has been limited, with Imazio finding US markets primarily through specialist natural wine importers.

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Alto Piemonte — Upper Piedmont — covers the hills of the Novara and Vercelli provinces in the northeastern corner of Piedmont, between the Alps and the Po plain. It is one of the most geologically distinctive wine zones in Italy, shaped over millions of years by volcanic activity and glacial deposits. The resulting soils range from granite alluvium and glacial moraines to volcanic porphyry and iron-rich clay, and each of the zone's ten appellations sits on a different combination of these formations. Around Ghemme and the Colline Novaresi, the dominant soils are alluvial with a granite sand base, clay topsoils, and pockets of volcanic material — a profile that favours aromatic intensity and firm acid structure in Nebbiolo rather than the dense concentration found on the calcareous clays of Barolo and Barbaresco.

Nebbiolo has been cultivated in Alto Piemonte for centuries. Known locally as Spanna, it historically produced some of the most celebrated wines in Italy, with records of Gattinara's fame dating to the Roman Empire. The region was devastated by phylloxera in the nineteenth century and never fully recovered its commercial standing, with vineyards being abandoned in large numbers through the mid-twentieth century. A revival began in the 1990s and has accelerated since, driven by a new generation of small producers committed to preserving the zone's rare terroirs.

The Colline Novaresi DOC, centred on the Novara hills, permits a range of indigenous varieties including Spanna (Nebbiolo), Vespolina, Uva Rara, Croatina, and the white Erbaluce. The Ghemme DOCG and the neighbouring Gattinara DOCG are the zone's two most prestigious appellations. The proximity of Monte Rosa and the Alps brings consistent cool air through the growing season, extending ripening and preserving the high natural acidity that is one of Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo's defining characteristics.