I am delighted to start work this week for Nebbia e Luce, a Nebbiolo-focused company headed by Simon Farr and Chiara Ovaleo Pandolo. The company’s name means ‘Fog and Light’, encapsulating its Piemontese roots. It has been buying and storing Nebbiolo wines from various parts of Piemonte. It will then release the wines when they are fully mature and ready to drink. Very few collectors or restaurants have the space, cashflow or patience to cellar wines today. The plan is to start releasing some 10-year-old wines in 2025.

My role is to write authoritative background materials for Nebbia e Luce. I am travelling to Alto Piemonte and visiting producers in Boca, Bramaterra and Lessona. I will then write profiles of the producers and these sub-zones in Alto Piemonte. As a result, I have been doing preliminary research, which has covered such fascinating topics as the Valsesia supervolcano (which created the area 280 million years ago), Pliny the Elder’s comments on the region’s viticulture in the first century and Count Camillo Cavour’s glowing testimony to the wines of the area in the middle of the nineteenth century.

There is a very good video on the supervolcano here. You can follow it even if you don’t read Italian.

After this initial visit to Alto Piemonte, I will write further profiles of producers in northern Piemonte and, of course, Barolo and Barbaresco. This great project builds on my research for The Wines of Piemonte. Watch this space, and look out for the Nebbia e Luce Nebbiolo project launch soon.