Podere ai Valloni
Boca, Novara, Piemonte, Italy
On a quiet hill above the vineyards around Boca, Podere ai Valloni began as a family dream rooted in a rural home built around a restored 17th century observatory, surrounded by the woods of Monte Fenera Natural Park. Here, where vines have been tended since the Gauls and Ancient Rome, the nobleman Finazzi introduced Nebbiolo to the hillside, and in 1980 Guido Sertorio and Cristiana Sertorio revived an abandoned estate to create Vigna Cristiana, now carried forward by Anna Sertorio and her husband Andrea Lombardi. Their philosophy is to be “environmental artisans,” caring for old vines, historic buildings, and the surrounding landscape along the ancient Traversagna road between Lake Orta and Lake Maggiore, while farming without chemical herbicides or insecticides and working under certified organic principles since 2011. In the cellar they share the winemaking process and equipment, including large oak barrels, keeping production intentionally small, and letting the red-purple porphyry soils of the Valsesia Supervolcano shape wines noted for elegance and minerality, with Monte Rosa rising beyond the Sesia valley.
