Vinous

DOC · Appellation profile

Lessona

1,279 haProduction zone
2Wines in the rules
16.6 °CGrowing season · intermediate
IIWinkler region

What is made here

Wine colours

The only colour the rules allow.

100% Red

Where it is

Lessona in Italy

Latitude
45.5°–45.6° N
Vineyard altitude
270 m to 363 m
Production zone
1,279 ha

Lies within
Coste della Sesia, Piemonte

Worked out from the boundaries (smallest container first). They follow whole communes, so a neighbour sharing a commune can show up here too.

Boundary drawn from whole communes, so it is a little larger than the legal zone. Boundary: Eurac Research PDO inventory (CC0). Country outlines: Natural Earth. Dots on the zone map are the vineyard points used for climate.

01 · What the law says

The rules

Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Lessona must meet.

2 wines in the rules.
WineMain grape(s)Max yield
t/ha		Max wine
hl/ha		Wine from grapes
max. %		Grape ripeness
min. % pot. alc.		Wine
min. % alc.		Acidity
min. g/l		Dry extract
min. g/l		Ageing
min. months		In wood
min. months
Lessona 85% Nebbiolo (Spanna)8567011.5125222212
Lessona con Menzione Riserva 85% Nebbiolo (Spanna)7.2507012125224630

From the official production rules (disciplinare di produzione). Hover a figure to see the clause it comes from. A dash means the rules set no figure, or it is not captured yet.

Blend rules

Lessona

  • 85–100% Nebbiolo (Spanna) · Main grape
  • ≤ 15% Vespolina / Uva Rara (Bonarda novarese) · Allowed

At least 22 months' ageing; release from 1 September of the second year after the harvest.

Blend rules

Lessona con Menzione Riserva

  • 85–100% Nebbiolo (Spanna) · Main grape
  • ≤ 15% Vespolina / Uva Rara (Bonarda novarese) · Allowed

At least 46 months' ageing; release from 1 September of the fourth year after the harvest.

In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine

3,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
200–500 m
Vineyard altitude allowed
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone

02 · Climate fingerprint

The climate

The growing season averages 16.6 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,428 growing degree days (Winkler II).

The average year  1991–2020, vineyards at about 310 m

Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
2.0° 82 Jan 3.3° 85 Feb 7.1° 117 Mar 10.8° 170 Apr 15.3° 209 May 19.2° 175 Jun 21.3° 130 Jul 21.0° 144 Aug 16.8° 193 Sep 12.0° 210 Oct 6.7° 211 Nov 2.4° 90 Dec
Growing-season temperature
16.6 °C
Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
Growing degree days
1,428
Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
Growing-season rain
1,230 mm
Of 1,816 mm a year
Harvest rain
402 mm
September–October

Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 331 m; Vineyard point 2, 263 m; Vineyard point 3, 280 m; Vineyard point 4, 375 m; Vineyard point 5, 303 m), moved to each point's height from the model's terrain. Indices that need daily data are not captured yet. How the climate figures are made.

Closest climates in the database

Picked by the data, not by hand: the profiles nearest on season warmth (counted twice), degree days, rain, ripening-month nights and day–night range. Neighbours within 30 km are left out, as they share the same weather.

1. RamandoloVery similarCompared with Lessona: same season warmth, drier (−200 mm).
2. PiemonteVery similarCompared with Lessona: −0.3 °C in the growing season, drier (−204 mm).
3. CaremaVery similarCompared with Lessona: same season warmth, drier (−248 mm).

Growing-season temperature

Lessona
16.6 °C
Ramandolo
16.4 °C
Piemonte
16.3 °C
Carema
16.8 °C

Growing degree days

Lessona
1,428
Ramandolo
1,372
Piemonte
1,363
Carema
1,475

Growing-season rain

Lessona
1,230 mm
Ramandolo
1,030 mm
Piemonte
1,026 mm
Carema
982 mm

03 · Year by year

35 vintages

Each column is one growing season: heat above or below the 1991–2020 average, and rain at harvest. Pick a year for the details.

Warmer than averageCooler than averageHarvest rain (Sep–Oct)Average harvest rain, 402 mm
2025
Growing-season temp.
Growing degree days
Harvest rain
Growing-season rain
September nights
Hot days and frosts

Seasons are labelled by harvest year (April–October). Year-to-year changes from ERA5-Land; tested against station records in Alto Adige (r = 0.94 for season temperature at Bolzano). Rain varies more locally, so treat single-season rain with some caution. Vintage ratings, harvest dates and frost or hail events have places in the data model but are not loaded yet.

04 · Where the numbers come from

Sources

  1. A geospatial inventory of regulatory information for wine protected designations of origin in Europe · Candiago et al., Scientific Data 9, 394 (2022); Eurac Research · CC0
  2. Quality wines in Italy and France: a dataset of PDO specifications · figshare 25393261 · CC BY 4.0
  3. ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
  4. OpenStreetMap vineyard areas (landuse=vineyard), from Geofabrik country extracts · OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0
  5. Copernicus DEM GLO-90 (AWS open data tiles) · European Space Agency / Copernicus · Copernicus DEM licence
  6. Disciplinare di produzione: Lessona · Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF) · Official act
  7. Appellation nesting worked out from boundaries (pipeline/build_nesting.py) · Vinous, from the Eurac PDO boundaries · CC0 (source data)
  8. Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
  • Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
  • From the specification: Maximum wine output is 5,600 l/ha (Lessona) and 5,000 l/ha (riserva). Riserva vigna yields rise from 4.3 t/ha in the third year to 7.2 t/ha from the seventh. Bottling must also take place in the zone; vinification is allowed in some nearby Biella and Vercelli communes.
  • National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.