Bella Italia

Just before we got ourselves out from under the dark gray mantle of England, we had some good Italian cheer. Paolo de Marchi came to town with new vintages of Proprieta Sperino, his revival of the family’s original estate in the northern Piedmont. Though Paolo made his name in Tuscany with Isole e Olena, he’s always missed the high country around Lessona, where vineyards once abounded in the Alpine foothills and plateaus, and in 1999 he and his son Luca replanted