Unlike many wineries in Piemonte, Noah is not the product of a long family history on the land. Rather, it was created from scratch by Andrea Mosca and Giovanna Pepe Diaz in 2010. Andrea’s father worked in the building trade, and he was brought up in nearby Cossato. Initially, Andrea trained as an architect in Milan and worked in the city, but he missed the land and his home region. After the economic crisis of 2008, the couple decided to turn their love of wine into a career choice, even though they had no training in growing vines and making wine. On returning to Andrea’s home area, it took two years to find vineyards and a suitable house to restore for their family. In fact, the winery is called Noah after their first child. An additional attraction, however, was that once the house had been made habitable, the animal stalls on the ground floor provided space to create a cellar. Thus, Andrea returned to the countryside with which he was familiar and sought to earn a living from the land.
The first vineyards were bought in Brusnengo in 2010–11, close to the cellar, from older farmers who were ready to relinquish their land. A vineyard in Lessona followed in 2014, meaning that Noah can produce both Bramaterra DOC and Lessona DOC, two adjacent areas with markedly different geologies and wine traditions. The wine was initially made in the quaint but impractical cellar of one of the owners of the vineyards they acquired. Work on the cellar below their own home started in 2022, and the first vintage made there was 2023. This was a rare year of good yields, and the new cellar was big enough to vinify and age 22.5 tons of grapes. With five hectares of vineyard, Andrea, Giovanna and one employee can work the land and make and sell the wine.
In Bramaterra, there is only a very shallow layer of acidic soil over the volcanic porphyry rock. Yields are typically very low, even when hail or frost does not further reduce the crop, but the resulting wines have excellent concentration. On average, Noah’s vines are 45 years old. In the 1980s, the choice of rootstocks and clones was determined by what was suitable in the Langhe. Today, there are better options suited to Alto Piemonte, but the old vines make up for the choices made then. In Lessona, the soil has a high percentage of sand. Noah’s Lessona wine is 100 per cent Nebbiolo, while Bramaterra must be a blend of Nebbiolo and other local varieties. In Noah’s case, the two Bramaterra wines are typically 80 per cent Nebbiolo plus 10 per cent each of Croatina and Vespolina. For Andrea, the Vespolina is the most important blending variety, adding colour and its characteristic black pepper note. Croatina contributes colour, lower acidity and fruitiness in a young wine. Andrea would like to replace the Croatina; he has already eliminated the tiny proportion of the other allowed variety, Uva Rara. While the inclusion of Uva Rara was traditional, it was also called ‘the grapes of the harvester’ as it was simple and ripe enough to eat as you picked the other varieties. In the future, and in an ideal world, Andrea would like Bramaterra to be Nebbiolo 80–100 per cent, but it is unlikely that more conservative growers would agree to this change to the regulations.
The vineyards in Bramaterra are field blends and mainly vinified as such. (The exception would be to pick the earlier-ripening Vespolina first and then blend it into the rest of the wine.) Maceration times are not excessive and vary, according to the vintage, between 15 and 30 days. Ageing is in a mix of Slavonian oak casks and used French oak barriques. The latter are bought from cellars known to his consulting oenologist after two years of use elsewhere. As a result, the Noah wines show no flavour impact from new oak. The same winemaking applies to the Lessona wine. Because of the different soil types and grape composition, Bramaterra will always be a deeper colour with darker fruit character and firmer tannins in comparison with the paler and finer tannins of Lessona. Thus, Noah offers two adjacent denominations with two styles of Nebbiolo-based wines.
Two single-vineyard Bramaterra wines are made. Salero is made from the first vineyard purchased and is named after the hamlet in which the vineyard and winery are to be found. Andrea likes to play on the name. The area was ruled by the Spanish in the seventeenth century, and in Spanish, salero refers to a container for salt (some comment on the salinity of the wines here) but also means full of grace. Rocce di Luce is the second single-vineyard Bramaterra from a higher site (300 m) with a very thin layer of soil directly above the rock. While the winery name, Noah, is named after the couple’s first son, their daughter, Luce, is honoured in the naming of this wine.
Andrea is a modest man who is keen to acknowledge those who have helped him to establish the winery. Basically self-taught, he states that he has limited his errors because of the input of his consultants in the winery and the vineyard, and because of the encouragement of local producers and professional wine buyers who believe in his wines. While he aims to be as natural as possible, his experience of the last 15 years has taught him to be deeply realistic and to make the best of challenging or abundant vintages. The results in the glass are a powerful testimony to the success of his endeavours.
Wines
Noah Bramaterra
2015 | 2017
Noah Bramaterra Rocche di Luce
2018
Noah Lessona
2017 | 2018