Colombera & Garella is one of Alto Piemonte's very best producers — Cristiano Garella's wines are picture-perfect representations of these varied northern terroirs, organically farmed and naturally made. Lessona Pizzaguerra is their top single-vineyard cuvée, a Nebbiolo-based wine from a high site of sandy maritime soils layered over crystal-rich igneous subsoils — a geology unlike anywhere else in Piedmont. The result has a kind of pointillist feel: detailed, fine, electric. Where Langhe Nebbiolo leans clay and limestone, Lessona's acidic volcanic-rooted soils produce wines of lower alcohol and unique mineral lift, sometimes with an almost sanguine iron undercurrent. Far more than just a Barolo alternative.