Fact Sheet

[KAH-ROW-MAY]

Location: Barbaresco, Cuneo. Piedmont, Italy.

Ca’ is short for “Casa”, or home. In fact, you wouldn’t take Romano Marengo’s for a winery at first. From the road, the house seems to exude a quiet air of comfort and family life. It is right at the top of a Langhe hill, surrounded by an endless vista of gently sloping country. Then you walk up to the villa, turn the corner to its southern façade, and you see them, terraced Nebbiolo vines, beautifully kept. This Langhe hill is Rabajà, one of Barbaresco’s historical crus. Here, after three decades of selecting fine wines, Romano set up a winery of his own in 1980, styling the range himself, and taking production to a yearly average of 2,500 cases. In 2002 the Cantina was enlarged with 2 new subterranean areas. One of them is now the barrique cellar while the other houses the Slavonian oak barrels and a section where wines are bottle-aged. The vineyards’ total surface is now a little over 17 acres, partly located at Barbaresco, partly at Serralunga d’Alba, in Barolo territory. In spite of the winery’s steady increase in size and importance, when you speak to Signor Marengo and his family, most notably son Giuseppe, an oenology graduate, and daughter Paola, in charge of p.r. and marketing, you will find that first impression of Ca’ Rome', with its quiet, country-home air, made for leisure and family life had some truth in it, after all. You feel Romano grew his children and his wines with the same sterling discipline, the same sense of excellence and impeccable standards. Ca’ Rome’ is a home to classic red wine-making, and to the very finest quality in life, as in wines. The cornerstones of the Ca’ Rome’ philosophy are the most rigorous grape selection, state-of-the-art vinification, and attentive élevage in oak, both 25-hectoliter Slavonian barrels, and French barriques.

There are two crus: Barbaresco’s Rabajà is characterized by compact, clayey-calcareous, white soil yielding wines with impressive structure, body and cellar life, and at the same time, exquisitely feminine in style, exhibiting hallmark elegance and balance. The Barolo and Dapruvé, on the other hand, come from vineyards of treasured Serralunga, whose hillside terrain is marly, calcareous-clayey and compact; bluish-white in color, impermeable to water; conducive to full-bodied, big wines, with an extremely long cellar life.