Roero & Langhe

Langhe is a small tongue (Langa, Langhe) of land extending south from the Tanaro river and nestling into a curve of the Apennines of the southernmost Piedmont. Across the Tanaro is Roero, a hilly region just north of the small city of Alba, capital of the Pietmontese white truffle territory.

In the Langhe the landscape is characterized by marly hills, straight mountainsides with rounded ridges, and valleys with parallel straight-line courses. Viticulture is generally concentrated in the lower (Bassa) Langa. The Alta Langa (upper Langhe) tends to be more pasture and hazelnut grove, prime territory for the famed white truffles of Alba.

Roero’s topography is more jumbled, with steeper and rougher slopes, deep and straight valleys, sometimes with sloping peaks and steep, bare rock faces. Cultivatioin is a mix of vines, hazelnut and fruit orchards, as well as strawberry and vegetable gardens what alternate with impenetrable woods along the ridgelines.

The soils of Roero are younger, and generally softer and sandier than Langhe’s limestone marls.

The unifying element of the Langhe and Roero is its geology, defined by a series of marly-sandy sedimentary debris and sedimentary rocks, deposited mostly in the marine environment of the middle-upper oligocene period (around 30-35 million years ago).

The Langhe and its viticultural landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list since 2014.

Carretta’s wines

Roero Arneis Riserva Canorei: from Carretta’s oldest vineyard, a legally-recognized monopole. The wine is fermented and aged in barrique, then bottle aged before release. This is an amazing and unique wine that drinks in many ways like a great Meursault.

Dolcetto d’Alba Superiore Il Palazzo: From sites in Madonna di Como where the soils are composed of limestone sands. Well drained and sunny, producing a refined, supremely silky and elegant Dolcetto. Vinified and then aged for six months in stainless, then rested in bottle for another 6 months before release.

Barbaresco Riserva Cascina Bordino: From some of the finest plots on the eastern side of the village of Treiso… steep vineyards of sandy marl soil with occasional clayey lenses. A fine, structured wine of elegance and a bit of austerity. Aged for a minimum of 50 months from the November following the harvest, including at least 9 months in barrel.

tenuta carRetta

Founded in 1470, Tenuta Carretta is one of the most important estates in the Langhe/Roero district. The slightly murky early history traces to a Domina Careta, a noblewoman who appears to have owned the estate in the 1300’s, but the 1470 date stems from a sharecropper’s deed from 1467 allocating half the harvest to the lord of Piobesi and the other half to 3 brothers, who gained rights to harvest the cascina Caretta. Som 350 years later, the estate passed to the Counts of Roero, who after 120 years passed it to the Veglia family in 1932. Some 50 years after that, it passed to the Miroglio family, wealthy textile manufacturers in Alba, who continue to own the estate which operates under Managing Director Davide Chiarle. Recently the family has expanded both its textile business and its wine interests into Bulgaria, where the Edoardo Miroglio winery has produced a range of still and sparkling wines from the ancient region of Thrace since 2002.

Tenuta Carretta is based in Piobesi d’Alba, Roero, where the estate buildings are surrounded by just under 35 hectares of vineyards. To the south of the Tanaro, the estate owns another 45 hectares of vineyards for a total of 80 hectares.

Carretta produces a full range of wines, including a single-vineyard Arneis Riserva, a lovely Dolcetto Superiore (also single-vineyard) and a Barbaresco from the Cascino Bordino vineyards, and several others.

Their flagship though is a Barolo Riserva from the landmark Cannubi vineyard, produced as a “normale” wine and also as a limited-release Riserva in certain years. A mere 1260 bottles of the Riserva are produced, if it’s made at all, and named in honor of the patriarch of the family, Franco Miroglio (it lists as Rag. Franco Miroglio- Ragionare is his business title, roughly equivalent to CPA). Each bottle is numbered and the label includes a silk pattern from one of the famed Miroglio scarves.

As a Riserva, this superb example of Barolo is aged for a minimum of 60 months (at least 36 months in barrel and another 18 in bottle) before release.

Cannubi is the oldest Cru in the Barolo DOC, with mention of the specific site dating to the mid 1700’s. There is some dispute however over its boundaries- if you map out the vineyard, it’s about 40 acres, but if you add up all the claimed holdings in Cannubi, you get more like 75 acres. Some of this may be the same parcel showing up as owned by 2 different families who are in fact related, but it is confusing. Adding further to the morass is the Italian authorities’ recent decision (even more recently rescinded) to allow the surrounding satellite vineyards of Cannubi Boschis, Cannubi Moscatel, Cannubi San Lorenzo and Cannubi Valetta to use the name “Cannubi” on their labels. However, at the end of the day, Tenuta Carretta owns lands in the heart of the original Cannubi vineyard, and they are in fact the second-largest holder with 7 acres of vines.