This week we had Lucrezia Carrega Malabaila join us in Chicago and present her family's wines to our team. She is the daughter of the owners of Malabaila, multiple generations that have lived and made wines in Piedmont.
The Malabaila's, a noble family from the city of Asti, are present in the activity commercial and financial interests all over northern Europe since the year 1000.
The first appearance of this family in the territory of Canale d'Alba has around the year 1200, when it acquired the estate of Castelletto that is located among the territories of Canale, Castellinaldo, San Damiano and Priocca.
The Malabaila di Canale estate has been owned by the Count Malabaila family since the beginning of the fifteenth century, succeeding their predecessors, the Counts Roero.
In the Malabaila family archives there are letters, dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sent from House of Savoy requesting wines from the Count's caves.
The Malabaila vineyards are positioned not far from the town of Alba, north of the river Tanaro in an unique area characterized by small steep hills and scattered woodland. This area, since the Medieval era, has been known as Roero. The wines, which are made with the same care as they were centuries ago but with modern technology, were savoured by our ancestors and such illustrious examiners as the Princes Esterhazy of Austria-Hungary and the Dukes of Savoy who were to become the Kings of Italy.
The estate vineyards cover an area of 22 hectares from which are produced red wines, white wines and dessert wines.
In their cellars, in the middle of his vineyards, wines are maturing in constant temperature and away from everyday light and noise.
Roero Arneis Pradvaj
As stated in the Count Malabaila Archives, collection n. 9: "In the year 1508 Count Daniele Malabaila di Canale, together with his brothers, acquire from Bernardo and Ludovica Counts Roero, the motta (farm) Pradvaj, comprehensive of a lawn and hill with vines measuring 40 giornate at the global price of 1949 gold florins".
An extremely elegant wine, Roero Arneis Pradvaj sheds immediate light on the success of this still rare Piedmontese white; its color, with its slight suggestion of straw-yellow, introduces the light aroma of flowers and fresh fruit that is released in the glass and then comes to life again in its delicate, dry taste which leaves a highly agreeable trace of almonds on the palate.
