La Ca' Nova

"La Ca' Nova is the hottest estate in Barbaresco right now. Readers will not want to miss these magnificent, utterly thrilling wines." - Antonio Galloni, Vinous


La Ca' Nova has been producing exceptional, terroir-driven Barbarescos for generations from two of the appellation's best crus, Montestefano and Montefico.

Pietro Rocca, the patriarch of the family, has been a fourth generation winemaker. At the beginning of the 70s he began producing and bottling Barbaresco; before then, his family sold their grapes to other companies, particularly to Gaja.

Their single-vineyard bottlings come from two top Crus of Barbaresco.
Montestefano produces more structured Barbarescos, while Motefico (where the Roccas own the Bric Mentina vineyard) austere and elegant wines.

Today Pietro is supported by his sons Marco and Ivan.
The family adopts a strictly manual approach in the cellar, using only wild and indigenous yeasts for fermentation. This occurs mainly in steel tanks and three conical wooden mallets, but without temperature control.

Shortly before the end of fermentation, the family continues the fermentation and maceration with the ancient tradition called splinting, according to which wooden planks keep the cap immersed in the tank.
This time-consuming method gently extracts more color and polyphenols.

For single-vineyard bottlings of La Ca' Nova, fermentation and maceration generally take twenty-five to thirty days. After fermentation, the Barbarescos are aged in 30 hectoliter barrels, but Pietro prefers Austrian oak to Slavonian oak: "They are untoasted and neutral, and they are the best quality barrels I have ever seen. In fourteen years, none has never leaked a drop."

This estate has been on fire in the wine world - the combination of points, price and pedigree within this estate makes this the next big deal in Piedmont at ridiculously low prices.