Marchesi di Barolo, Barbera d'Alba DOC, Ruvei

About Marchesi di Barolo

The cellars were created at the beginning of the 19th century at the behest of the Marchesa Giulia di Barolo, who, together with her husband Carlo Tancredi, realised the potential of the Nebbiolo grape. The Marchesa Giulia and the Marchese Carlo Tancredi died without heirs. Their possessions became the property of the Opera Pia Barolo, the charitable organisation that the Marquise had created to manage her numerous charitable activities. At this point the commercial life of Barolo began, and it was sold to finance the charitable activities created by Marchesi di Barolo: the first kindergartens in Italy, schools for poor girls and single mothers, and professional schools for the daughters of workers. The Opera Pia Barolo created by Marchesa Giulia acted according to this concept: getting people out of their state of poverty, and teaching them to help others once they had reached the conditions that made it possible, giving back to others the good that had been achieved. A virtuous circle was thus created. The bottles that came out of the Barolo cellars were also the financial driving force behind this virtuous circle. But after a few decades, Opera Pia Barolo decided that it would better fulfil its task by concentrating on the charitable institutions created by Marchesa Giulia, and decided to hand over the Cellars and Estates to people specialised in the art of producing Barolo.