Memory of Maria Angela Cabutto

With Luciano the Cannubi Monghisolfo vineyard was in excellent hands

The Cabutto family were farmers, or more precisely winegrowers, in Barolo. At least up until Giovanni Cabutto, born in 1888 and who passed away in 1985, at nearly 100 years of age.
Giovanni was supposed to be succeeded by his son Carlo, born in 1920, but at 18 he left the family home and the village of Barolo to go to Turin and work at the Radice delicatessen in Via Madama Cristina.
At the Radice household, Carlo Cabutto found the love of his life, Ida Iemmi, originally from Sant'Ilario d'Enza who – having refused to go and work as a rice weeder in the Vercelli rice paddies – had settled with the Radice family as a domestic worker.
Love seemed to orient the two young people towards a life together, but the wartime vicissitudes of a fascist Italy pursuing impossible dreams took him for seven years to fight on various fronts, with mixed fortunes and with heavy interference with his health.
He was supposed to leave for Africa, but a benevolent fate made him arrive late for embarkation on the first ship, which sank in the open sea. So he departed on the following ship, but during the Africa campaign an adverse fate caused him to suffer a serious accident in the field kitchen, following which he nearly died from burns from boiling oil that had struck his entire body.
Having returned to Italy and then home, Carlo came back to Barolo only occasionally. He preferred to continue his work at the Turin delicatessen, having found – also in this case in a dramatic manner – his beloved Ida and having married her.
The rest is more recent history and we discussed it with daughter Maria Angela: "In the family – she recalled not without emotion – there was no one who wanted to look after the land, in particular that Nebbiolo for Barolo vineyard situated on the prestigious Cannubi hill. Not just any part of Cannubi, but the area called Monghisolfo di Cannubi, which to many sounded like a special land where a fine Barolo was produced".
One naturally wonders why Giovanni and Carlo Cabutto decided to sell that so prestigious vineyard to Luciano Sandrone, who did not yet have his own cellar, rather than to someone else already more established in the world of Barolo.
"Knowing my grandfather and my father – Maria Angela Cabutto recalls – it is not to be excluded that it was precisely this condition that oriented them towards such a choice. I know that they wished that whoever bought that piece of land would devote to it particular attention and care precisely because of how much that site was worth. And probably Luciano guaranteed them an attitude of this kind, much more so than an established company that would have bought it more for economic reasons than out of passion".
Perhaps there was someone who facilitated the meeting between Giovanni and Carlo Cabutto and Luciano Sandrone. And indeed there are those who think that a work colleague of Luciano's at Marchesi di Barolo helped facilitate that contact: his name was Sebastiano Foglio and he had a fine friendship with Luciano and a family relationship with the Cabutto. But this is only a supposition.
"In any case, – Maria Angela specifies – the deal went through. If I remember correctly, the purchase price was 6 million lire, an amount that – viewed in the light of current prices – may seem very favourable for the buyer. In reality, that price satisfied everyone, buyer and sellers, who knew they had put their Monghisolfo di Cannubi vineyard in excellent hands".