Whom

I was born in Treviso in 1968, during the grape harvest. I am married to Nicola and we have two grown-up sons, Romano and Pietro.
I live in Baone and Padua.

My biggest interests as a child included:
– cats;
– reading;
– drawing;
– and farming (seriously).

When I was twenty-six we lived in a beautiful house in the city, but I really missed the countryside and so did Nicola.
It was spring time and with great enthusiasm we began looking for our dream home in the Euganean Hills.
We fell in love with it on the spot! The fascinating sixteenth-century Villa Ca’Orologio – once owned by the Dondi dall’Orologio family – and the vineyards of the “brolo” (the land belonging to ancient country mansions) and the “barchessa” (a traditional barn). After a challenging restoration that lasted almost five years, this is now where we have our winery, the Brolo di Ca’Orologio agriturismo, and our cherished home.

It must have been written in my stars that I was to become a farmer and this finally came about in 1995.
At the beginning we sold our grapes then, in 2002, we began making wine ourselves. I have never studied winemaking and what I have learned is the result of trial and error, precious advice and, above all, my desire to do things properly. Louis Pasteur’s Etudes sur le vin was an immensely compelling text, but it did not make a vigneron of me.

And how many years does it take to master the art of making wine with grapes that are different every year? Perhaps not even a lifetime is enough. But I believe that intuition, imagination, curiosity, and courage to forge ahead – and probably a bit of luck too – are all in the mix.

Maria Gioia Rosellini