2019 Pio Cesare Barbaresco

Barbaresco is a true Nebbiolo wine, meaning it has a naturally robust character thanks to the use of Nebbiolo grapes and therefore requires a long aging process. Nebbiolo is harvested when it reaches peak ripeness, usually around mid-October. The grapes are sourced almost exclusively from the municipality of Treiso. The remaining grapes come from vineyards in Barbaresco and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio. This results in a wine with greater complexity, thanks to the different terroirs. Fermentation takes place with optimal contact between the skins and the fermenting wine, giving the wine color and character. The grapes ferment at around 25 degrees Celsius and remain in contact with the fermenting wine for three to four weeks. It is then aged in barriques, some new French oak barrels and some new Slavonian oak barrels. A deliberate choice was made for long wood aging, up to three years for some of the wine, to give it more complexity and further enhance its beauty. And Pio Cesare has more than succeeded in this.

The Pio Cesare winery is one of the region's classic producers. Located in Alba, the "wine capital" of this region, it was founded in 1881 by Cesare Pio. His name has been retained, in reverse, as the name of this trading house and family business. It remains family-owned, headed by Pio Boffa, the founder's great-grandson. He continues the family's work with excellence and has also been responsible for a number of modernizations and changes at this beautiful, traditional company. Pio Cesare has always been a trading house, sourcing grapes under contract from local winegrowers. This is also a common practice in this region, which has many small winegrowers with small plots of vineyards, who are always willing to sell their grapes to one of the trading houses. In that respect, the region is a bit like Burgundy, with all those different vineyards, each with its own name, divided into small vineyard plots, each owned by a different winegrower.

Pio Boffa decided that owning his own vineyards was beneficial for the quality of his wines. Over the years, he has acquired several vineyards, primarily in the renowned Barolo and Barbaresco regions. His vineyard holdings now encompass 45 hectares and produce some of the estate's finest wines, with a few distinctive vineyard-specific cuvées as highlights. These are only released in good years.

The necessary changes have also been implemented in the winemaking process. A very restrained vinification process has been chosen, leaving the wine as undisturbed as possible, with minimal intervention. Each wine receives the individual treatment best suited to that particular wine, with a shorter or longer fermentation on the skins, sometimes followed by classic aging in Slavonian oak, the traditional wood of the region. This results in wines with classic finesse, balanced and complex, worthy representatives of this unique wine region.

92/100 Parker and 95/100 Suckling

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