2022 Pio Cesare Piodilei Chardonnay

The Chardonnay does very well, especially on the hilltops in Langhe Piemonte, which are too cool for making red wines. The Chardonnay for this wine comes from the vineyard 'Il Bricco', in the heart of the Barbaresco region. The grapes are picked by hand, as late as possible, usually at the end of September. The wine undergoes fermentation in oak barrels of French origin. Then it is matured in barrels for a year. This makes it one of the beautiful Chardonnays, wonderfully rich and toasted, complex and broad, which can compete with all the international top wines and is not for nothing nicknamed the " Burgundy of Piemonte "

The Chardonnay Langhe doc Piodilei has a clear straw yellow with a fantastic inviting scent in the nose with brioche, pineapple, wood, vanilla and butter, nice caramel, with a hint of hazelnuts. This beautiful white Pio Cesare has a somewhat fatty and rich style, powerful and full taste, with the typical richness and butter of the chardonnay, coffee and caramel, beautifully classic and broad. Do not drink this beautiful wine cold - around 10-12℃ is perfect. This is of course an excellent wine with fish dishes, fried flatfish, mussels, white meat, salads and of course perfect as an aperitif

ABOUT PIO CESARE

The Pio Cesare house is one of the classic producers of the region. Based in Alba, the 'wine capital' of this region, and founded in 1881 by Cesare Pio. His name has been retained in reverse order as the name of this trading house and family business. It is still in family hands, because at the head is Pio Boffa, the great-grandson of the founder. He continues the work of the family in an excellent way, and in the meantime is also responsible for a number of modernizations and changes in this beautiful, traditional company. Pio Cesare has always been a trading house, which obtained the grapes on contract from winegrowers in the region. This is also a common practice in this region, which has many small winegrowers with small plots of vineyard, who are always ready to sell their grapes to one of the trading houses. In this 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 it was good for the quality of the wines to also own vineyards. Over the years he has bought a number of vineyards, mainly in the famous areas of Barolo and Barbaresco. The vineyard property now covers 45 hectares, and produces some of the house's finest wines, with a few special vineyard cuvées as top performers. These are only released in good years.

The necessary changes have also been made in the winemaking. A very restrained vinification has been chosen, in which the wine is left alone as much as possible, so with as few interventions as possible. Each wine receives the individual treatment that best suits that particular wine, with a shorter or longer fermentation on the skins, followed or not by a classic maturation on Slavonian oak, the traditional wood of the region. It produces wines with a classic finesse, balanced and complex, worthy representatives of this special wine region.