Fear Of Death Quickly Propelled Great Barolo Wine Producer Into Leadership Position

“Well, I’m the third of three kids and I was the one that came as a mistake because I showed up totally unexpected 14 years after my older brother” Pio Boffa noted with a smirk. Pio is the owner of the great Barolo producer Pio Cesare and his name would certainly foreshadow his importance in carrying on the Pio Cesare legacy. Pio’s great-grandfather, Cesare Pio founded the winery in 1881 and it was passed onto his son Giuseppe Pio who had only one child, Rosy, and she ended up marrying Giuseppe Boffa, a well-known engineer in Alba, who eventually left his job to devote himself to running the Pio Cesare winery. Rosy and Giuseppe had three children and their third child Pio was inducted into the way of life of a grape grower and wine producer at a very early age. Giuseppe had a feeling that he wouldn’t live that much longer and so there was an urgency to prepare Pio to takeover as soon as possible.

Pio Cesare

When it comes to asking Pio Boffa about what is at the essence of his family’s wines he goes back to the walks in the vineyards with his grandfather. Pio’s father knew that the best way to have any chance of getting a young Pio interested in spending time at the winery was to promise that he could drive the car as long as he used it to go to the vineyards or cellar with his grandfather. “During those long walks with my grandfather in the vineyards he was teaching me how to take care of the vines, which ones were affected by disease and why, which spots in the vineyards were warmer due to a better exposure and all the secrets that would stimulate a kid” noted Pio. Through time the idea of living a wine producer’s life started to seep into the very core of Pio Boffa as it was fascinating to him, and still astonishes him today, that his great-grandfather knew from the very beginning where the heart of Barolo was located; their vineyards were already selected before the boundaries of the region were codified in 1966. It was truly an education that no school could ever teach to the point where Pio’s own pulse was in rhythm with the land, vines and the commitment to the Pio Cesare family style.

The clock was always ticking in regards to Pio Boffa taking over the family business due to his father’s deep feeling that death was around the corner. Often times, sons and daughters always talk about how their parents will never let go of control of the family business to allow them to grow into becoming a leader; sometimes an offspring has to wait to take the overwhelming task of running a company while mourning the loss of his parent at the same time. But it was quite the opposite with Pio as his father was always in a hurry to have him take over as soon as possible. Pio recounted that time in his life, “I went to school starting at five years old instead of six to gain a year and I jumped from first grade to third grade to gain another year and I never had time because my father was always pressing me ‘I need you to do this and I need you to do that because I am going to die’.” Just like the final task given before a tribal ceremony, when a boy becomes a man, the last move that solidified Pio fate into the family business happened after high school. Pio was looking forward to spending two weeks at the seashore with beautiful young girls but his father gave him only one week and then sent him to California to live with Robert Mondavi. “I stayed at Bob’s house for about a month and a half and it was an extraordinary experience for me as I was able to learn about a lot of things that people in Barolo during 1972 weren’t even thinking about.” Following that summer Pio went to university for three months before his father told him that he had to come home for the final ceremony where he truly became a man.

Single Vineyards

The very first single cru vineyard wine produced by Pio Cesare was in 1985 with a small selection from their family-owned ‘Ornato’ vineyard in the Barolo township of Serralunga d’Alba. It took over 30 years for them to produce another single vineyard Barolo wine for the 2015 vintage from the ‘Mosconi’ cru site, sourced from the last vineyard they purchased in the township of Monforte d’Alba and it was made for Pio’s 60th birthday. There has been a recent focus on promoting the idea of single cru vineyards in Barolo as well as Barbaresco calling them Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive (MeGA) with 170 and 66 officially recognized in Barolo and Barbaresco respectively.

Although the single cru bottlings of Pio Cesare are quite prized, Pio brings attention to the idea that the cru vineyards officially recognized by the consorzio are not necessarily the best. There are many vineyards that have not been given MeGA status but they are known among the producers as some of the top sites; this was pointed out by Pio Boffa who was on the board of the consorzio for 35 years. Pio further explained, “The greatest Barolo wines are not only the single vineyard” and he went on to describe how his great-grandfather and fellow producers in the late 1800s would blend vineyards that they considered to represent the ideal compilation of Barolo sites and hence give an impression of what Barolo offered as a whole; many of these vineyards are still highly regarded today.

Despite Pio Boffa being an advocate for a modern winery and keeping on top of technology that was first spurred by his time at Mondavi, he avoided anything that got in the way of his family’s mission of expressing terroir. Pio proudly stated that in the 1990s they did not follow the trend of making over-extracted Barolo wines that he nicknamed “oak juice” and that the “Pio Cesare family style” was rooted in the idea of having a “loyalty” to the founder’s vision by continuing to focus on the pure expression of the fruit and the vineyards. The label for their classic Barolo wine has more or less stayed the same as well as keeping the unique way the founder, Cesare Pio, blended the different vineyards. They blend by filling up the fermenters with the same proportion of grapes from each of the vineyards and ferment them together, instead of the more common practice of blending that occurs after the wine is made. Pio said that this created better integration of the various vineyards and that this way of blending kept them from the temptation to tweak the blend at the end for technical reasons, sacrificing the true sense of Pio Cesare’s terroir; technical aspects do hold a priority at Pio Cesare but keeping the soul of the wine is more important.

Integrity of Family Style

Pio Boffa has lived through a lot of change and ups and downs in the wine world and he realizes how important it was for him to spend so much time as a child with his grandfather who impressed on him the great responsibility of making wine under the Pio Cesare name; during his formative years, over and over and over again, every decision in the vineyard, the winery and the cellar was revisited with his grandfather to stress the importance of never straying from the family style. That wisdom was passed on from father to son for four generations and now it is going to be passed on from father to daughter as Pio’s daughter Federica Rosy has just joined the business.

Pio said that it was ironic to look back on how quickly he had to grow up to make sure that when he was only 17 ½ he would take the weight of running the family business due to his father’s fear of immanent death considering what ultimately happened. “I started with the winery in 1972 and my dad passed away in December of 2000” Pio added as a big smile lit up his face. His father living a lot longer than expected was a real gift as despite his father treating Pio as the boss, his father was still vital in regards to discussing new ideas. “I was the innovator and he was the one holding me a little bit back at times – I was the fire and he was the water controlling the fire.” And today Pio Boffa, after four generations that started in the late 1800s, presents wines that can always be trusted to be true to the founder of Pio Cesare and the special experience of what the Nebbiolo grape variety can express from the top sites in Barolo that took the world by storm many decades ago.

2016 Pio Cesare, ‘Piodilei’, Langhe: 100% Chardonnay sourced from two family-owned vineyards: Il Bricco vineyard in Treiso (Barbaresco) and the Colombaro vineyard in Serralunga d’Alba (Barolo). This wine is decadently delicious on the nose with biscotti and marzipan with a hint of vanilla that is energetic and bright with fresh peach notes on the palate.

2015 Pio Cesare, Il Bricco Vineyard, Barbaresco: 100% Nebbiolo sourced from three different plots within their family-owned vineyard Il Bricco that is located in the village of Treiso. Beautifully layered fruit that was open immediately that had complex notes of nutmeg and crumbled rocks with well-integrated tannins along the aromatically lifted finish.

2015 Pio Cesare, Barolo: 100% Nebbiolo from family-owned vineyards in Serralunga d’Alba (Ornato, La Serra, Briccolina and Lirano), Grinzane Cavour (Gustava and Garretti), La Morra (Roncaglie), Novello (Ravera) and, since the 2015 vintage, Monforte (Mosconi). This 2015 Barolo slowly expanded over time with dark seductive fruit, pressed flowers with licorice and cigar notes dancing in the background on its fleshy palate that balanced the firm structure along the flavorful finish.  

2015 Pio Cesare, Ornato Vineyard, Barolo: 100% Nebbiolo from a small selection that comes from family-owned vineyard Ornato in Serralunga d’Alba that is noted by Pio Boffa, “as one of the most historical and prestigious areas of the entire Barolo region and it is very well known for great structure, tannins, freshness and longevity.” A very pretty nose of red fruit and orange blossom with an intriguing note of tar lingering in the background that had an incredible texture with tannins that felt like ribbons of silk that caressed the palate yet still lifted the fruit with a defined structure.

2015 Pio Cesare, Mosconi Vineyard, Barolo: 100% Nebbiolo from a small selection of the oldest Nebbiolo vines (1947 and 1971) that comes from the family-owned vineyard Mosconi in Monforte d’Alba. 2015 is the first vintage of single vineyard Mosconi and Pio Boffa noted, “very different from the style of our Barolo Ornato – equally great and unique, but with firmer and fruitier tannins, structure and austerity, and requiring more time to express itself.” There was a real purity to the blackberries and ripe stawberries aromas that was lovely with extra layers woven into the fruit that would evolve from dried herbs to smoky earth to an intense stony minerality that had a fierce drive along the linear palate that was framed by finely etched tannins.