Pio Cesare Barolo Pio DOCG

Piemonte, Italy

Vintage:2020 (Current)

2018 (Past) | 2019 (Past) |

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Pio Cesare Barolo Pio DOCG 2020
  • JS 97
  • JD 93+
  • WS 93
  • VFTC 93

Reviews

Wine Spectator 93 Points August 28, 2024, Bruce Sanderson

A mix of cherry, strawberry, rose, tar and underbrush aromas and flavors highlight this elegant, solidly built red. Supple in texture until dusty tannins emerge on the finish. Shows fine balance overall, with a super long finish. Best from 2027 through 2043.

View From the Cellar 93 Points August 2024, John Gilman

Pio Cesare’s 2020 Barolo “Pio” is a classic, blended Barolo, drawn upon a wide variety of different vineyard sources (all owned by the family) in townships such as Serralunga d’Alba, La Morra, Novello, Grinzane Cavour and Monforte d’Alba. As Bartolo Mascarello always insisted, no single vineyard Barolo can match the complexity of the old school blended bottlings. The wine is given thirty days of skin maceration and aged for fully three years in thirty percent barriques and seventy percent botti, both made of French oak. The 2020 version tips the scales at 14.5 percent alcohol and offers up a superb bouquet of red and black cherries, gamebird, a touch of camphor, beautiful spice tones, gentle notes of licorice, a complex base of soil tones that will go autumnal in due course, roses, peonies and a bit of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and beautifully balanced, with a lovely core of fruit, fine soil signature, ripe, buried tannins and fine focus on the long, complex and very promising finish. This is an excellent young Barolo! 2044-2100.

Jeb Dunnuck 93+ Points May 13, 2024, Audrey Frick

A youthful ripe ruby color, the 2020 Barolo Pio is fresh and inviting, with perfumed aromas of rose petals, spiced strawberries, and dusty earth. Elegant and juicy, it’s easy-drinking, with fine tannins and juicy freshness within a medium-bodied frame, and it has good length for an entry Barolo. It captures all the graceful elements of this vintage and has a tremendous amount of charm as well as a complete feel. Enjoy it now or over the next 10 years. It would be a great by-the-glass offering if the price is right.

JamesSuckling.com 97 Points January 16, 2024, James Suckling

Very primary fruit with beautiful aromas of peaches, strawberries, berries and flowers. It’s medium- to full-bodied, with bitter citrus, cedar, chocolate and coffee bean character. Tight at the end. From five villages, primarily Serralunga, Monforte, La Morra, Grinzane Cavour, and Novello. Needs two or three years to open and will age for a very long time.

Overview

The Pio Cesare family’s unique winemaking method stresses minimal intervention to produce wines of particularly supple flavor expression. A ceaseless devotion to the individuality of each of the region’s wines informs Pio Cesare's choices in the cellar: shorter maceration, separate lot fermentation, judicious selection for barrel and large cask aging, and bottling schedules determined by the ideal structure of each wine. This allows Pio Cesare to craft wines of varying weight, ageability and drinkability as determined by the vineyard rather than market fashion.

This Barolo is produced using the classic “formula” of traditional Barolo families: a wine which embraces and combines each of the unique characteristics of the different terroirs of the appellation, sourcing grapes from the family's multiple vineyards in different communes. 

Winemaking

The grapes are sourced from family-owned vineyards in Serralunga d’Alba (Ornato, la Serra, la Briccolina, Lirano), Grinzane Cavour (Gustava, Garretti), La Morra (Roncaglie), Novello (Ravera), and Monforte d’Alba (Mosconi). Vinification takes place in stainless steel tanks, with skin contact for about 30 days. The wine is aged in mid-toasted French oak for three years: 70 percent in 20 to 50 hectoliter casks; 30 percent in barriques.

Tasting Notes

A traditional vintage delivering fresh fruits and beautiful aromas, with great structure and complexity, intense color and a balanced acidity, already approachable with its gentle tannins—all the classic components of the great vintages of Barolo.

Harvest Notes

2020 has been a remarkably high-quality vintage and our vineyards turned out to be, in such a difficult and challenging year with the explosion of COVID-19, ideal examples of resilience and of the impressive force of Mother Nature, so cruel with human beings yet so full of mercy with the vines. Green harvesting—which kept us busy for almost one whole month, from the end of July to the end of August—was fundamental in 2020: the results of this practice are grapes with more concentration, depth, lower acidity, better phenological ripening and less green tannins. We are very much in love with the intense red fruit of the 2020 vintage—still very young but already very drinkable—rich and complex on the nose with a great depth especially in the Barolos.

The delicate use of the oak is very well integrated with the gentle tannins, the aromas and the acidity creating a harmonious balance, especially in the Barbarescos. A superb high-quality and accessible vintage which will as well reveal the great ageing potential of Nebbiolo.

Technical Information

Varietals: 100% Nebbiolo

Harvest Start Date: September 26, 2020

Harvest End Date: October 5, 2020