Pio Cesare Barolo DOCG 1500ml

A classic style Barolo. Excellent structure, harmony and elegance. Soft tannins and balanced fruit. Approachable, but with a very long ageing potential.

2011

Wine Advocate 92+: The 2011 Barolo offers a classic approach to Nebbiolo and has done so consistently for decades. Pio Cesare is a benchmark producer with a production philosophy that remains the same year after year, thus giving ample room to vintage variation. This handsome edition presents a dark fruit profile with black cherry and cassis. The wine evolves slowly in the glass to reveal tarry notes of licorice and light spice. Its delineated and focused approach is reinforced by its streamlined mouthfeel and delicate complexity. Pio Cesare has produced 80,000 bottles of its base Barolo.

James Suckling 95: This is a fabulous young Barolo with a purity and beauty that is breathtaking. Full body plus a deep and subtle center palate of strawberry, light cherry and hints of citrus. Really superb. Drink or hold.

2012

Wine Advocate 94: Pio Cesare has produced a small miracle with the 2012 Barolo. In a vintage that saw many nondescript wines, this Nebbiolo is bursting with energy and personality. The bouquet opens to an exciting sense of freshness with bright cherry and wild berry at the forefront. You also get balsam herb and mint, with cola and licorice in generous supply at the back. The wine should evolve slowly over the next ten years.

James Suckling 95: This is a young Barolo that builds on the palate with super silky tannins and fantastic pure and delicious fruit. Hints of hazelnut, plum and dark berry character. Full and polished tannins. Better in 2019 but so delicious now.

2016

Wine Advocate 95: Traditionalists happily fall back to this wine from Pio Cesare. This historic winery, now in its fifth generation and located within the city limits of Alba, takes care to shape a classic interpretation without too many extra bells or whistles. The fact that Pio Cesare now has the flashier Barolo Ornato and the newly created Barolo Mosconi, only gives more importance to this wine. The Pio Cesare 2016 Barolo offers deep, dark fruit with a mingling of spice, smoke, tar and smoke. This wine represents a blend of fruit from five comuni, or villages: Cascina Ornato, La Serra and Briccolina in Serralunga d'Alba; Gustava and Garretti in Grinzane Cavour; Roncaglie in La Morra; Ravera in Novello; and starting with the 2015 vintage, Mosconi in Monforte d’Alba. An ample 60,000 bottles were produced.

James Suckling 95: Pretty sweetness and ripeness to this with cherries, dried strawberries and chocolate. It’s full-bodied with round, firm tannins. Very long and intense. A little tight now. Complex and subtle at this stage. Give it two or three years to come around.

Decanter 92: Widely sourced, from family-owned vineyards in Novello and Grinzane Cavour as well as more celebrated villages, this Barolo shows admirable opulence on the nose, with sweet cherry fruit but no trace of jamminess. Firm and spicy, it displays excellent vigour and presence, and shows more weight and perhaps better balance than the Barbaresco, and good acidity gives persistence and refinement. Long.

Wine Enthusiast 96: Enticingly fragrant, this wine offers alluring scents of iris, rose, perfumed berry and wild herb. It's full bodied and elegant, delivering crushed raspberry, juicy Marasca cherry, star anise and orange zest set against a backbone of taut, fine-grained tannins. Bright acidity keeps it balanced and lends intensity. Drink 2024–2036.

2019

Wine Advocate 95: Pio Cesare does a great job with its classic 2019 Barolo (in production since 1881). The bottom of the front label reads "Barolo Pio" in memory of the legendary Pio Boffa. He was a wine entrepreneur who gained the immediate respect and love of all those who knew him. He passed away tragically during the COVID-19 pandemic just as the vaccines were being rolled out. This is a large production of about 70,000 bottles with fruit sourced from across seven vineyards in five villages. Despite those ambitious numbers, the wine remains strictly focused on bright Nebbiolo fruit with red cassis and aniseed. The finish is smooth with tannins that elegantly dissolve over the palate.

James Suckling 94: Lovely perfumes of flowers, fresh strawberries and raspberries follow through to a medium- to full-bodied palate with fine tannins that run the length of the wine. Citrus and spice undertones. Finishes long and intense. Tannic finish.