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I have been running into Pio Boffa at various forums in Italy, France and
India during the last six years. He was in town earlier this month and I
had once again an opportunity of meeting him and tasting some of his wines
at a dinner hosted by Hyatt and his importer Sovereign Impex. Earlier, I
had gabbed the opportunity of catching up with him for a few minutes, which
ended up as a two hour chat.
A few months ago when I was visiting Dogliani in Piemonte, our hostess Nicoletta
Bocca, owner of San Fereolo winery was driving us to Canale in the Roero
region of the Barolo country, for wine tasting and dinner at the Michelin
starred restaurant at L'Enoteca Regionale del Roero.
On our way, she had driven through the heart of Alba specially to pick up
a fellow wine journalist from Malaysia. It was only a few kilometres later
that he told me he had been in Pio Boffa's home which also housed the Pio
Cesare winery. Had I known, I would have loved to go out and say hello to
Boffa who had 'just returned from New York'.
Winery
in Downtown Alba
What had baffled me was Boffa's winery being bang in the mid of a well
inhabited city. In a place like Delhi, where thousands of commercial units
were sealed last year because of a Supreme Court order, a winery like
that would have been surely sealed.
Explained Pio to me,' Over a hundred years ago when Pio was founded, the
wineries were not located outside the villages like Barolo and Barbaresco
now, simply because the mode of transportation was railways and the railheads
were in big cities. Alba is a big city in Piemonte and was very central
and popular for making Barolos. Now most of the wineries have moved out
near the vineyards but we have decided to stay in Alba and are perhaps
the only winery in the area.'
This is also the reason why Pio Cesare is allowed to produce Barolo and
Barbaresco in Alba when the Appellation laws framed in 1966 (DOC in the
beginning and got elevated to the DOCG status in 1980) directed that to
get the respective certification, the grapes must be from the particular
region and the bottling must also be in the region of the appellation.
Alba is not included in the 11 comunes that form Barolo appellation.
Traditional modernist
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Pio is a traditionalist who treads the path of modernisation very carefully.
Like other older producers of Barolo, he believes in the typicity of Barolo.
'Why should we make a Barolo like Bordeaux or a Burgundy wine?' 'We must
stick to our own characteristic style, he adds.
Another characteristic of Piemontese he does not hide is 'our stubborn character.
We all think we are prima donnas. It is difficult for us to come to a common
agreement on
any issue, including wine making technique.'
When I told him about Angelo Gaja's moving away from Nebbiolo and adding
Cabernets to make different and more interesting wines, he said, 'This is
precisely my point. We have to take our own decisions within the Appellation
to determine the level of change we want to bring.'
With the world opting for younger wines, Barolo has also been affected.
'We have to make wines which can be drunk younger rather than wait for 7-10
years before we can open the bottle', he adds. , 'unfortunately it becomes
a negative factor for Barolos as you cannot make good Barolo that you can
drink young-it needs aging in the barrel. It is difficult to drink a 3-4
year Barolo'. Boffa uses Allier's medium toasted French barrels for his
Barolos and would prefer his Barolos to be drunk after 5 years though they
would age for 15-20 years or even more.
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