Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba 2019

Lockett Bros Wine of the Week – East Lothian Courier 3 April 2014

“Once regarded as fairly ordinary due to being so widely planted, the most planted varietal in Piedmont, North-West Italy in fact, Barbera has in recent years seen a huge upgrade in its fortunes and image. Previously light and austere, used for washing down wondrous local cuisine and paving the way on more special occasions for more serious bottles of red wine made from Nebbiolo. Well known for producing a wine with high acid and low tannin, its recent success has been thanks to more careful growers with sites more specifically suited to it and therefore have the ability to produce a wine with more concentration and style. Pio Cesare are precisely one of those growers and it’s their Barbera d’Alba (£16.99) which I believe is just about the finest example of quality Barbera that I’ve ever tasted. Amazingly, grapes come from their own vineyards within the Barolo DOC region south of Alba and this quality juice then spends 18 months in a combination of new and old French oak. The results are phenomenal and it’s down to the extraordinary level of production and vineyard sites that lead to such a structured and complex wine. Plummy, spicy and ripe fruit, blackberry aroma and a hint of toasted tobacco.”