James Suckling Interviews: Federica Boffa

In taking on Pio Cesare in 2021, you had been answerable for not solely respecting the legacy and imaginative and prescient of your late father and his dedication to creating world-class wines, but additionally guaranteeing that Pio Cesare, as a enterprise and within the wines supplied, was reflecting you and a contemporary method. How have you ever and your workforce managed this stability? What are a few of the new instructions you’ve taken?

Once I took the function it was, in fact, sudden as a result of my father handed away from Covid. However I used to be properly skilled and properly ready as a result of I used to be born into this vineyard and the wine world. Rising up, I had the pleasure of assembly many essential folks of the wine enterprise, together with James. I used to be raised within the vineyards and within the cellar. Once I took the place, we had been very fortunate as a result of the whole lot was already working. The top quality was there, the distribution was there and so was the model recognition. And we had the assist of many good buddies.

Being a standard producer, we’ll all the time be very a lot targeted on custom. However I all the time say we must always contemplate custom not as a cage, however as a place to begin. The custom is de facto our heritage, which is made up of the vineyards, of the standard of our wines, of our workforce, of our folks, our distribution. However ranging from there, I imagine that we must always all the time be fascinated with the long run whereas respecting our previous.

‘The custom is de facto our heritage.’

 

For instance, the choice of beginning work on development of the brand new cellar. We’re positioned within the historic heart of the city of Alba and we’re the one producer nonetheless making wine within the historic heart of the city. We’re not shifting. We’re merely occurring the opposite aspect of the street, increasing the precise cellar.

Additionally, we’re focusing extra on the manufacturing of white wine, which has actually developed in the previous few years, not solely by way of high quality, but additionally by way of amount. We’re – and I’m personally – very targeted on white wine. I imagine that’s the space the place we may experiment extra as a result of we have now very strict appellation guidelines [with the reds] that we have now to comply with. There’s probably not area to innovate with these wines.