Winemaker Notes
This is a single-vineyard Barolo from very ripe grapes of three different plots of the famous Pio Cesare family's Ornato Estate in Serralunga d'Alba, one of the top vineyards in the whole Barolo area. It is fermented in stainless steel with skin contact for 15 days and aged in mid-toasted French oak botti for 36 months, with a small quantity aged in barriques for the first 12 months.
Serve with red meat dishes, game, truffle, and/or mature cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is beautifully crafted with ultra-fine tannins with cherries, berries, and flowers. Medium to full body. Lovely length. Very classic in structure. Linear and racy. Tight at the end. Give it four to six years of bottle age. Try after 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
The 2019 Ornato highlights how special this vineyard is with grace and structure combined into pure class. Dark cherry aromas are nestled between wild herbs, flowers and savory spices that push and pull your attention with each taste. Sturdy and well-structured, this wine is built for tomorrow, when all parts will relax into one another to reveal just how great this wine is. Drink 2028–2045.
Cellar Selection -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Pio Cesare 2019 Barolo Ornato sources its fruit from one of the best-known MGA sites in Serralunga d'Alba. The character of this wine always prizes structure and power, and these qualities are especially evident in a vintage like 2019 that offers more concentrated fruit to begin with. Ornato is infused with dark berry nuances contrasted against savory tones of spice, tar and smoke. It closes with finely textured tannins.
Rating:95+ -
Jeb Dunnuck
Introspective but expressive, the 2019 Barolo Ornato takes on more spice and savor with its notes of black licorice and cedar and is bolder in and broader in its expression. It has a more solar and warming feel, with medium to full body, ample structure, and fantastic length. This more serious and broad-shouldered wine will benefit from time in the cellars and move into more leather and red plum tones in the future. Drink 2025-2045.
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Wine Spectator
An inviting red, offering ripe plum, cherry, earth, eucalyptus, iron and tobacco flavors. Turns denser and slightly chewy on the finish, where earth and vegetal elements echo. All the components are here, so be patient. Best from 2027 through 2047.
Pio Cesare has been producing wine for more than 100 years and through generations. The tradition began in 1881, when Pio Cesare started gathering grapes in his vineyards and purchasing those of some selected and reliable farmers in the hills of Barolo and Barbaresco districts.
At Pio Cesare, there has always been a conviction that great wine can come only from the finest grapes and the winery's output has always been limited through adherence to the highest standards. Pio Cesare limits its production by using only the most mature and healthy grapes. The ripening of the grapes is carefully monitored and the harvest is rigidly controlled with each grape selected by hand.
Today, the estate is managed by Pio Boffa, great-grandson of Pio Cesare. Under his stewardship, the wines of Pio Cesare have become famous throughout the world. Great strides have been made in quality, and single vineyard offerings have dazzled the wine press.
Responsible for some of the most elegant and age-worthy wines in the world, Nebbiolo, named for the ubiquitous autumnal fog (called nebbia in Italian), is the star variety of northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Grown throughout the area, as well as in the neighboring Valle d’Aosta and Valtellina, it reaches its highest potential in the Piedmontese villages of Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. Outside of Italy, growers are still very much in the experimentation stage but some success has been achieved in parts of California. Somm Secret—If you’re new to Nebbiolo, start with a charming, wallet-friendly, early-drinking Langhe Nebbiolo or Nebbiolo d'Alba.
The center of the production of the world’s most exclusive and age-worthy red wines made from Nebbiolo, the Barolo wine region includes five core townships: La Morra, Monforte d’Alba, Serralunga d’Alba, Castiglione Falletto and the Barolo village itself, as well as a few outlying villages. The landscape of Barolo, characterized by prominent and castle-topped hills, is full of history and romance centered on the Nebbiolo grape. Its wines, with the signature “tar and roses” aromas, have a deceptively light garnet color but full presence on the palate and plenty of tannins and acidity. In a well-made Barolo wine, one can expect to find complexity and good evolution with notes of, for example, strawberry, cherry, plum, leather, truffle, anise, fresh and dried herbs, tobacco and violets.
There are two predominant soil types here, which distinguish Barolo from the lesser surrounding areas. Compact and fertile Tortonian sandy marls define the vineyards farthest west and at higher elevations. Typically the Barolo wines coming from this side, from La Morra and Barolo, can be approachable relatively early on in their evolution and represent the “feminine” side of Barolo, often closer in style to Barbaresco with elegant perfume and fresh fruit.
On the eastern side of the Barolo wine region, Helvetian soils of compressed sandstone and chalks are less fertile, producing wines with intense body, power and structured tannins. This more “masculine” style comes from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga d’Alba. The township of Castiglione Falletto covers a spine with both soil types.
The best Barolo wines need 10-15 years before they are ready to drink, and can further age for several decades.