Augusto Boffa makes World Wine and Food Expo an annual stop
If you've ever visited the World Wine and Food Expo, you know that the people pouring you the wines at the booths are usually wine brokers from around the Atlantic region. But over the years, Metro Moncton's wine festival has grown in importance to the extent that there are now at least two-dozen top wine makers from around the world who come to join their Canadian agents at the grand tastings each year.
Augusto is making his fourth trip to the festival this year and can be found pouring wine alongside his agent for Atlantic Canada, Joel Fournier of Halifax-based Wine Visions, Inc. over at table 40.
Augusto is on the road about 125 days a year. He recently returned home to Piedmont from Siberia and will next week pack his bags for Moscow. Nevertheless, he flew in from Italy on Thursday just to spend two days pouring hundreds of samples of just two of his family's wines.
He will also no doubt speak in excellent English about how the winery produces 400,000 bottles a year, even though just 15 staff members pick all the grapes by hand from hillside terraces where no mechanical harvester could go.
Not that the standards of the family business would allow such a thing as mechanical harvesting anyway.
Asked Thursday how many casual labourers are brought in to help with the harvest each year, Augusto at first looked puzzled by the question and then alarmed at the notion.
The answer is the demands of quality control allow for only trusted hands in the vineyards.
"It's the most important moment for us, the picking of the grape. We make the selection."
Augusto might or might not mention that the walls of the family's wine cellars in the centre of Alba were actually built by the Romans about 50 years before the birth of Christ, since he may not fully grasp how amazing that is to us in the new world.
Not that tradition isn't everything. Augusto recounted how in the 1980's his cousin Pio Boffa, the president of the winery, returned from a trip from California (Pio's on the road 200 days a year) convinced the family should diversify into chardonnay to meet the tastes of the market.
According to Augusto, Pio's father Giuseppe made his feelings on the topic known with one simple sentence: "I'll kill you."
Father and son fought passionately on the subject for days before the women of the family, particularly Pio's mother Rosy Pio, used their subtle peace-making influences to convince father and son to settle their differences.
The Chardonnay Pio Cesare now produces, without sacrificing its core business of old world traditional Piemontese reds, is called Piodilei, which roughly translates to "Pio for the ladies" in tribute to Rosy's gentle but firm hand in its birth.
Rosy's strong hand continues. Now 87 years old, she is the family's definitive taster. It is still Rosy's nose and palate that must be delighted by every batch of wine, before it is deemed worthy for sale.
The family wine making lineage actually comes down through her. She is the great grandaughter of Cesare Pio, who inverted his Christian name and surname when he named the winery upon its founding in 1881.
After two long days of pouring the family's sumptuous red Fides Barbera and its semi-sweet limited production dessert wine Moscato d'Asti here in Metro Moncton, Augusto will hop on the first of a series of planes tomorrow headed back for Piedmont.
He has not timed his Metro visit to be part of any sort of regional or nationwide marketing tour as you might expect. He's literally crossed the ocean and five time zones out of a love for his work and a chance to meet some of his customers.
It isn't all work and no play for Augusto, though. Dana Clendenning, the president of the NB Liquor Corporation, made him the guest of honour at a special $80 a plate dinner held at Mavericks Thursday night. Diners enjoyed a four course meal created by chef Ray Fowler and sampled seven of Pio Cesare's wines while Augusto shared details of wine making in his native region.
Dana had heard of Augusto's dedication to the World Wine and Food Expo and was impressed he had made the trip three times even though New Brunswick is an admittedly small market.
As well, Alcool NB Liquor only typically carries eight of the company's 16 wines.
"For a producer to support his products like this, it's amazing," Dana said.
In Verona this spring for Vin Italy, one of the wine world's largest trade shows, Dana took time from securing the liquor corporation's inventory for next year to seek Augusto out and invite him to the special event.