Italy · Oltrepò Pavese

Tenuta Mazzolino

A Pinot Nero estate in the Oltrepò Pavese DOC of southern Lombardy, organized on Burgundian lines and built around a single-vineyard flagship called Noir from the Regina parcel.

The producer

Tenuta Mazzolino is a 21-hectare Pinot Nero estate in the Oltrepò Pavese DOC, where the Lombard plain rises into the Apennine foothills on the right bank of the Po. Enrico Braggiotti acquired and developed the property around the turn of the 1980s, ran experimental batches from 1982, and released the first official Noir vintage in 1985. The range has two Pinot Nero wines: Noir, a single-parcel wine from the Regina vineyard cold-soaked at 4°C and aged in 228-liter Remond barriques, and Terrazze, a multi-parcel wine aged six months in steel. The 39 vineyards parcels are managed separately, each with distinct soil and exposure, and the cellar has been shaped by Burgundy-trained oenologist Kyriakos Kynigopoulos since 1998.

Francesca Seralvo, Enrico's granddaughter, returned full-time in 2015 and formally took over after his death in 2019. Farming follows organic principles: no synthetic fertilizers, only copper and sulfur treatments, and cover crops of field beans, alfalfa, and phacelia sown between the rows. The Burgundian conviction that started with Enrico, confirmed by a 1984 dinner with Luigi Veronelli and Giacomo Bologna, runs unchanged through every decision the estate makes today.

Known for

Single-varietal Pinot Nero from the Po's right bank, vinified with whole-berry cold soak at 4°C and aged in Burgundy-style 228-liter Remond barriques.

Notable facts

The story

The Dinner That Started Noir

In 1984, Luigi Veronelli and Giacomo Bologna sat down to dinner with Enrico Braggiotti. Veronelli was Italy's most authoritative wine critic; Bologna urged Enrico to make a red from Pinot Nero. Both of them told Enrico, over the table, that he should stop hedging and make a real red from the Pinot Nero on his hill. Oltrepò Pavese had almost no single-varietal Pinot Nero of any ambition at the time, and Enrico had been running small batches and experiments since 1982 without committing to a named wine. The dinner was the push. He went back to the estate and planned the first official release. The 1985 Noir, the product of that decision, became the wine the estate is still built around.

From the atlas

Tenuta Mazzolino

At A Glance

The Producer

Tenuta Mazzolino is a Pinot Nero estate in the Oltrepò Pavese DOC of southern Lombardy, organized from its first serious vintage around a Burgundian conviction: that a single hill on the right bank of the Po, where the flat plain rises into the Apennine foothills, could produce a single-varietal red of genuine depth. The estate's 21 hectares run across 39 separately managed parcels on clay soils. Its flagship, Noir, draws from one named parcel, Regina, and has been vinified in the Burgundian manner since the mid-1980s.

Francesca Seralvo runs the estate today. She is the granddaughter of Enrico Braggiotti, who acquired and developed the property around the turn of the 1980s after identifying what he called the "collina del Pinot Nero," the Pinot Nero hill. Her mother Sandra led the estate between Enrico's generation and Francesca's return in 2015; Francesca formally took over after Enrico's death in 2019. The current team pairs wine grower Stefano Malchiodi with Burgundy-trained oenologist Kyriakos Kynigopoulos, who has shaped the cellar work since 1998.

Place

Oltrepò Pavese sits on the right bank of the Po, south of the river and south of Pavia, where the Lombard plain tilts upward into the northern Apennines. The name means "beyond the Po in Pavia province," and the wines carry the Oltrepò Pavese DOC designation. Tenuta Mazzolino's vineyards sit along the 45th parallel, the same latitude as Burgundy's Côte d'Or, at an altitude where cool nights extend the growing season and preserve the natural acidity that Pinot Nero needs.

The appellation allows a number of varieties, but Mazzolino has worked almost exclusively in Pinot Nero since Enrico Braggiotti's founding commitment to the grape. Noir carries the DOC's Pinot Nero designation on the label. The multi-parcel Terrazze sits at the village entry level of the range. The place is not famous in the way that Barolo or Amarone are famous, which is partly why the Burgundian parallel sits at the centre of the estate's argument: the hill and the latitude are serious, even if the appellation is not yet a household name.

Soil And Site

The vineyards lie on clay hillsides that run down from the Apennine foothills toward the Po plain. The soil profile is primarily clay, with sandy or arenaceous material and calcareous-gypsum veins.

The 39 parcels that make up the estate's vineyard have distinct exposures and soil textures. Each is managed separately, which is why the same 21 hectares can produce a multi-parcel wine like Terrazze and a single-vineyard flagship like Noir from the Regina parcel: the raw material is genuinely different across the hill.

Story

Enrico Braggiotti acquired and developed the Mazzolino property around the turn of the 1980s. His conviction about the hill's suitability for Pinot Nero was an argument against regional habit: Oltrepò Pavese had plenty of volume wine and sparkling production, but serious single-varietal Pinot Nero from a named estate was almost nonexistent. Enrico pushed toward it anyway, running trials and experimental batches before releasing the first official Noir vintage in 1985.

In 1998 he read a profile of Kyriakos Kynigopoulos in Le Figaro and contacted him directly to come to the estate as oenologist. Kynigopoulos had trained in Burgundy, and his arrival formalized what Enrico had always been working toward: a Burgundian-style approach to vinification and cellar ageing. In 2002 the nineteenth-century cellar gained a dedicated barrique room, built with 228-liter Remond barriques in the Burgundian format.

Francesca Seralvo returned full-time to run the estate in 2015 and took formal ownership after her grandfather's death in 2019. She has continued the Burgundian direction while shifting vineyard management further toward organic principles: no synthetic fertilizers, only copper and sulfur treatments, and cover crops of field beans, alfalfa, and phacelia sown between the rows.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 39 parcels are worked as individual units. Each has its own exposure, soil texture, and harvest timing, and the decision to manage them separately rather than as a single estate block allows Mazzolino to select and route fruit precisely.

In the cellar, Noir begins with destemmed whole berries entering steel vessels for a cold soak at 4°C lasting seven to nine days. The cold phase draws aromatic compounds and light tannin from the skins without extracting the harsh phenolics that a warm soak would produce, a technique borrowed directly from the Côte d'Or. Fermentation follows, and the wine moves into 228-liter Remond barriques for ageing. Terrazze, the multi-parcel wine, takes a different route: six months in steel, no oak, preserving the fresher, more immediately aromatic side of the Pinot Nero fruit.

Green manure replaces fertilizers across the estate. Field beans, alfalfa, and phacelia are sown between the rows and turned back into the soil, maintaining organic matter without synthetic inputs. Treatments are limited to copper and sulfur.

Wines

The range is built on two Pinot Nero wines and reflects the Burgundian hierarchy the estate has followed from the beginning.

Terrazze is a multi-parcel Pinot Nero drawing from several of the 39 separately managed plots. It ages six months in steel with no oak contact, which keeps the fruit forward, the tannins light, and the colour bright. Red cherry, dried herbs, and a clean mineral edge are typical of the style. It is the estate's wider-address Pinot Nero: approachable at a younger age, less concentrated than Noir, and intended to give access to the hill's character without the deeper extraction and barrel work of the flagship.

Noir is 100% Pinot Nero from the Regina vineyard, the single-parcel heart of the estate. The cold soak builds colour and aromatic lift before fermentation, and the Remond barriques add a spice and toasty oak note that integrates slowly during ageing. The wine is darker, denser, and more tannic than Terrazze, with a concentrated mid-palate and firm tannin. It develops in bottle over a decade or more. Decanter reviewed the 2017 vintage.

In The Glass

Noir opens with dark cherry, dried violet, and a faint earth note. The cold soak gives it more aromatic complexity and deeper colour than a standard Pinot Nero from a warmer extraction, and the Remond barriques add a discreet cedar and spice character that sits behind the fruit rather than over it. In the mouth the wine is medium to full-bodied for the variety, with a concentrated mid-palate, firm tannin, and a long finish. The acidity is firm and fresh, a function of the altitude and the cool nights along the 45th parallel, and it holds the fruit and oak in balance through a long finish.

Terrazze is lighter in every register: paler, more immediately cherry-scented, with softer tannin and a brighter, shorter finish. The steel ageing preserves a freshness that lets it work as a young wine in a way that Noir does not.

A Bottle To Understand It

Noir is the bottle. It is 100% Pinot Nero from the Regina parcel, cold-soaked at 4°C for up to nine days, then aged in 228-liter Remond barriques. Start with Noir to understand what the Regina parcel produces and what Kynigopoulos does with it.

Anecdote

In 1984, Luigi Veronelli and Giacomo Bologna sat down to dinner with Enrico Braggiotti. Veronelli was Italy's most authoritative wine critic; Bologna urged Enrico to make a red from Pinot Nero. Both of them told Enrico, over the table, that he should stop hedging and make a real red from the Pinot Nero on his hill. Oltrepò Pavese had almost no single-varietal Pinot Nero of any ambition at the time, and Enrico had been running small batches and experiments since 1982 without committing fully to a named wine. The dinner was the push. He went back to the estate and started planning the first official release. The 1985 Noir, the product of that decision, became the wine the estate is still built around.

Final Word

Tenuta Mazzolino has spent four decades making the case that one hill in southern Lombardy can produce Pinot Nero in the Burgundian style. The 39 parcels, the cold-soak cellar method, the Remond barriques, and Kyriakos Kynigopoulos's long tenure as oenologist are not decorative choices. They are the accumulated result of Enrico Braggiotti's founding conviction, a 1984 dinner that gave it a deadline, and three generations of a family that has not changed direction since.

Sources

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