Biography
Batasiolo is an estate in La Morra of an unusual size for Piedmont: two and a half million bottles of wine per year and 280 acres of proprietary vineyards, the largest producer of Nebbiolo grapes for Barolo in the entire Langhe area. Yet, for its owners, who are directly involved in running it, it is not their principal business: the Dogliani, in fact, are at the head of a galaxy of different business which revolve around a giant enterprise, the Inc Costruzioni Generali, which built the Frejus super-highway connecting Turin to Bardonecchia. Batasiolo was born in 1978 form the fusion of Fratelli Dogliani, the family winemaking firm, and Kiola, a much discussed but very large winery in La Morra which Matterino Dogliani, the creator of the highway construction company, had acquired from a multi-national corporation, the IDC (International Distillers Corporation, which controls Cinzano). IDC was eager to sell and stem the flow of annual losses which Kiola represented. The most urgent objective of Matterino Dogliani, who became president and then delegated operations to his brother Fiorenzo, was to cancel the name and somewhat inglorious past of Kiola, both achieved by changing the name to Batasiolo. A well thought-out move was to separate cellar and vineyard operations through the creation of a new firm, Beni di Batasiolo, to which the entire viticultural patrimony was conferred. With this strategy the Dogliani succeeded, with a well planned campaign of acquisitions, in putting together nine different vineyard blocks and become the largest producer of Nebbiolo grapes in the Barolo appellation. The Nebbiolo vines (approximately 1200 per acre) cover 150 of the 280 overall acres of vineyards (the total acreage of Beni di Batasiolo is some 300 acres). Among the 2.6-2.7 million bottles of annual production there are 270,000-300,000 of Barolo. In addition to the regular bottling, the firm also bottles four different Barolo crus: Bofani in Monforte d’Alba, Cerequio in La Morra, and Boscareto and Corda della Briccolina in Serralunga d’Alba.