Gaja (wine)

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Bottle of a 1994 Gaja Sperss Barolo DOCG

Gaja is an Italian wine producer based in Barbaresco in the Langhe region , Piedmont . The company's roots lie in the production of Barbaresco . Since the 1980s, the company has expanded its range to include wines from other areas of Piedmont and Tuscany and today also produces Barolo , Brunello di Montalcino and so-called Super Tuscans . The current owner and president, Angelo Gaja, is known for having had a major impact on wine production across Italy with his oenological and economic practices.

As a status symbol, his wines are placed on a par with Château Lafite-Rothschild or Krug .

history

The Gaja family came from Spain in the 17th century. The Gaja winery was founded in 1859 by Giovanni Gaja - a grape producer in Barbaresco - when he opened a tavern in his home village where his own wines were served with the dishes. As early as the end of the 19th century, the winery was delivering bottled wines to the Italian army in Abyssinia , which was an unusual circumstance as it was not until the 1960s that bottled wines were bottled in this area.

In the second generation, Angelo Gaja (the grandfather of the current owner) and his wife Clotilda Rey set important impulses for the quality philosophy of the house. The latter in particular insisted on aligning the company policy in such a way that high quality and a high price level were achieved in order to bind the desired customers to the company and to consolidate the prestige of the products. In 1937, the company put the name "Gaja" in large red letters on the labels of the wine bottles for the first time, thus laying an important foundation stone for the "Gaja" brand.

The grandson of the company founder, Giovanni Gaja (* 1908), became a surveyor before he took over his parents' business. In addition to wine, Giovanni Gaja also deals with real estate and other brokerage. At that time, the “geometra” of a village was also an economic advisor and broker of sales, since practically all economic information of the village was available to him. His office was in Alba and during the building boom after the Second World War, he and a Turin-based construction company looked after the construction sites of almost all of Piedmont. He invested the profits from these businesses by purchasing a number of vineyards in what is now the DOCG area of ​​Barbaresco and, with 81 hectares, became one of the largest producers in this area. In addition, the company secured a high proportion of good locations. The vineyards with which Gaja became internationally known - Costa Russi, Sori Tildin, Sori San Lorenzo - came into the possession of the family at this time.

Angelo Gaja

In 1961 Angelo Gaja (* 1940) took over the winery in the fourth generation from his father, who was also mayor (1958–1983) of Barbaresco at the time. Angelo Gaja (the great-grandson of the company founder) studied winemaking at the Oenological Institute in Alba and at the University of Montpellier / France . He also holds a degree in Economics from the University of Turin . At that time there were only around 100 winemakers producing Barbaresco and Barolo and among them Gaja was already Barbaresco's largest vineyard owner.

In the first few years of his takeover, Angelo Gaja introduced various techniques to modernize the vinification of Nebbiolo . Many of these measures were influenced by his trips to the important wine-growing regions of France. Some innovations related to the work in the vineyard, such as pruning, stock density, alignment of the rows of vines and strict regulation of the yield , e.g. B. through the so-called "green harvest" (ital. Diradamento ). The use of international grape varieties, which until then had been largely unknown in the Barbaresco area, caused a particular stir.

Angelo Gaja also used new methods in the cellar technology together with the oenologist Guido Rivella, who joined the company in 1970. Gaja pursued the further development of temperature-controlled fermentation with the help of adjustable fermentation tanks and the targeted use of an early controlled malolactic fermentation . The winery used off after a ten-year experimental phase crop years 1975/76 small French oak barrels ( barriques ).

In order to further develop his company, Angelo Gaja attached particular importance to the marketing of his wines. The production of the first single vineyard wines was probably also influenced by the French model: Sorí San Lorenzo 1967, Sorí Tildin 1970 and Costa Russi 1978.

Thus, Gaja, together with the Produttori del Barbaresco , who also produced their first single-site wine with the 1967 harvest, was the first producer in this region to develop and market their wines following this concept.

In addition, he introduced very high prices at Grand Cru level in his winery, as he was of the opinion that exceptional quality should also be reflected in the price and that the wines can thus play a role on the international market.

In 1978 Gaja had a first-class Nebbiolo site in Barbaresco planted with Cabernet Sauvignon vines. For this purpose, he had several soil samples from three vineyards examined. It just so happened that the vineyard next to his father's house was best suited for this grape variety. He thought it was a shame to grow a foreign grape variety in one of the best Barbaresco sites. Angelo Gaja ironically called the wine produced here Darmagi - a "shame".

In 1979 the "Gaia & Rey" vineyard in Treiso was planted with Chardonnay vines, and in 1983 the "Alteni di Brassica" site in Barbaresco was planted with Sauvignon Blanc .

Sori San Lorenzo - A single site wine from Gaja

In 1988 Gaja turned back to the Barolo and bought 28 hectares of vineyards there, having previously leased vineyards there and then ceased operations because his strategy was based on owning the vineyards. The Barolo "Sperss" was first sold in 1992. Gaja made further acquisitions in Montalcino , Tuscany - in 1994 the "Pieve Santa Restituta" winery and the "Ca'Marcanda" winery in Bolgheri . In the Brunello scandal (some manufacturers were accused and convicted of unauthorized blending with foreign grape varieties) he behaved diplomatically. His daughter Gaia said her father was not a proponent of changing the traditional rules of Brunello-making. In 1995 he acquired the “Gromis” winery in La Morra , Province of Cuneo for the production of the Barolo “Conteisa Cerequio”.

With the 1996 harvest, Angelo Gaja voluntarily downgraded his DOCG wines Barbaresco and Barolo, with the exception of one, to the lower level of the DOC wine " Langhe Nebbiolo ". Gaja gave the reason that he wanted to stay free to add small percentages (five to six percent) of international grape varieties as a "correction of the acidity". He continued: “I know what many journalists and others in the industry have been saying and are still saying, but my decision was only to support Barbareso. My family had their focus on Barbaresco made from Nebbiolo grapes from 14 vineyards of the winery and that was always the traditional wine of the winery. But as our single-site wines gained more and more prestige, the Barbaresco was only seen as 'normal' or 'basic', below the single-site wines, which I never wanted. My family has been making wine and has striven for excellence for over 150 years. I don't want anything we do to be seen as 'ordinary' ”. The only Barbaresco that he makes is of course, as the Denominazione dictates, made 100% from Nebbiolo. But he mixes small amounts of Barbera in his single-site wines (Sori Tildin, Sori San Lorenzo and Costa Russi) . Although they are categorized in the lower DOC appellation, these fetch exorbitantly high prices. The small 2-hectare winery of the great-grandfather has developed into a business that cultivates more than 100 hectares of vineyards in Piedmont alone and other vineyards in Tuscany and exports its wines all over the world.

At the age of 70, Angelo Gaja handed over the day-to-day business of his company to his daughters Gaia and Rossana Gaja, although he himself says he is not retired.

Angelo Gaja in the public eye

Angelo Gaja is considered a modernist in the Barbaresco area and his symbolic decisions to plant international grape varieties and to expand his wines in barriques took place at a time of upheaval in the Italian wine world. In the early 1970s caused a category of wines for attention, the Super Tuscans (Supertuscans) were called. With these, the producers tried to produce very high-quality and high-priced wines without adhering to the production regulations for quality wines that were valid in Tuscany at the time. These wines did not correspond to a uniform profile, as they were produced according to the individual ideas of the producers or according to the requirements of the wine market. The use of barriques and international grape varieties - the composition of which was often influenced by Bordeaux wines - were the connecting elements of these wines, which served to adapt to an internationally influenced taste profile.

Gaja stated that he produced his internationally influenced wines because he believed that only with a large Cabernet matured in barriques could he convince the world that Italy was also able to produce great wines. It was only because he was successful in this and the rest of the world accepted it that he was able to draw attention to great wines made from autochthonous grape varieties.

The disputes regarding the use of international grape varieties, however, fell at a time when many winemakers in the Barolo / Barbaresco and Brunello areas were suspected of adding unauthorized foreign grape varieties to their wines. In the case of Brunello, this was even the starting point for the Brunello scandal ("Brunellogate"). At the height of this scandal, Angelo Gaja called in an open letter to relax the Brunello production regulations and to allow the addition of international grape varieties in new regulations. Gaja, who bought the Brunello winery "Pieve Santa Restituta" in 1994, described in his letter the outstanding economic importance of national and international investors for the area. Both the area under cultivation and the number of wine-growing businesses have increased significantly thanks to the investments and are now playing an important role on the international wine market. Unfortunately, the original cultivation zones in which the Sangiovese are able to achieve optimal results are only very limited. This means that only a minority of producers have vineyards that are suitable for the production of a great wine from single-varietal Sangiovese. The majority of the now strongly grown winegrowers are now exposed to the double disadvantage of being unable to acquire high-quality land and, moreover, being forced by the production regulations to exclusively use the Sangiovese grape variety in order to be able to market their wine as Brunello di Montalcino. Gaja saw these regulations threaten the economic future of the region. For his opponents, however, the identity and continued existence of this wine was in danger.

In the Barolo area, too, there was a fierce dispute between modernists and traditionalists. One of Angelo Gaja's opponents here was the famous Barolo winemaker Bartolo Mascarello . A public dispute between these two people has been handed down, which thematizes the "new" wine style that Angelo Gaja had significantly established in his home region. In this Gaja describes his vision of an economically prosperous Langhe, in which wines are produced that correspond to an international taste profile and are on a level with the great wines of the world. "I dream of a profound innovation in the world of wine that cannot occur without new protagonists."

Bartolo Mascarello opposes the new fashion wines, some of which have imaginary names (e.g. Darmagi) on their labels and whose taste profile is based on the requirements of the market. As a consequence, Mascarello describes a foreign industrial wine production that can be produced more cheaply, flexibly and without any historical background. This threatens the cultural heritage and the true value of wine in this region.

The downgrading of Gaja's single-vineyard wines to "Langhe-DOC" wines also sparked disputes. According to the wine house, this should strengthen the position of Barbaresco, but by far the highest prices are charged for the single-site wines produced outside of the DOCG regulations, which means that the winery considers them the most valuable products. This point also shows a parallel to the market in Tuscany, because here too the super Tuscans form the top of the price and quality hierarchy and not the Chianti DOCG wines.

Even if Gaja has often been criticized as a modernist who jeopardized the typicality of Nebbiolo, it is pointed out that he did not uncritically adopt all the fashions of the innovators. Gaja is one of the few top wineries in Italy that uses natural yeast strains for alcoholic fermentation. Furthermore, he let his wines ferment for up to 30 days, as usual - in contrast to the very short fermentation times (often only 5 days) in other wineries. Unlike other modernizers, he also used new oak barrels, which have a strong influence on the taste profile, but managed this in a comparatively moderate manner. Although he used barriques (only ⅓ new oak) for the first year of maturation, the process is in large "botti" (traditionally 10 to over 100 hectoliters) barrels made from Slavonian oak or old chestnut, some of which are 80–120 years old are finished. He is now using the new oak barrels even more carefully so that the extreme barrique notes with vanilla no longer cover the typical scent of tar and roses. Some Piedmontese winemakers were impressed by Gaja's wines. B. Renato Ratti and Aldo Conterno , while Bruno Giacosa is seen as an opposite pole.

Gaja's advocacy of uncompromising quality is widely recognized. So he refused to put the Gaja label on 1,100 hl of the 1984 Barbaresco. Instead, he decided to sell the wine in bulk. "That wasn't a bad wine," said Gaja, "but it wasn't good enough for Gaja's prestige."

The series of his awards is long. So wrote z. For example, the American wine magazine "Wine Spectator" stated that Gaja's 1985 Barbarescos were "the best wines ever made in Italy". Angelo Gaja was even named “Man of the Year” for “Decanter” magazine. and in 2008 the editors of the most important Italian wine guide " Vini d'Italia " named the Gaja winery "Winery of the Year". In addition to these “official” awards, he is given numerous names such as: “King of Barbaresco”, “the man who brought Piedmont into the modern world”, or just “Angelo Nazionale”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Nicolas Belfrage: Barolo to Valpolicella, The Wines of Northern Italy . Faber & Faber, New York 1999, ISBN 978-1-84000-901-9 , pp. 84-87 .
  2. ↑ a b Tim Atkin: Roll out the Barolo . In: The Guardian , October 1, 2000. 
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Frank. J. Prial: Wine Talk , on nytimes.com, accessed November 28, 2015
  4. ^ Anthony, The Independent Rose: Roll out the Barolo . December 15, 2007. 
  5. ↑ a b Stephen Brook: Brilliance in Barbaresco . May 1, 2003. on decanter.com
  6. ↑ a b The Oxford Wine Lexicon ("Oxford Companion to Wine"). Hallwag, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3833806919
  7. ↑ a b Interview with Angelo Gaja , on decanter.com, accessed on November 28, 2015
  8. ↑ C. Petrini (ed.): Barolo Barbaresco . Slow Food Editore, Hallwag Verlag, Bern / Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7742-5275-0 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e Steffen Maus : Italy's Wine Worlds - Wine, Vino, Wine . Gebrüder Kornmayer, 2013, ISBN 978-3-942051-18-7 , pp. 41-44 .
  10. ↑ William Echikson, The Wall Street Journal: Barolos, Barbarescos Provoke the Palate With Complex Tastes , on wsj.com, accessed November 28, 2015
  11. ↑ a b c d e Kerin O'Keefe: Barolo and Barbaresco - The King and Queen of Italian Wine. University of California Press 2014, ISBN 978-0-520-27326-9
  12. ↑ http://www.wein-plus.eu/de/Gaja_3.0.2396.html
  13. ↑ a b Fredric Koeppel, Palate Press: Gaja, the Man Behind the Wine , on palatepress.com, accessed on November 29, 2015
  14. ↑ a b William Echikson: The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 9, 2005). Barolos, Barbarescos Provoke the Palate With Complex Tastes
  15. ↑ a b Pieve Santa Restituta - Successful viticulture with God's blessing , on brunello.de, accessed on December 10, 2015
  16. ↑ Alain Kunz: The wines of Angelo Gaja - Elegance without end , on blick.ch, accessed on December 8, 2015
  17. ^ Jancis Robinson: Two important newcomers from Bolgheri - and more on the way . June 7, 2002.
  18. ^ A b Tanzer, Stephen, International Wine Cellar (November 2004). Angelo Gaja, Barbaresco
  19. ^ A b Atkin, Tim, Decanter.com (May 21, 2010). Angelo Gaja interview
  20. ↑ a b c Kerin O'Keefe Brunello di Montalcino. Understanding and Appreciating One of Italy's Greatest Wines , pp. 62 ff, University of California Press 2012 ISBN 978-0-520-26564-6
  21. ↑ Eric Asimov in The New York Times: When Italy Brought Home a Taste of France , October 18, 2007, accessed December 13, 2015
  22. ↑ Il caso Brunello di Montalcino (Open Letter from Angelo Gaja) , on inumeridelvino.it, accessed on December 13, 2015
  23. ↑ a b Angelo Gaja e Bartolo Mascarello: cronaca di un confronto diretto , on vinoalvino.org, accessed on December 13, 2015
  24. ^ Asimov, Eric, The New York Times (February 5, 2003). In Piedmont, a New Landscape for Barolo
  25. ↑ a b Patricia Bröhm: The Armani among the winemakers , at www.sueddeutsche.de, from February 21, 2011, accessed on November 28, 2015

literature

  • Burton Anderson: Italy's Wines 2004/05 . Hallwag, Gräfe and Unzer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7742-6365-5 .
  • Jacques Orhon: Le nouveau guide des vins d'Italie . Les editions de l'homme, Montreal 2007, ISBN 978-2-7619-2437-5 .

Web links

Coordinates: 44 ° 43 ′ 33.4 "  N , 8 ° 4 ′ 50.4"  E