An Evening with GAIA GAJA @ Por Fin
Por Fin, Coral Gables, Florida
Tasted Friday, March 20, 2009 by markellen.foodies@gmail.com with 821 views
Introduction
Sunset Corners & Transatlantic Wines & Spirits hosted the Gaia Gaja tasting.
Uncorked
Gaia Gaja
A daughter carries on the tradition of Italian winemaking family
Jon Bonné, Chronicle Wine Editor
The children of all famous winemakers try to downplay their family names. No such luck for Gaia Gaja, whose father Angelo defied tradition in 1979 by planting Chardonnay on the slopes of the Piedmontese town of Treiso, a region devoted to its beloved Nebbiolo grape, then naming the wine Gaia & Rey - after his young daughter and his grandmother, Clotilde Rey.
It was by no means his only outre step. He also planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, and in 1994 acquired the Pieve Santa Restituta estate in Montalcino, the first of two Tuscan wineries the family would acquire.
Though Angelo Gaja made his Barolo and Barbaresco some of the most sought-after wines in the world, small-town life wasn't exactly thrilling for his daughter.
"Barbaresco is a lovely place to live in until you're 14, then it's very tough," says Gaia Gaja, 28. "It's 600 people, 10 of them my age."
With all her friends from vintner families, destined to run family businesses, Gaia Gaja and her two siblings, Rossana and Giovanni, grew up in a spot where something as mundane as weather had make-or-break consequences. "When it rains," she says, "you don't think, 'Am I going to get wet?' "
After graduating from business school at the University of Pavia in 2004, she spent a year in San Francisco, working for retailer the Wine Club and wholesaler Southern Wine & Spirits. Now she's back in Barbaresco working at her father's side, though she offsets its small-town vicissitudes by traveling five months a year to represent her family's wines. We caught up with her on one of her recent trips back to the West Coast.
Q: Is this what you thought you would be doing when you were growing up?
A: I never had dreams when I was little of being a ballerina, and what kids dream. I always dreamed I would be in the winery, but if you come to Barbaresco, it's all about wine.
Q: You've got a good head start, but how do you see your career shaping up?
A: The goal is one day to take over. One day, maybe, that will happen - because my father will never retire.
During harvesttime I'm inside the cellar. But it's just manual labor. If you did very well in the vineyard, then during harvesttime the winemaking is very technical. I can't really give a contribution to that yet.
But I always drank wine, since I was a kid. In our family, in front of each dish, there was a wine. What gives me more emotion is the smelling than the tasting, because for a big part of my life, I didn't like the taste of wine. I found it to tannic and harsh.
Q: Was that because you were growing up around Nebbiolo, which is known for being so tannic and harsh?
A: Yes, but also because when you're a kid, when you first approach wine, you look for the taste of sweetness.
Now I love it. I love the tannins of Nebbiolo. It's great.
Q: But what makes Nebbiolo so special?
A: Its loyalty to where it belongs.
Q: Do you have a favorite wine?
A: In the range of wines we make, I can't pick one that's my favorite.
The one I drink most and am most used to is the Barbaresco. It's the wine my family made for 150 years. It's always been considered, in the past, the little brother of Barolo.
I like its personality. When you open it, it's quite shy, it doesn't speak to you a lot. It's quiet. So I have to be patient with it.
There are so many perfumes and nuances in it that need time to come out. It's something a little bit engaging, that takes a little bit more effort from me.
And for many people who are just approaching Piedmontese wines, this is the problem. When you move to a Barbaresco, it's more difficult to understand.
My father says the difference between Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo is this: He thinks Cabernet Sauvignon is John Wayne and Nebbiolo is Marcello Mastroianni.
Q: What's the best wine you've had from your winery?
A: I have a good friend that was born in 1955. So I went in the cellars and I found 10 bottles from 1955 that had the best level and cork. And it was the best Barbaresco from our winery I ever had. It was just the sweetest juice of spices.
I love to drink the older vintages and there is an added value, to think my grandfather put it down there and after all these years I can open it.
Q: Do you have a favorite food and wine pairing?
A: When I pick a restaurant where I want to eat, I look at the wine list first.
So the pairing is less important to me. I choose the wine I like. If I'm at home, the best pairing for me is an old Barbaresco and some aged Parmigiano or an aged Castelmagno.
The typical dish of Piedmont is rabbit. In my house, it's cooked in a very unfair way, because it's cooked in Barbaresco. I pass it in garlic, olive oil, laurel, rosemary. And I add Barbaresco and let it cook for a half hour.
Q: Would you have chosen the Chardonnay to be the wine you were named after?
A: In Italy they say, "A caval donato, non si guarda in bocca" - you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Gaia & Rey is one of my favorite wines in the winery. By planting a Chardonnay that has good aging potential, we could transfer all the characteristics of the Nebbiolo wines. It's a wine that can age for 20 to 25 years.
Q: You worked here for a year. What California wines did you discover?
A: I love the Pinot Noir, probably because I'm more used to Nebbiolo. Probably the Central Coast, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara. Ten years ago, no one thought they could produce a Pinot Noir outside of Burgundy. Now they produce a great Pinot Noir here, not the same.
Q: Who does?
A: Au Bon Climat. There is a friend of mine who has a little winery called Ambullneo. In the Russian River Valley, there is Flowers, there is Martinelli.
Q: What should Americans be drinking more of?
A: They should move away a little bit from Cabernet Sauvignon, and move to Sangiovese or Nebbiolo. I notice that sometimes when they drink a Brunello or Nebbiolo, they look for the same characteristics they want in Cabernet.
Q: Your family is strongly rooted in Piedmont. Why did you move into Tuscany?
A: I think many things happened at the right moment all together. When you have an activity that is successful, there is the decision to have something more. The temptation of growing Gaja has always been strong. When you're successful, you always think, 'How can I grow more?' "
We're not negociants. We don't buy grapes. We have a total of 250 acres in Piemonte, divided in 42 parcels. In Piedmont, it doesn't matter how much you can pay, people aren't selling the land anymore. The time to buy was in the '30s.
So we decided to leave Gaja at the same size, but there was the desire to do something more. So my dad, Angelo, received offers through the '90s to do joint ventures all over.
He runs the winery in a very personal way, and in the beginning of the '90s, we had several bad vintages in a row. ... All these things made Angelo think about doing something else.
The reason we chose Brunello di Montalcino? My father was about 55 to 60 years old. He wanted to do something different, but he wanted to find regions in Italy that were already doing something well known. Tuscany was the easiest step because they shared so much of the Piedmontese philosophy.
Q: Are you heartened that more women are getting into the wine business?
A: They always worked inside the cellar, in the vineyards. In the early 1900s, there was already a woman working in the winery, Clotilde Rey. She has Gaia Rey and Tildin (her childhood nickname) named after her. She was the first one that introduced the quality concept inside the winery, of cleanliness, of organization.
I almost think it is easier being a woman. So many wineries are family businesses and the weak part of a family business is generational change. Between a father and a son, there is maybe a bit of competition. Between a father and a daughter, there is more open love.
2004 Pieve Santa Restituta (Gaja) Brunello di Montalcino Rennina 91 Points
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
At this tasting, I slightly preferred the single vineyard Sugarille to the Rennina. Both exhibited great structure and finesse, drink well now, but will only get better with time.
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2004 Pieve Santa Restituta (Gaja) Brunello di Montalcino Sugarille 92 Points
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
Great finess and structure. No chianti wet earth. I preferred it to the Rennina.
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