Filthy Good Vino

Finally I’ve managed to share my thoughts on a very special & intimate afternoon with Gaia Gaja at Boccaccio Cellars earlier this year. A big shout out to Anthony D’Anna for organising such a delicious event and Gaia Gaja for being such a human hostess.

Gaja is at once both one of the world’s wine icons and a controversial winery bucking “traditional wisdom” often being the trend setter rather than the follower.  For me, it’s a sign that the Gaja’s have passion, focus, and, that they are pushing the boundaries.

Over the last six months I’ve drunk Gaja’s wines from over 5 decades of production. One thing has been clear, they are evolving and pushing to make the best wines they can. This evolution has not been insulated from changes in the wine world. Historically, across the world’s greatest wine regions, think Barolo, Barbaresco, Burgundy, Tuscany, traditional winemaking has been interrupted by curiosity with the potential of new world winemaking techniques. Gaja has not been immune from this trend, use of high levels of new oak has being the most obvious example. Something I’m glad to say has been tempered in recent times.

History

Gaja has a long history stretching back to it’s very beginnings in 1859. The transformation from an largely unknown winery in a region, not valued by consumers to one of the worlds most famous wineries in a very special region certainly didn’t happen overnight.

Gaia Gaja shared with us the history of Barbaresco, the Gaja winery, the challenge of establishing recognition for the region and what the future holds. One thing is certain, the Gaja’s aren’t afraid of pushing against the rules, some rules are meant to be broken. They have had to declassify their Barbaresco from DOCG status simply because the rules don’t fit what they believe is the best way to make their wine. With a nifty slight of tongue, Gaia, refers to this as a reclassification. A simple example being that they tend to pick early before the permitted time for a DOCG to pick. Why because higher vine density, lower yield per vine, flavour ripeness earlier, better natural acid etc. If they waited they could have DOCG, but, they would not be giving their fruit the best opportunity to shine.

Below is a 20 minute video exert from the discussion.

What Separates Exceptional Wineries?

When you look at the great wine producers of the world they often have many things in common. Two of those being passion and continuity.

Passion just makes sense. Continuity well that’s a challenge. Good vignerons are always looking at their wines and vineyards, trying to make them yummier, healthier, more balanced, often by doing less, but, doing it better. Having the knowledge of the past, interrogating trends to find often simple ways to improve is critical. Seeing a vineyard in a cool years, hot years, observing the little patch of vineyard that is not performing and nurturing it. Some wineries employ precision agriculture with high tech imaging of vineyards, others, the eyes of trusted colleagues who have worked with them for decades. These eyes come to know each site, each vine and tend to them like they would a child. This philosophy has given them an intimate understanding of their terroir.

This is precisely the reason Gaja only employ permanent staff. Like many of the world’s great estates Gaja shifted from buying fruit to supplement production to buying and controlling great sites. In the early years as the Gaja Estate expanded, they were forced to purchase old run down houses with vineyards. Over time these have been restored and are now offered rent free to their staff. 

The Challenges for the Future

There’s one trend that everyone in the wine world has had to address recently. Every time I catch up with a grape grower or winemaker I always ask what are you working on. Increasingly the response is “Managing climate change”.

Gaia explains the impact of climate change as helping them achieve greater consistency from year to year. The challenge being resultant higher alcohol and pH, with lower acids, fuller riper wines. Now instead of worrying about getting fruit ripe, they worry about sugar accumulation racing ahead of flavour and tannin development producing out of balance wine. On the upside it has opened up opportunities, the grape bunch stalks are now ripening allowing their incorporation into wine, adding tannin, spice and perfume.

The focus has been on rebalancing in the vineyard to meet this challenge. They’ve put money behind their beliefs and are adapting to change by experimenting. They’ve hired half a entomologists (insect gurus) & horticulturist (plant gurus and more) seeking to disrupt their thinking. Not necessarily taking direction from them, but, pushing themselves to use this knowledge combined with their wisdom, gleaned from over 150 years of tending the land to develop their own approach.

Biodiversity – Flowers, Bees, Trees

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Looking after soil health, moisture levels and temperature.

They have replaced direct fertilising using manures, with composting. Composting stalks, vine cuttings, used grape skins and manures allows the worms they’ve imported from America to further process organic waste and add nutrients through their microflora. An approach that has been used world wide with success. Just like your very own garden they’re mulching to cover crops to insulate the soil from the heat of the sun and retain moisture.

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They’re looking to take a natural, yet, pragmatic. Considering technology, balanced with minimal intervention.  Perhaps one of the most radical changes at least in terms of effort has been changing the row orientation at some sites in order to reduce direct impact of sun on the vines.

Nebbiolo Rossato – Not Nebbiolo.

My lasting though was that it takes for a vigneron to understand their sites. Sometimes it takes just as long to convince the consumer of what the vigneron is trying to achieve.

A couple of Wines from the Session

Costa Rusi had a real elegance vs the masculine Sori Tilden masculinity. Again highlighting the difference small differences in vineyard location can make to the personality of a wine. Both sites are in the image below. Sori Tildin top right. Costa Rusi lower left.

13 Vintages of Gaja Barbaresco over 5 decades! An intriguing tasting. More twists than a series of House of Cards! Anthony D’Anna’s passion for Italian Vino and desire to learn, by tasting, the best, has driven him to travel to Italy to collect an incredible array of the unique wines. Sharing a table, plate and several glasses of these incredible wines with friends has earned him the status of Legend Wine Dinner curator.

It is a rare experience to taste the same wine from a single producer across 5 decades, let alone the wines of the much sort after Gaja. The Gaja wines were not exceptional, lacking the personality and expression of wines like those of Bartolo Mascarello. What was exception, was to see how a vigneron, has evolved, how their relationship with, site, has deepened over time. How their winemaking has shifted, to see that they had continued to push and the direction changes they had made was truly fascinating.

Four distinct phases were revealed through out the night. The first starting with the oldest wine of the night the 1967, continuing with the 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1977.

These were the rustic wines, wines that were often driven by searing acidity and refined natural grape tannin. The 1967, one of my top three wines of the night, was still bright with an excellent core of fruit, stunning secondary characters bricky, but, not brown. 1973 had searing acidity, but, unfortunately was past it’s prime and fell away quickly, brown in colour. The 1974 was beguiling, also in my top three wines of the night, without really jumping out of the glass and saying drink me, none of the wine really did. The 1975 was a victim of the FUCork Gods. 1977 was just outside my top 3. Again with searing acidity and edgy tannin.

The second evolution, the oaky ones! A regression for me, included the 1987, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 1999. These wines were over oaked showing the hand of the winemaker, not, the potential of the site. Sappy, green, hard oak tannin dominating the mouthfeel to the point of detracting from the wine and masking the expression of fruit. This was the just past puberty, gangly, I’m not quite sure what to do with my limbs yet, or, how to extract the most puss from my zits phase. The 1996 was the second victim of the FUCork Gods. The oak a combination of French barriques and large Eastern European Botte. Some of these wines were, balanced, to a degree, by the stunning feed dished up by our host Maurico Sosta at Sosta Cucina.

The third evolution 2004 & 2006. 2004 saw a shift to more restrained coffee / mocha oak.  2006 was an outlier, an overblown, OTT, oaf, clumsy, high alcohol wine with super ripe fruit, jammy almost porty fruit.

The lastest evolution, the 2011 finally saw the balance I was looking for! The hallmark searing acidity, backed by a core of fresh fruit and balance oak & grape tannin. Finally the oak was just a layer, enhancing the wine, not, dominating it!

Gaja’s wines are controversial, they don’t deliver great value for the dollars. I do love the fact that they continue to push to find the best expression of place & time! If they continue toward the style of the 2011, I’ll be heading back to take another look at future vintages of Gaja, but, not alone, by sharing the bottle with friends!

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The yeast are starting to get buggy moving! Flavours are looking good!

Filthy Good Vino Project Cabernet Ferment Day 2 Part 2 Adding Acid

Home in time for a midnight plunge! Love the Filthy Good Vino Bathtub Winemaking Project! Attention to detail! Even after 5 decades of Gaja, funky Nebbiolo from Barbaresco Subscribe to filthygoodvino.com to follow our vintage diary & exploits! Next post will review the evolution of Gaja’s Barbaresco over 5 decades!