Gaja
Gaia & Rey
Langhe
2019

The producer

The Gaja estate was founded in 1859 and is thus the oldest house in the denomination. Fourth generation, Angelo Gaja, who took the reins in 1961 at the age of 21, is widely known as being at the forefront of innovation in the region, and has a huge share of the reason that the region has become so famous, the wines so respected, and especially as a serious fine wine and investment object. Gaja was a pioneer of single vineyard bottlings, in the region, his ‘sori’ bottlings first appearing in 1970 from the 1967 vintage. He was amongst the first to age his Nebbiolo in French oak barriques in the late 1970s, around which time he was also the first to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in his vineyards.

He is also famous for being one of the first to green harvest in the vineyard (i.e., sacrificing some of the grape yield in order to concentrate what is left on the vine) and for short pruning, also in an effort to lower yields. Famously, in 1996, Gaja pulled his single vineyard Barbarescos out of the Barbaresco DOCG, and his single vineyard Barolo Sperrs out of the Barolo DOCG, and put all of them into the Langhe DOC - it was widely considered at the time that this was done in an effort to have more winemaking/grape blending freedom, seeing as Langhe DOC regulations may have been considered more loose, than those of Barolo and Barbaresco DOCG.

However, in 2013, all the single vineyard wines were returned to the Barbaresco and Barolo DOCGs and are thus today all made from 100% Nebbiolo as the regulations stipulate. Gaja is also known for being at the forefront of using less chemicals in the vineyard, and constantly searching for ways of making the vineyard eco system more self-sustainable. Two such vineyards are “Sperss” and “Conteisa”.  

The wine

Gaia & Rey is 100% Chardonnay from a 3.6 ha vineyard plot in Treiso and spends 6-8 months ageing in French oak barrels. A textural white wine with layers of rich fruit concentration yet balanced and with elegance and finesse. Arguably this is Italy’s finest white wine.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.