That’s him, Angelo Gaja, the now over-80 producer known worldwide as the father of Barbaresco and an icon of quality Italian wine. A charismatic and highly intelligent man, he is considered an ambassador of made-in-Italy wine in the world.
In France, his colleagues and wine lovers call him the king. Angelo Gaja, born in 1940, is a man who literally launched Barbaresco to become one of the most prestigious and expensive wines in the world, bringing it out from the shadow of being the younger brother of the great Barolo.
He became involved in his family’s estate at the beginning of the 1970s, first working alongside his father Giovanni, a very important man in the Langhe who was even mayor of Barbaresco, and then running it himself. He imposed three “cru” at the winery, Sori San Lorenzo, which already existed, Sori Tilden and Costa Russi. He gave them names different from the location of the various vineyards in order to register the brand and make them unique and unrepeatable, authentic monopoles.
He began by using barriques for Nebbiolo-based wines, as he had seen done in Bordeaux and, above all, Burgundy, a region he knew very well, to the point that for a while he was an importer of Domaine de la Romanée Conti wines. And he did this because Angelo was and is much more than just a wine producer. He is a charismatic, intelligent and skilled man, a great and efficient entrepreneur who made himself known and appreciated around the world to the extent that he was more or less universally considered a point of reference for quality Italian winemaking.
For sure, he was fortunate to be able to count on wife Lucia, a true pillar at the estate, and three very skilled children, Gaia, Rossana and Giovanni, who have ensured, as he did in his time, a favorable generational transition.
