2021 Gaja Langhe Gaia & Rey

Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Italy |
Region | |
Appellation | |
Winery | |
Vintage | 2021 |
Grape | |
Content (Alc) | 0.75 ltr (14%) |
Drink window | 2024 - 2034 |
Low Stock
Only 1 left
Description
The Gaia & Rey is a beautiful wine: a mineral, pure chardonnay, full of tropical fruit and with silky, elegant tannins (!). The taste is rich, with concentrated ripe fruit, balanced by lively fresh acidity. The aftertaste just keeps on going. For those with patience: 'Gaia & Rey is only at its best after about 5 years of cellar aging.
Gaja was convinced that Langhe not only has a beautiful soil for the cultivation of red grape varieties. He also saw it as a distinct challenge to make wines in his own Piemonte from the white varieties Chardonnay and Sauvignon.
Gaja named his first chardonnay vineyard in Langhe, planted in 1979, after his daughter Gaia and grandmother Clothilde Rey. The grapes for 'Gaia & Rey' come from poor, hard volcanic soil. After a rigorous selection, they are crushed and then fermented in stainless steel vats for four weeks at a constant temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. Only the yeasts naturally present in the vineyard are used. After fermentation, the juice is laid to rest for 6 to 8 months in oak barrels, where another malolactic fermentation takes place.
Specifications
Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Italy |
Region | Piemonte |
Appellation | Langhe |
Icons | Icon Italy |
Winery | Gaja |
Grape | Chardonnay |
Biological certified | No |
Natural wine | No |
Vegan | No |
Vintage | 2021 |
Drinking as of | 2024 |
Drinking till | 2034 |
Alcohol % | 14 |
Alcohol free/low | No |
Content | 0.75 ltr |
Oak aging | Yes |
Sparkling | No |
Dessert wine | No |
Closure | Cork |
Parker rating | 95 |
James Suckling rating | 96 |
Vinous rating | 93 |
Tasting Profiles | Droog, Houtgerijpt, Krachtig, Rijk, Rond, Vol, Wit fruit |
Drink moments | Barbecue, Cadeau!, Lekker luxe, Met vrienden, Open haard, Romantisch |
Professional Reviews
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 95
Reviewed by:
Monica Larner
Release Price:
$250
Drink Date:
2020 - 2035
The Gaja 2018 Langhe Gaia & Rey is a beautifully pure Piemontese expression of Chardonnay. It opens to a light gold/straw color with brilliant luminosity. This vintage is delicate but determined, powerful but fragile all at the same time. The bouquet is shy to start off and requires (at this young stage when I tasted the wine) ample time to aerate. Once it unwinds, the wine offers fresh citrus, orchard fruit, toasted almond and spice. Only partial malolactic fermentation is completed, so the wine's energy and inner nerve is very much intact. Flint and mineral play important supporting roles. Some 16,000 bottles were made.
I have almost always tasted new releases of Gaja in person at the winery in the company of Gaia Gaja or someone else from her family. Obviously, these on-site visits offer a better opportunity to report findings, ask questions, make vineyard visits and collect all kinds of interesting news, facts and quotes. Because of COVID-19, I tasted these samples at home under ideal circumstances that allowed for consistency of serving temperatures, stemware and decanting. I was also able to spend more time with each bottle in front of my laptop to muse and reflect, and I returned to many of these wines over multiple days to chart their evolution. Tasting at home allowed me more time to revisit my notes and tweak my comments. This relaxed approach made this year's tasting of Barolo and Barbaresco one of the most enjoyable of my career, and one of the most beautiful wines discovered in this tasting of 900-plus samples is Gaja's 2016 Barolo Sperss.
Published: Jul 23, 2020
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
James Suckling
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Vinous
93
Drinking Window
2023 - 2031
From: Barbaresco’s Soaring 2020s & 2021s (Oct 2023)
The 2021 Gaia & Rey (Chardonnay) is bright and beautifully textured. Lemon confit, marzipan, spice and a kick of French oak all meld together effortlessly. The 2021 needs time in bottle to fully open, but it is quite attractive. Vineyard sources remain sites in Treiso and Serralunga.
- By Antonio Galloni on September 2023
This is a superb set of wines from the Gaja family. The 2021 whites are notable for their vibrancy. Moving further into the tasting, the 2020 Barbarescos are gorgeous, vibrant wines that impress with their delineation. The 2020s need time in the glass to emerge, but the signatures of each wine are very much present. The same is true for the 2019 Barolos. These days, the Gaja wines are defined by greater energy than in the past, but they remain quintessentially Gaia in breeding.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
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Wijnhuis
The history of winery Gaja starts in 1859, the year in which Giovanni Gaja, a local grape grower in Barbaresco, Piemonte, founded a wine company under his own name. A generation later, it is Angelo, grandfather of the current owner, who continues to make wine with the same determination as his father. He is supported in this by Clotilde Rey with whom he marries in 1905. They teach their scion Giovanni named after his grandfather so that as a winemaker you should not make any concessions; nothing should be at the expense of the quality of the wine.
In 1961 Giovannis son Angelo works in the family business. After graduating as an economist from the University of Turin and graduating from the School of Viticulture & Oenology in Alba, the young Angelo left abroad for an internship at wine farms in Bordeaux, Burgundy, along the Rin and in California. Full of fresh ideas, he had now returned to his native Piemonte. When Angelo Gaja took over his parents' company in 1970, he asked his old classmate and winemaker Guido Rivella to assist him. Together they implement a number of revolutionary changes for the region. For example, they sometimes reduce yields per hectare by up to half the number of liters allowed, they experiment with vinification methods, the planting of new - both red and white - grape varieties and pioneering ripening techniques. The results are astonishing and Gaja conquers the world with his beautiful Barbaresco's - the company's flagship.
The nebbiolo grapes for the Barbaresco of Gaja traditionally came from different vineyards. Angelos' father, grandfather and his father did just that before. Although young Angelo would not end this tradition, he launched a new line of Barbaresco's from a single vineyard. Interest in these experimental single vinyard wines became more and more popular. As a proponent of a dynamic, purely quality-oriented wine culture, the brilliant winemaker decides from 1996 to completely break with what he considers to be a conservative and restrictive Italian designation of origin. Only his traditional Barbaresco is still on the market as a prestigious DOCG. He deliberately 'declassifies' all other red single vineyard wines into regional Langhe Nebbiolo DOC. These are the Sorì San Lorenzo, the Sorì Tildìn and the Costa Russi. Gajas Barolo Sperss also underwent the same name change. With the exception of the Dagromis Barolo DOCG, Sito Moresco and Conteisa de Langhe also bear DOC. Langhe DOC is also on the label of his white toppers from Piemonte, the Rossj-Bass, Alteni di Brassica and Gaia & Rey. After all, for Gaja the abbreviation does not guarantee good quality of a wine but the name of the producer.
The Gaia & Rey is a beautiful wine: a mineral, pure chardonnay, full of tropical fruit and with silky, elegant tannins (!). The taste is rich, with concentrated ripe fruit, balanced by lively fresh acidity. The aftertaste just keeps on going. For those with patience: 'Gaia & Rey is only at its best after about 5 years of cellar aging.
Gaja was convinced that Langhe not only has a beautiful soil for the cultivation of red grape varieties. He also saw it as a distinct challenge to make wines in his own Piemonte from the white varieties Chardonnay and Sauvignon.
Gaja named his first chardonnay vineyard in Langhe, planted in 1979, after his daughter Gaia and grandmother Clothilde Rey. The grapes for 'Gaia & Rey' come from poor, hard volcanic soil. After a rigorous selection, they are crushed and then fermented in stainless steel vats for four weeks at a constant temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. Only the yeasts naturally present in the vineyard are used. After fermentation, the juice is laid to rest for 6 to 8 months in oak barrels, where another malolactic fermentation takes place.
Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Italy |
Region | Piemonte |
Appellation | Langhe |
Icons | Icon Italy |
Winery | Gaja |
Grape | Chardonnay |
Biological certified | No |
Natural wine | No |
Vegan | No |
Vintage | 2021 |
Drinking as of | 2024 |
Drinking till | 2034 |
Alcohol % | 14 |
Alcohol free/low | No |
Content | 0.75 ltr |
Oak aging | Yes |
Sparkling | No |
Dessert wine | No |
Closure | Cork |
Parker rating | 95 |
James Suckling rating | 96 |
Vinous rating | 93 |
Tasting Profiles | Droog, Houtgerijpt, Krachtig, Rijk, Rond, Vol, Wit fruit |
Drink moments | Barbecue, Cadeau!, Lekker luxe, Met vrienden, Open haard, Romantisch |
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 95
Reviewed by:
Monica Larner
Release Price:
$250
Drink Date:
2020 - 2035
The Gaja 2018 Langhe Gaia & Rey is a beautifully pure Piemontese expression of Chardonnay. It opens to a light gold/straw color with brilliant luminosity. This vintage is delicate but determined, powerful but fragile all at the same time. The bouquet is shy to start off and requires (at this young stage when I tasted the wine) ample time to aerate. Once it unwinds, the wine offers fresh citrus, orchard fruit, toasted almond and spice. Only partial malolactic fermentation is completed, so the wine's energy and inner nerve is very much intact. Flint and mineral play important supporting roles. Some 16,000 bottles were made.
I have almost always tasted new releases of Gaja in person at the winery in the company of Gaia Gaja or someone else from her family. Obviously, these on-site visits offer a better opportunity to report findings, ask questions, make vineyard visits and collect all kinds of interesting news, facts and quotes. Because of COVID-19, I tasted these samples at home under ideal circumstances that allowed for consistency of serving temperatures, stemware and decanting. I was also able to spend more time with each bottle in front of my laptop to muse and reflect, and I returned to many of these wines over multiple days to chart their evolution. Tasting at home allowed me more time to revisit my notes and tweak my comments. This relaxed approach made this year's tasting of Barolo and Barbaresco one of the most enjoyable of my career, and one of the most beautiful wines discovered in this tasting of 900-plus samples is Gaja's 2016 Barolo Sperss.
Published: Jul 23, 2020
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
James Suckling
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Vinous
93
Drinking Window
2023 - 2031
From: Barbaresco’s Soaring 2020s & 2021s (Oct 2023)
The 2021 Gaia & Rey (Chardonnay) is bright and beautifully textured. Lemon confit, marzipan, spice and a kick of French oak all meld together effortlessly. The 2021 needs time in bottle to fully open, but it is quite attractive. Vineyard sources remain sites in Treiso and Serralunga.
- By Antonio Galloni on September 2023
This is a superb set of wines from the Gaja family. The 2021 whites are notable for their vibrancy. Moving further into the tasting, the 2020 Barbarescos are gorgeous, vibrant wines that impress with their delineation. The 2020s need time in the glass to emerge, but the signatures of each wine are very much present. The same is true for the 2019 Barolos. These days, the Gaja wines are defined by greater energy than in the past, but they remain quintessentially Gaia in breeding.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Exclusive Content
Sign in to unlock professional wine reviews from world-renowned critics
The history of winery Gaja starts in 1859, the year in which Giovanni Gaja, a local grape grower in Barbaresco, Piemonte, founded a wine company under his own name. A generation later, it is Angelo, grandfather of the current owner, who continues to make wine with the same determination as his father. He is supported in this by Clotilde Rey with whom he marries in 1905. They teach their scion Giovanni named after his grandfather so that as a winemaker you should not make any concessions; nothing should be at the expense of the quality of the wine.
In 1961 Giovannis son Angelo works in the family business. After graduating as an economist from the University of Turin and graduating from the School of Viticulture & Oenology in Alba, the young Angelo left abroad for an internship at wine farms in Bordeaux, Burgundy, along the Rin and in California. Full of fresh ideas, he had now returned to his native Piemonte. When Angelo Gaja took over his parents' company in 1970, he asked his old classmate and winemaker Guido Rivella to assist him. Together they implement a number of revolutionary changes for the region. For example, they sometimes reduce yields per hectare by up to half the number of liters allowed, they experiment with vinification methods, the planting of new - both red and white - grape varieties and pioneering ripening techniques. The results are astonishing and Gaja conquers the world with his beautiful Barbaresco's - the company's flagship.
The nebbiolo grapes for the Barbaresco of Gaja traditionally came from different vineyards. Angelos' father, grandfather and his father did just that before. Although young Angelo would not end this tradition, he launched a new line of Barbaresco's from a single vineyard. Interest in these experimental single vinyard wines became more and more popular. As a proponent of a dynamic, purely quality-oriented wine culture, the brilliant winemaker decides from 1996 to completely break with what he considers to be a conservative and restrictive Italian designation of origin. Only his traditional Barbaresco is still on the market as a prestigious DOCG. He deliberately 'declassifies' all other red single vineyard wines into regional Langhe Nebbiolo DOC. These are the Sorì San Lorenzo, the Sorì Tildìn and the Costa Russi. Gajas Barolo Sperss also underwent the same name change. With the exception of the Dagromis Barolo DOCG, Sito Moresco and Conteisa de Langhe also bear DOC. Langhe DOC is also on the label of his white toppers from Piemonte, the Rossj-Bass, Alteni di Brassica and Gaia & Rey. After all, for Gaja the abbreviation does not guarantee good quality of a wine but the name of the producer.