by Published: Monday September 14 2015 The fifth-generation member of a distinguished Italian winemaking family is working with her father and sister to continuously improve the reputation of their wines which have achieved global recognition for their quality. Barbaresco in the Piemont region of northwest Italy is home to the Gaja winemaking business, producer of some of the world’s most renowned wines. The current owner is Angelo Gaja, the founder’s great grandson, who introduced techniques that revolutionised winemaking in Italy. But the day-to-day running of the business is now in the hands of his two daughters: Gaia, who manages the commercial aspects; and Rossana, who is in charge of production. The sisters grew up in Barbaresco, a small village of 600 people which gives its name to red wine produced by just three villages lying next to the larger and better-known Barolo district. According to Gaia, it was always inevitable that they would join the family business. ‘At our elementary school, each class made wine and grappa every year with grapes brought in from our family vineyards. We squeezed them, made a distillation, stuck on our own labels and took it home where our parents were obliged to try it. ‘In Barbaresco, it is difficult to escape your destiny and I never thought of doing anything else.
Topics:
Perspectives Pictet considers the following as important: carousel, In Conversation With
This could be interesting, too:
Perspectives Pictet writes House View, October 2020
Perspectives Pictet writes Weekly View – Reality check
Stéphane Bob writes What can investors do in uncertain times?
Stéphane Bob writes Multi-generational wealth
The fifth-generation member of a distinguished Italian winemaking family is working with her father and sister to continuously improve the reputation of their wines which have achieved global recognition for their quality.
Barbaresco in the Piemont region of northwest Italy is home to the Gaja winemaking business, producer of some of the world’s most renowned wines. The current owner is Angelo Gaja, the founder’s great grandson, who introduced techniques that revolutionised winemaking in Italy. But the day-to-day running of the business is now in the hands of his two daughters: Gaia, who manages the commercial aspects; and Rossana, who is in charge of production.
The sisters grew up in Barbaresco, a small village of 600 people which gives its name to red wine produced by just three villages lying next to the larger and better-known Barolo district. According to Gaia, it was always inevitable that they would join the family business.
‘At our elementary school, each class made wine and grappa every year with grapes brought in from our family vineyards. We squeezed them, made a distillation, stuck on our own labels and took it home where our parents were obliged to try it.
‘In Barbaresco, it is difficult to escape your destiny and I never thought of doing anything else. Even as a child, you listened to your parents talking about the problems of winemaking and how they solved them.
If it rained, you wondered how your parents would react – you were always thinking about wine.
‘I decided not to study winemaking at university, fearing I’d be in the cellars for the rest of my life. Instead, I took economics so I could learn about administration and travel more. After graduating, I worked for a wine distributor in San Francisco for six months to get experience, and then returned to work here. I learnt the business by working with my father, which also helped me understand its philosophy and values.’
The Gaja estate was founded in 1859 by Giovanni Gaja, whose family originally came from Spain. In those days, farmers made some wine for themselves and sold the rest of their grapes to merchants who made wine in bulk. But Giovanni stopped selling grapes and began making his own wine for sale.
One of his eight sons took over the business, and his wife Clothilde Rey was a talented manager who put the business on a sound footing. His successor continued to advance the business by buying some of the best land in Barbaresco.
‘He understood its potential,’ Gaia says. ‘Nobody else was interested – the merchants couldn’t care less, because they could buy grapes from the farmers. Investors preferred to buy land in the better-known Barolo area.
‘He also worked on improving the wine and building up the Gaja identity. In 1937, he replaced the classic wine label which typically in those days featured the name of the wine and artwork showing its origin or awards. The new design was much cleaner, giving prominence to Gaja and Barbaresco in order to build up the brand of a wine that was harder to sell than Barolo.’
It was Angelo who introduced the biggest changes when he joined the estate in 1961. He adopted French wine-making techniques such as green harvesting (pruning the grapes to improve quality), fermentation in stainless steel tanks and the use of different kinds of wood barrels. He also withheld the wine in poor years, selling it in bulk so that consumers came to trust the Gaja label.
In 1988, he added to the winery’s Barbaresco land by buying vineyards in Barolo. Both Barbaresco and Barolo are made from nebbiolo, an Italian grape, but he planted the French grape varieties of cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay, a move that his father opposed. He mischievously named one cabernet sauvignon wine Darmagi, meaning ‘what a shame’ – his father’s response to the planting on a prime nebbiolo site.
However, Angelo said that making wine from these better-known varieties would help raise the international profile of Barbaresco, which was not well-known among wine writers and connoisseurs. ‘He could give them a glass that they could compare with wines which they knew so they could appreciate the quality,’ says Gaia.
‘That was how Napa Valley winemakers had achieved fame by competing against Bordeaux wines in international competitions. As our adopted children, these varieties were not the same as their French rivals, but people started to learn about the quality of our wines and talk about us.’
Gaia’s grandfather had already started exporting small quantities of Gaja wines and Angelo wanted to develop the foreign market. He decided to target Germany and the US – the British market at the time was still focused on French wines, since Italian wines were seen as cheap and cheerful.
Getting into the US market in the 1960s was difficult, however, because there was no gastronomic culture and no American quality wine to give consumers the taste for it. People drank spirits or cocktails with their restaurant meals, and the only well-known wine was Bordeaux. But Angelo persevered, and US sales have risen fast over the last 40 years, as have exports to markets such as Japan, Hong Kong, Canada and the Nordic countries.
Selling in China has been a priority for Gaia, and she visits the country twice a year for a week each time. ‘At first, there was little exposure to the international media, and people knew little about wine. Now Chinese people are travelling abroad and learning about it, many sommeliers have been trained and wine social networks have sprung up. The wine culture is booming, with many more people drinking it on a regular basis.’
Gaia says that the company’s main competitors are not Italian or French wines, but those of the New World. ‘Wine drinkers have become familiar with their different tastes and higher alcohol content. Although our wines do not have a strong taste or bouquet, consumers appreciate the cleanness of the palate which goes well with food.’
In the 1990s, Gaja expanded out of Piemont, with acquisitions of two properties in Tuscany: one in Montalcino producing Brunell0 di Montalcino wines; the other in Bolgheri which produces wine from newly planted vines. These additions have brought total annual production to more than 350,000 bottles – allowing Gaja to expand output when scope for growth in Barbaresco is limited.