It was a meeting for the ages: Legendary Italian vintner Angelo Gaja sat down for an interview with Wine Spectator editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken in front of an audience of more than 1,000 wine lovers at the 2024 New York Wine Experience. As the two took the stage, with glasses of Gaja’s 2021 Barbaresco Sorì San Lorenzo (98 points) between them on a table, it was easy to picture these old friends catching up over a bottle of wine like this many times before.
Their conversation was a follow-up to Shanken’s interview with Gaja (one of five wine icons he has been profiling in the magazine since 2023) for the April 30, 2024, issue, focusing on the key events in Gaja’s remarkable adventure in bringing high-quality Italian wine to the United States. Shanken was ready to pick up where they’d left off, but first he had a declaration to make, in case there was any question about his deep admiration for Gaja. “Here’s the story: I love you,” he said. Gaja, who jokes about his poor English even though he speaks the language beautifully, promised to commit himself to “studying better English” for his next Wine Experience appearance.
First, Angelo’s son, Giovanni, spoke about the Sorì San Lorenzo, a single-vineyard, 100 percent Nebbiolo only produced in the best vintages. In describing the delicacy and elegance of the wine, as well as its ability to transmit the “cultural identity” of the Barbaresco region, he offered a fitting tribute to his father, whose mission to share the wines of his homeland helped elevate Italy’s place on the world stage.
Then Shanken proceeded to take his friend on a journey into the past. He began in 1996, the first year Gaja appeared at the Wine Experience, after many failed attempts by Shanken to convince him to take part. After Shanken had introduced him to the audience, he left the stage to watch alone from the balcony—something he’d never done before—and saw with amazement hundreds of people wait to shake Gaja’s hand or simply stand in his presence, as if “they were in the Vatican and Gaja was the Pope.”
Gaja remembered the moment well and connected it to “the beginning of the interest in Italian wines.” What makes Italy so “special,” he explained, is the extraordinary diversity of the country, with 350 different government-authorized grapes, including indigenous varieties unique to every region. At the same time, Italy is capable of producing “excellent wines” from international varieties, making it singular in the wine world. This is why he continues to be “optimistic” about Italy. “Outside of Italy, wine is a lifestyle,” he said. “But in Italy, wine is life.” He quipped that if Americans say, “Drink less, you have to drive,” Italians will tell you, “Drive less, you have to drink.”
The next year Shanken revisited was 1974, when Gaja first came to America to sell his wines. At the time, Italian wines “were nothing”—“cheap and cheerful” reds selling for $2 or $3 a bottle. Gaja’s wines were priced 10 times that much, but they came from “a small family winery that nobody ever heard of” in a region that was totally obscure—“nowheresville,” in Shanken’s colorful phrasing. What Shanken most wanted to know was what emboldened Gaja to take this leap of faith that he could sell his wines in the U.S. market: “What made you want to come to America? What was your goal? What was your secret?” When no one in the U.S. was asking for him or his wines, how did he manage to succeed?
After reminding Shanken that he was also “completely unknown” when he first showed up in Piedmont in 1980 looking to understand the region, Gaja explained that even though Barbaresco was an “underdog,” he learned how to talk about the culture surrounding his wines in a way that got through to retailers and restaurateurs—not just what was in the glass, but the larger world that brought about a wine’s creation: “history, religion, tradition, landscape.”
Italian producers have worked hard since the 1970s to raise quality, he said, by recognizing that the country’s best vineyards lie on hillsides, at varying elevations, and then cultivating diversity through minor differences in style. For Gaja, the most important factor in his success was his father’s lesson “to try to be different.” All his life, he’s followed this advice and charted his own course.
When the question of retirement came up, Gaja said that his commitment to winemaking will never falter because he’s still driven by a passion for what he does: “Passion is like a windshield wiper—it doesn’t stop the rain, but it allows you to go on and on.” He knows that he can offer authenticity, a “guarantee” that his wines don't taste like anyone else’s, that they could only come from this one place, made by this one family.
On that note, Shanken ended where he began, by saying how much he loves his friend and what a privilege it was to be with Gaja again so that “you could share your stories.” Amid the applause, the two men gave each other a big hug that channeled a lifetime’s worth of affection.
