Gaja
Costa Russi
Barbaresco
2015

The producer

One of the great entrepreneurs of modern Italian wine, Angelo Gaja’s story begins in Barbaresco before the modern revolution hit the Langhe and lifted the general level of wine quality to its current fame. Early in his career he befriended Robert Mondavi who, on visiting Piemonte, told him that he could hear snoring coming from the houses, that the langaroli were sleeping, not rising to the obvious potential of the area. Gaja obviously took that on board.

While he credits Guido Rivello (winemaker from 1970 to 2013) with the wine quality, Gaja took his wines to the world: the restaurants, the press, and the consumers. He made the name Gaja universal, a name that screamed quality.  His first wines, those from his home base of Barbaresco remain his most famous. Gaja produces three famous single vineyard crus in Barbaresco.

The wine

Costa Russi is one of the earliest single vineyard bottlings of Nebbiolo with the 1967 vintage. Named for costa which indicates the side of the hill, while russi was the nickname of the previous estate owner, who oversaw the vineyard management for many years. The 4 ha Costa Russi cru is located directly below the Sori Tildin cru in the Barberesco village and is known for its lighter bodied, more delicate and floral expression. Costa Russi is made from 100% Nebbiolo from the 2013 vintage, and maturing in oak for 24 months before release.

Gaja’s commitment to, and belief in, these single vineyard crus was such that, when the Italian authorities banned the use of the small portion of barbera he used in his single vineyard crus, he labelled Sori Tildin, San Lorenzo and Costa Russi as simple “Langhe” from 1996 until the 2013 vintage. They are now 100% Nebbiolo and return to the Barbaresco DOCG. They were always considered some of the very best of Barbaresco and remain benchmark.

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.