Gaja Chardonnay

K

Kevin Courtney

Location
Marlborough
The Gaja Chardonnay came up in discussion. I don't think it is available in NZ and I have certainly never tried it, nor seen it discussed much.

What do people think of it? From what I have read it sounds like a reasonably elegant style with only 6-8 months in oak.
 
I may be one of the few who think the Gaii & Rey is one of the best food friendly white wines.

My wife loves iit (consistently over and above Leflaive and similar) and the only alternative is a Krug vintage .

The price has escalated since we first encountered it at Gidleigh in the early 200Os and served it at our wedding. Since then it is our go to party wine served at the Ritz for my birthday and a wedding anniversary and at more intimate family occasions.

The 1996 has been delicious and we have enjoyed every vintage since (and many earlier). There has never been any Pox and I still have opened six packs of ten to twenty year old wines.

The secret is to buy several boxes whenever you have a few spare pounds and drink them when you are in need of a mature. Chardonnay.
 
I loved them 20’uears ago, but the price has gone up a lot and Chardonnaybia not really my thing.

The best bottle I ever drank from Gaja as the Sauv Blanc. Again, from 20 years or so ago, and it was a wine with 10 years bottle age, but it was brilliant.
 
Used to pick it up as a big treat from Oddbins back in the nineties - think it was about fourty quid even then, until Gaja had a huge hissy fit about them stocking it.

Liked it in a fullish throttle not Burgundy but also not Aus/Cali way, along with Where Dreams Have no End which was a little cheaper.

Had’t seen either for well over 20 years until the WDHNE appeared on a by the glass list last year at a gaff I occasionally frequent, indulged and was still rather good in an opulent sort of way.
 
At the Gaja dinner held some years ago in the private room at Elystan Street we had two different vintages and the general consensus was that they were ok, not really up to the level one would expect at the price point then and certainly not any kind of substitute for white burgundy at the same price point.
 
I was wondering about it from a stylistic point of view. It seems to be slightly polarizing. From what I have read it doesn't seem to be overly oaked and doesn't sound like it follows the reductive path. Is it more the price that is polarizing?
 
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