How Gaja wines conquered Asia
Approaching Hong Kong, first, the Italian label is now successfully entering the rest of China
As hairess of Italian black-and-white labels "Gaja", Gaia Gaja has become her family's window to the world. Indeed, this famous Italian winery is still keeping its secrets, and business, within the family, leaving the youngest generations the honour, and the responsibility, to introduce Gaja wines all over the world.
It is mainly for this familial attitude that Gaja labels have been particularly successful in Hong Kong, a place where wine consumers say they strongly rely to personal recommendations when it is time to select a good bottle, gathering them from media, wine education courses, social media, and of course sellers, especially when they have the chance to meet them in person.
The Gaja family realized that a long time ago, and that is why they pushed their heiress Gaia to frequently travel to Hong Kong during the last 15 years, replacing her father, Angelo, who is actually the men who made Hong Kong fall in love with this prestigious Italian label. Indeed, in 1993, some Gaja wines were already sold at something like $25 per glass, and people loved them.
It is argued that the Gaja family strongly contributed to the renaissance of Italian wine, helping Piedmont to become Italy's second most famous wine growing region, after Tuscany, and pushing winemaking to enter a new era of global influence and appreciation.
Angelo Gaja achieved this aim paying much more attention to every single detail while managing his own vineyard, introducing the idea of working with short pruning, green harvesting and new maceration techniques, higher density of plants per hectare, and the trend of ageing in new casks. All these new habits came after mixing the Italian tradition with the French and the Californian ones, leaving some room to innovation, too.
Today, Gaia Gaja is proud to highlight that her family success is a success for Piedmont, and Italy, as well. Indeed, they have become famous all over the world promoting a local variety of wine, nebbiolo. In Asia, Gaja's labels are currently appreciated for their elegance and delicacy, and for this reason the number of people getting used to serve a glass of Gaja to accompany Chinese cuisine dishes is growing quite fast.
Follow @castaritaHK
