Nicola Bergaglio

Gianluigi Bergaglio, the viticulture professor, and his son Diego farm not even 18 hectares of vineyards. You have to "drag" information out of the two of them, quite unlike many of their colleagues. A little introverted, almost taciturn, they prefer to let their two wines do the talking. You get the feeling they would actually rather be back out in the vineyard right now. And yet they are thoroughly proud of their elegant wines. These are made from a single grape variety called Cortese. An ancient autochthonous grape, presumably more than 500 years old, for which no geneticist has ever found a relative anywhere else. There are not even 3,000 hectares of it left, almost exclusively in Piedmont, most of it in the province of Alessandria in the south-east of the region, along the course of the Lemme river, near the enchanting historic little town of Gavi. Some of the best sites belong to the Bergaglios, who process only their own grapes. The single vineyard Minaia, on a rise directly behind the family's cellar, ranks among the best of the entire appellation. At around 300 m above sea level the rows arch in a westerly orientation over extremely calcareous rocky soils. Only about 3,800 vines per hectare in Guyot training, with no artificial fertilisation and no irrigation, and exclusively mechanical weed control. Up here a steady breeze blows, either from the Ligurian Sea or from the nearby nature parks, which also creates a marked temperature difference between warm days and cool nights, fostering fine fruit and an elegant interplay of acidity. The Gavi di Gavi has often been called the "Chablis of Italy".