This celebrated Chardonnay sees 80% malolactic fermentation and ages in oak for 20 months. The Gaja 2020 Langhe Gaia & Rey is beautifully generous and round. There wasn't enough acidity to do malos in 2017, 2018 and 2019, so those wines are drying to the palate and less generous overall. However, this vintage brings us back to a more opulent and creamy expression of the grape. The wine is redolent of tropical fruits, apricot, beeswax and crushed mineral. It shows good structure (but not as firm as 2016), and it also has a gentle side.

The Gaja 2018 Langhe Gaia & Rey is a beautifully pure Piemontese expression of Chardonnay. It opens to a light gold/straw color with brilliant luminosity. This vintage is delicate but determined, powerful but fragile all at the same time. The bouquet is shy to start off and requires (at this young stage when I tasted the wine) ample time to aerate. Once it unwinds, the wine offers fresh citrus, orchard fruit, toasted almond and spice. Only partial malolactic fermentation is completed, so the wine's energy and inner nerve is very much intact. Flint and mineral play important supporting roles. Some 16,000 bottles were made.

This wine was first made in 1983, and back then, no malolactic fermentation occurred. Jump forward in time to the 2017 Langhe Gaia & Rey, and this is another vintage in which malo did not start. (Partial malolactic returns in 2018). Since those first years of production, the oak usage has also been tweaked, now with less barrique in favor of more botte grande. Thanks to these changes, the aromatic profile of this wine veers toward citrus and rich tropical fruit, especially in a warm vintage such as this. However counterintuitive, this edition also shows a very bright and precise touch of acidity that serves to give the wine balanced and mouth-cleansing salinity.

It's hard not to love the 2016 Langhe Gaia & Rey. The winemaking approach has been tweaked to allow for less malolactic fermentation. Before, up to 60% or 70% of the mass completed malolactic fermentation, but with this vintage, that number has been reduced to about 20%. Indeed, the acidity is bright, forward and elegantly unmasked. This is a sharp and tonic white wine that delivers a firm grasp on the palate. The flavor profile includes citrus, honeydew melon and salty mineral nuances derived from limestone-rich soils.

From a hot vintage, the 2015 Langhe Gaia & Rey shows similar excellence as presented in the 2013 vintage, although its attributes are different. That wine was direct and linear reflecting the cooler summer months. This wine, however, promises to be more tonic, sharp and focused despite the warmer growing season. This pure expression of Chardonnay is made in a more reductive style in order to highlight that nervous and bright vein at the back. The winery is switching over to older barrique (some as old as a decade) and botte grande to allow for less oxygen in winemaking. The wine opens to aromas of Golden Delicious apple, white peach, wild sage, ginger and honey. This white wine shows enormous potential for further aromatic development and intensity.