Gaja Barbaresco 2014 (1.5lt)
Product price
Description
Gaja's 2014 Barbaresco is a Nebbiolo-based red from Piedmont's Barbaresco zone, where the vintage proved exceptionally favorable. The growing season unfolded slowly through cooler months before accelerating in a late heat spell, allowing Nebbiolo's preference for extended ripening to work in the wine's favor. This is a magnum format offering from a producer known for precision in the region.
The wine opens with perfumed intensity: woodland berry, iris, and baking spice give way on the palate to Marasca cherry, dark culinary spice, crushed herb, and menthol notes, with a licorice thread winding through to the finish. The structure is serious without harshness, the tannins refined and binding, the acidity bright and taut. There's an appealing lushness to the black fruit and plum character, yet the wine carries an aromatic dryness marked by cranberry and pomegranate notes that keeps everything in balance. This is a tightly wound, expressive Barbaresco built for cellaring, best approached with air and patience to reveal its depth.
Expert Reviews
This isn’t just a great wine for what was a notoriously cool, wet vintage, it’s quite simply a magnificent wine. Perfumed and loaded with finesse, it opens with scents of woodland berry, iris and baking spice while the vibrant, balanced palate doles out Marasca cherry, dark culinary spice, crushed herb and menthol. Refined tannins and fresh acidity provide the taut framework while a licorice note wraps around the finish. Gorgeous. Drink 2022–2034.
Gaja's 2014 Barbaresco is rich, super-dense, and inviting, with serious underpinnings of structure and the same classicism that made the 2013 so compelling. Dense and powerful in the glass, with explosive energy and tons of tannin, the 2014 is built for extended cellaring. Expressive floral and savory notes hover out of the glass in this super-expressive Barbaresco. This is one of the most tightly wound, intense versions of Gaja's Barbaresco I can remember tasting. Don't miss it.
Gaia Gaja tells me 2014 was one of the best vintages ever in Barbaresco, if not the best for her vineyards. She cites the prolonged growing season that continued at a slow rate during the cooler summer months only to speed up thanks to a heat spell at the very end, right before harvest. Nebbiolo loves slow maturity and a prolonged growth cycle: The 2014 vintage did indeed get off to an exceptionally slow start. The 2014 Barbaresco is not austere or astringent. Instead, it offers plump ripeness with rich fruit flavors backed by spice, licorice and tobacco. The wine offers good structure from the point of view of its tannins, yet there is no harshness or bitterness whatsoever.