Gaja: Sorì San Lorenzo 1971-2011

Since its debut in 1967, Gaja’s Sorì San Lorenzo has established itself as one of the truly iconic wines in Piedmont and Italy. This recent vertical tasting provided a great opportunity to check in on a number of vintages, including most of the reference points.

Sorì San Lorenzo is the most powerful, structured and masculine of Gaja’s three single vineyard wines from Barbaresco. Costa Russi is always about suppleness, while Sorì Tildìn speaks to finesse above all else. Sorì San Lorenzo is a totally different animal. Here the wines are intense, brooding and exceptionally long-lived, with a level of intensity that could easily be mistaken for Barolo.

Multimedia: Gaia Gaja on Sorì San Lorenzo

Angelo Gaja’s father, Giovanni, bought the vineyard in 1964 from the Alba church and christened it Sorì San Lorenzo, after city’s patron saint. Even then, Sorì San Lorenzo was known as source of top-quality grapes. As was the custom at the time, the vineyard was planted to both grapes and other crops, including fruit trees. Gino Cavallo, Gaja’s vineyard foreman, refused to cut down two old cypresses and plant the other half of the vineyard. The tree was known as a favorite spot of a local truffle hunter who was famous for the attention he lavished on his loyal dog. A few years later a rival truffle hunter who had a reputation for abusing his animals poisoned the dog. That was the last straw for Cavallo. In an act of retribution, down went the cypresses, and the rest of the vineyard was developed. In 1982 Gaja planted Barbera, which was later blended with Nebbiolo to create the modern-day Sorì San Lorenzo.

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The first vintages of Sorì San Lorenzo were aged entirely in cask. Gaja introduced French oak barriques in 1968, but used those barrels mostly on Barbera and other experimental wines until 1978, when all the Barbarescos were partially aged in French oak. At the time, Gaja purchased used barrels from wineries in Bordeaux, but a visit by André Noblet, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s cellar master, in 1979 convinced Gaja to make serious upgrades to the quality of his barriques. Between 1978 and 1988, Gaja gradually increased the percentage of French oak in his Barbarescos from around 20% to 50%, where it remains today.