Wine of the week: a truly sublime Gavi

published 13 March 2020

2018 Gavi di Gavi, Lugarara, La Giustiniana, Piemonte, Italy

£18.49, £16.49 each if you buy six bottles, thewinereserve.co.uk; £17.80, toscanaccio.co.uk; £15.95, dunells.com; £15.15, exelwines.co.uk; £15.18, thedrinkshop.com

Back in 2012 I published a book, 100 Most Iconic Wine Estates. It was a devilish task whittling down my favourite wineries to the final century of greats. Over the intervening eight years I cannot seem to stop myself mentally editing this list of wineries as I taste and learn more about my beloved subject. I think that I might make as many as 25 changes if I were to repeat the exercise today. This shows just how fast the wine world evolves and it also reflects the slight changes I sense in my own tastes, too. I venture that La Giustiniana would make the grade.

This Gavi producer makes some of the most sensual and rewarding styles of white wine in Italy. Given the choice, I would plump for the top wine at this estate, the structured, age-worthy, single vineyard Montessora. The other day, I was dining at the brilliant Brinkley’s Kitchen in Wandsworth, London, and I ordered “2018 Gavi La Giustiniana” – there was no mention of any vineyard. When it arrived I was thrilled to note that it was my featured Lugarara, which is the more forward-drinking cuvée at this eminent estate. My goodness me it was sensational. It is the finest vintage of this single vineyard wine I have ever tasted.

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Check out the prices listed and you will see that you can drink this elite Italian white for between £15 and £20. Track it down today because it is a truly sublime creation.

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.