Villa Sparina, Time on Gavi's Side

IN BREVE

Villa Sparina’s Gavi is a wine capable of standing the test of time, with complex notes that go beyond freshness.
Located in Monterotondo, the winery has been producing Gavi since 1970 and uses modern winemaking techniques to enhance Cortese.
Villa Sparina has reduced its use of wood, making room for the wine’s natural acidity, while still achieving a long-lived Gavi.
The ‘Villa Sparina 10 Anni’ project demonstrates Cortese’s evolutionary potential through ten years of aging.
Villa Sparina’s La Gallina restaurant offers a culinary experience rooted in the territory, with creative dishes based on Piedmontese ingredients.

“Ten years ago you could never have sold a ten-year-old Gavi.” Stefano Moccagatta, owner of Villa Sparina, holds in his glass a Gavi that is ten years old and more. It’s clear, from the wine’s color and freshness, that time has proven his intuition right: to produce and sell a Gavi capable of standing the test of time.

The wine he continues to swirl is still fresh. But to the more immediate characteristics of the Cortese grape it has meanwhile added resin, balsamic notes, and a hint of pastry. Demonstrating how reductive it can be to ask of this variety only that freshness which, for too long, has also determined its commercial fate. The same freshness that, somewhat surprisingly, Professor Moio identified as the only interpretive key to the appellation in the province of Alessandria, in Piedmont.

Luigi Moio a Gavi: «La longevità del vino è identità, non semplice durata»

VILLA SPARINA, GAVI, AND THE HILLS OF MONTEROTONDO

At Villa Sparina, the question of Gavi aging doesn’t date back to yesterday. The Moccagatta family founded the estate in the 1970s. Today, with the second generation, it counts approximately one hundred hectares of property (seventy of which are planted predominantly with Cortese and Barbera) in the Monterotondo area.

The name describes the geography of the place quite well: a local elder, they say at the estate, used to say that Monterotondo looks like a crater, because the hills circle around it forming a kind of natural amphitheater, at about 350 meters above sea level.

In this crater, vine roots can descend as deep as two and a half meters in search of water and nourishment, including the mineral component that gives the variety its typical and highly recognizable acidity.

FROM GAVI DEL COMUNE DI GAVI TO THE MONTEROTONDO CRU

Cortese is the center of the winery’s work, though it also produces Barbera, a rosé, and two sparkling wines. Gavi del Comune di Gavi remains the wine the estate itself identifies with its own history, starting with the sinuous-shaped bottle designed by Giacomo Bersanetti, inspired by an ancient vessel found during excavations on the property.

Then there’s Monterotondo: the historic vineyard dates back to 1945. And since 1997 its grapes have been vinified separately, as in a cru.

LESS WOOD IN GAVI, MORE ROOM FOR CORTESE

Villa Sparina is traditionally among the estates that have experimented most with wood on Gavi, in years when treating Cortese almost like Chardonnay could seem an interesting path. Today the approach proceeds, if anything, in the opposite direction.

The use of barriques and large casks has been progressively reduced, seeking to leave more room for the wine’s natural acidity. Monterotondo thus remains a more structured Gavi compared to the classic label, but it should be remembered that its challenge is to face time.