Villa Giada Gavi

Villa Giada Gavi is a textbook Cortese from Piedmont's southeastern hills, where the grape finds its most mineral-driven expression on ancient marine soils. This is the white that put the town of Gavi on the international map in the 1980s, and Villa Giada's estate bottling keeps faith with the tradition: stainless-steel fermentation, no oak, all structure and snap. The wine shows best young but holds well for three to five years in a cool cellar, gaining almond-skin texture as the greenish rim fades to straw. Villa Giada farms estate fruit in the heart of the Gavi DOCG, where chalk and marl soils drain fast and push the Cortese vine to concentrate its naturally high acidity. The family has worked these vineyards since the early twentieth century, replanting after phylloxera and bottling under their own label beginning in the 1960s. Fermentation is cool and controlled in stainless to preserve the varietal's citrus pith and saline snap. No malolactic, no batonnage—just clean fruit and mineral spine, the way Gavi was meant to taste before the region chased international styles. The nose is fresh apple and wet stone with a faint note of white flowers; the palate is dry, bright, and firmly structured, finishing with a hint of almond skin and lemon zest. This is the wine to pour with raw oysters, fritto misto, or a simple plate of prosciutto and burrata—anything that wants acidity and salinity without weight. It's also the rare white that works as well on a Tuesday night with takeout as it does at a linen-draped table, which is probably why it's been a staple in Chicago trattorie for decades. Villa Giada Gavi is available for pickup at our Lincoln Park bottle shop at 1128 W Armitage Ave, local Chicago delivery, or nationwide shipping.