In a region whose vinous identity had long been painted almost entirely red, one family chose to see things in white. And they did more than take a different view: they helped bring the Gavi appellation and the Cortese grape a level of recognition and prestige capable of standing alongside Piemonte’s great reds, Barolo and Barbaresco, and the noble Nebbiolo behind them.
The Soldati family’s story now stretches back 107 years. Since 1919, La Scolca has built its identity around Cortese, a white grape that finds an ideal expression in the far south-eastern corner of Piemonte. In Rovereto di Gavi, where the estate is based, clay-rich soils combine with cooling mountain influences and maritime breezes arriving from the Ligurian coast, creating a distinctive terroir for wines prized for their freshness, minerality and finesse.
La Scolca’s white wines became so renowned for their finesse and freshness that their success helped draw attention to the entire Gavi area, contributing to the growing reputation of both the appellation and Cortese itself. Gavi was granted DOC status in 1974 and elevated to DOCG in 1998.
In the meantime, La Scolca was also building something unusually powerful in its own right: a brand. In 1969, the family registered Gavi dei Gavi® as a trademark, creating a name so recognisable that it developed an identity extending well beyond the legal framework of the appellation.
It is a little like Adidas placing the ® beside its name, only in the rather more traditional world of wine. And there is precedent for such independence: in Alsace, some celebrated Clos have chosen to rely on the strength of their own historic names rather than foregrounding a Grand Cru designation. In wine, sometimes the name on the bottle becomes more powerful than the classification surrounding it.
The Gavi dei Gavi Black Label 2025 (8/10) is a textbook expression of a terroir that has often been described as “the Chablis of Piemonte”. Perhaps not without reason: there is the same sense of minerality, high acidity, abundant freshness and medium body. Alongside these traits, this internationally renowned label delivers a pleasantly saline finish and has the potential to develop over the next five years.
With refreshing candour, Chiara Soldati, who is at the helm of La Scolca, admits that the Gavi dei Gavi Gold Edition 2024 (8.5/10), despite costing more than twice as much, differs from the previous cuvée essentially in its gold bottle. Both wines, after all, come from vines that reach 60 years of age, although a hard-core wine lover may well be as surprised by that as I was.
Then again, “pride of ownership” can matter just as much as “pride of serving”, and that sense of exclusivity carries particular weight among La Scolca’s discerning clientele.
In the glass, the Gold Edition also pushes the mineral character a little further, with touches of flint and a faint sulphurous note, while the finish is marginally longer. That additional length is most likely down to the quality of the vintage.
I do not know whether devotees of the Gold Edition would abandon it for the black bottle of the Gavi dei Gavi Limited Edition 2021 (8.5/10), but despite giving the two wines a similar score, I certainly would, purely for what is inside the bottle. This mature release, created to celebrate La Scolca’s 105th anniversary, is not dramatically better, but it is certainly more expressive, with clearer floral and lemon notes and an acidity that has become more integrated with time. Yet it has lost none of its freshness, suggesting that its peak may still lie beyond 2035.
Some may find that ageing potential excessive, but they can put my optimism to the test with the 13-year-old La Scolca D’Antan 2013 (8.5/10). Like the estate’s other wines, it is vinified without oak, while this particular cuvée is produced only in exceptional vintages, from very low yields of less than 50 quintals per hectare, and then given extended ageing in La Scolca’s own cellars. The result is explosive on the nose, with grapefruit, candied lemon, nuts and flint, while the palate is even more harmonious and velvety, finishing unexpectedly dry. And lest we forget, I would still give it another five years.
Italy in general, and Piemonte in particular, has long been celebrated for its great red wines. Increasingly, however, its whites are proving that they can stand proudly alongside them, and few estates have contributed more to that shift in perception than La Scolca in Gavi.
La Scolca is imported into Greece by Trinity Wines, +30 22990 40630.
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