I love many aspects of my work, but nothing beats the buzz of “liberating” an extremely rare gem. Fabio Gea Barbaresco is in the elite class of wines that, more or less, are not available to regular consumers. This isn’t just a wine; it’s a trophy that is typically awarded to the most well-connected sommeliers and tenacious collectors.
In the rare instances when a small amount leaves Italy, it is immediately chiseled into three- and six-bottle allocations and sent to top restaurants in New York, Paris, and Tokyo. Gea has no website, no tasting room, and no direct-to-consumer mailing list. So, while most finger-on-the-pulse Italian wine enthusiasts have seen his bottles gushed about on top influencers’ Instagram feeds, acquiring a coveted allocation is another story altogether. For the current generation of cutting-edge sommeliers, these cryptic, minimalistic, hand-labeled bottles are the holy grail, and none are as sought after as today’s 2012 Barbaresco “Notu Andava A Tartufi.” With cascading layers of floral, truffle, and dark fruit aromatics, with a deep mineral core that guarantees another decade of improvement in the cellar, this bottle is a guaranteed showstopper. I don’t expect it to last long in our inventory today so I urge you to grab a few bottles before the one-time opportunity evaporates!
So, where to start with the increasingly legendary Fabio Gea? You may have heard that Gea insists on every aspect of his work being driven by equal parts artistry and hand craftsmanship. Yes, Gea practices some of the most painstaking organic/biodynamic farming in Piedmont. Depending on the specific cuvée, Gea vinifies his wines in glass demijohn or his own amphorae made of porcelain (he is also an experienced ceramicist); sometimes it’s fermenters cut from solid sandstone, or sometimes even in his own barrels, made from lumber cured with steam from the volcanic stone in Gea’s home sauna! His obsession with detail and creativity extends to even the smallest details: wine labels are hand-printed on handmade paper which is hand-applied to bottles with a paintbrush. These would be remarkably challenging lengths to go to in any wine region, but the fact that Gea is located in the epicenter of Barbaresco only further boggles the mind.
Given that Gea lives and works in Barbaresco—i.e. some of the world’s most rarefied wine real estate—it’s necessary to mention that beneath the relentless experimentation and creativity here, there is a firm foundation of science and terroir. Gea holds a doctorate degree and is said to have earned a nice living while working as a geologist for large corporations in his years after university. I imagine some of that income came in handy when, a decade and a half ago, Gea renounced corporate life and retired to Barbaresco to rehabilitate his deceased grandfather’s long-fallow farmland and to revive the Gea family’s former winemaking glory. Still, while Gea has enjoyed a meteoric rise to contemporary wine celebrity, he is still working at an absurdly small scale. He farms a few small plots mostly located near, or around, Barbaresco’s “Bricco di Neive” vineyard, and only bottles around 400 cases of wine each vintage. Depending on each vintage’s yields, the total is typically divided between 7-8 individual cuvées. In my experience, the name, label, cépage, production volume, and style of each wine are subject to change each year. In general, Gea’s reds are not an exercise in classicism; they are abstract, progressive wines that will infatuate those who enjoy a taste of life’s wild side. The one exception is his Barbaresco, which is about as classic, pitch-perfect and objectively delicious as they come.
Today’s 2012 Fabio Gea Barbaresco “Notu Andava A Tartufi” is a vivid and transcendent an expression of the timeless Barbaresco terroir. Few wines can deliver such devastating aromatics and deep minerality while still remaining balanced and deeply thirst-quenching. And, as all truly epic wines do, this bottle evolves dramatically in the hours after the cork is pulled. First, a white-knuckled tightrope balancing act between alpine strawberry and atomized limestone. Then, as more oxygen enters the equation, lush waves of dark cherry, tobacco, and fine leather begin to crash. Finally, many hours in, this bottle hits a sweet spot wherein ethereal truffle and poached fig notes echo into a seemingly endless finish. Served with the appropriate dish (I strongly recommend a pan-seared, dry-aged Ribeye), this bottle offers the rare opportunity to experience “peak” Barbaresco. Please decant for 30 minutes and share slowly with a special companion in large Burgundy stems at 60 degrees. Also, keep in mind that (a) this bottle is built to age and (b) there are no “library” or second releases of Fabio Gea’s wines. So, if this wine sounds intriguing, you might want to grab a second or third for the cellar! Buon Appetito!
