Overview
Gavi, formally Cortese di Gavi, is a DOCG for white wine from the Cortese grape in the far southeast of Piedmont, around the town of Gavi in Alessandria province, where the region meets the Ligurian Apennines. It is Piedmont's most established white wine denomination, roughly 1,500 hectares across eleven communes, and its dry, mineral style was built historically on demand from the Ligurian coast, whose seafood tables remain the wine's natural habitat.
History
Cortese is documented in the area from the seventeenth century, and the zone's white wine economy grew with Genoa's, the wine traveling the short road over the Apennines to the coast. Gavi became a DOC in 1974 and a DOCG in 1998. La Scolca's Gavi dei Gavi black label, produced since the mid-twentieth century, carried the denomination into international markets and remains its most recognized bottling; the zone's estates have since diversified into site bottlings, sparkling versions and longer-aged styles.
Terroir & Climate
The zone's hills divide between white marly-calcareous soils, the terre bianche associated with the finest, most mineral wines, and iron-tinged red clays that give broader expressions. Elevations run roughly 200 to 450 metres. The climate is Piedmontese continental, but the Apennine passes admit Ligurian maritime air, moderating summers and ventilating the vineyards; the marine influence is part of the wine's saline signature.
Grape Varieties & Wine Styles
Gavi is Cortese alone. The classic register is pale, dry and steely: citrus, green apple, white flowers and almond over firm acidity and a stony, faintly saline finish, bottled young and unoaked. The DOCG also provides for frizzante, spumante and Riserva versions, and a growing number of producers demonstrate that top sites age gracefully toward honey and mineral depth over five to ten years. The commune designation Gavi del comune di Gavi marks fruit from the namesake township.
Notable Producers
La Scolca remains the denomination's flagship. Villa Sparina, Castellari Bergaglio, Broglia, La Raia, Nicola Bergaglio and La Mesma lead the estate tier, with cooperative and negociant volume beneath, and Fontanafredda among outside houses bottling the appellation.
What to Know
Gavi's identity is restraint: it competes on precision and salinity rather than aromatics, which has kept it fashionable through changing white wine cycles. Terre bianche sites and the Gavi commune designation are the quality shorthand. The denomination's neighbors produce Cortese under lesser designations; the DOCG name guarantees the delimited hills.