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beppi crosariol's decanter

Angelo Gaja with daughter Gaia, who runs the winery. MICHELE CAZZANI

Some people use hand gestures to punctuate or underscore their speech. Angelo Gaja likes to play the full-blown mime, literally acting out the words.

Over morning coffee last week in Toronto, the famed Italian wine producer cupped his crotch with one hand while scissoring the surrounding air with the other. " Tagliarsi i coglioni - ha, ha!" he said by way of illustrating the self-sacrifice of refusing, as he has done time and again during his 49-year career, to sell wine from a bad harvest. (The translation, if you need one, involves castration.)

We were sitting in the Studio Cafe at Four Seasons Hotel, where rich ladies lunch and the famously outspoken Mr. Gaja, 70, managed to raise a few neatly manicured eyebrows. The ballsy imagery was his way of defending his infamously high prices, which I'd ribbed him about. Few producers charge, and fetch, what Mr. Gaja does. His single-vineyard reds from the Piedmont town of Barbaresco such as the austere, truffle-tinged Sperss and the powerful but elegant Sori San Lorenzo, both made from the local nebbiolo grape, cost about $375 and $615 a bottle, respectively. That's considerably more than the nebbiolos of neighbouring cult producers from the supposedly more elite town of Barolo, such as Elio Altare, Aldo Conterno, Paolo Scavino and Roberto Voerzio.

"If you like to have it, you have to pay - if not, forget it," said Mr. Gaja, in town to host a $350-a-plate winemaker's dinner at Centro restaurant.

Perhaps because of those prices, as much as the unquestionable quality in the bottle, few have done more to raise the profile of Italian viticulture than Mr. Gaja (pronounced GUY-ah), who is sometimes referred to as the "Pope" and "God" by his admiring neighbours.

I had come mainly to solicit his prognostications on the future of Italian wine. And on this he delivered, declaring that Italy is poised for a white-wine boom thanks to its abundance of newly trendy, offbeat varieties, such as fiano and greco (more on this in a moment). But it's hard to steer clear of the money issue when you get the chance to pin the man down.

Gaja's winery, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year, long ago brazenly set the goal of becoming the most expensive producer in Piedmont (and by extension Italy).

It was his father, the late Giovanni, who in defiance of his old-school neighbours began pruning away half the bunches from his vines in midseason to concentrate and better ripen the remaining fruit. And it was Giovanni who first made the hard decision to sell off grapes to other wineries at "potato prices" rather than producing wine under his own brand in bad years, of which there are many in foggy Piedmont, where the flagship grape, nebbiolo, can develop mould and off-flavours in the rain.

His holdings now include property in Tuscany, where he produces a fine red blend of merlot, syrah and sangiovese called Ca' Marcanda Promis and which costs, remarkably for Gaja, a mere two digits (about $50). Though if you ask me he still makes better "value" wine in Piedmont, a red blend of nebbiolo, merlot and cabernet sauvignon called Sito Moresco ($60) and a fantastically consistent and elegant chardonnay called Rossj-Bass ($90). The only inventory you'll find at the moment in most provinces is in restaurants, unfortunately, because the wines sell out soon after they're released each year.

The Gaja winery now is run by his eldest daughter, Gaia Gaja, 30. (Her first name means "joy.") She was to have hosted the promotional dinner in Toronto but had a scheduling conflict, so the "Pope" flew in instead, much to the glee of 96 autograph-seekers.

Though Mr. Gaja today is mainly watching the action from the sidelines, he is excited by what he sees in the industry generally, particularly the foreign market's growing thirst for his country's paler grape hue.

"The next step for Italy will be, for sure, white wines," he declared. If your familiarity with Italy's lighter side is limited to pinot grigio, the lean white style of pinot gris that's taken the north American market by storm, and with prosecco, the easy-drinking sparkling wine that's become a fashionable aperitif in Canada (at roughly one-third the price of most Champagnes), get ready for a minestrone of new and much-improved varieties and styles. Such as the aforementioned fiano and greco, as well as friulano, ribolla, grillo and vermentino. From his own, otherwise red-heavy province of Piedmont, there are also arneis (which means "little rascal" in Piedmontese dialect, a reference to its temperamental character) and Gavi, a supercrisp style made from the cortese grape, which matches nicely with seafood risotto.

Though connoisseurs have long dismissed Italy's whites as watery quaffs worthy only of summer patio sipping, the quality, Mr. Gaja says, has improved dramatically. This is thanks in no small part to his own winery's pioneering practices with tough-love reds such as nebbiolo, namely aggressive pruning that puts the emphasis on quality rather than quantity.

Mr. Gaja says Italy's unparalleled abundance of white varieties is starting to appeal to an increasingly sophisticated and curious consumer looking for thrills beyond the full-bodied, vanilla-toasty profile of ubiquitous chardonnay, the world's most popular, if often overoaked and clumsy, white variety. Most Italian whites see no oak-barrel aging, permitting their fresh fruit characters to sparkle in the glass.

"The market is demanding different flavours," he said. "People will not become bored with chardonnay. Chardonnay will always be a king variety. But there are customers, even in the popular-premium category, between $10 and $20 U.S., that need something different." He adds that Italy happily has no competitors in the case of most of its native white varieties. "Chardonnay is produced everywhere in the world. Ribolla or vermentino, grillo or Gavi or arneis and so on - they are produced in Italy."

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