Keeping it in the family, Gaja wine feels the love in Asia

Italian wine heiress Gaia Gaja has been coming to Hong Kong for at least 15 years, shuttling in and out on official family business. She not only checks in with her friends, but also makes the rounds of the upscale bars and restaurants that carry the distinctive Gaja black-and-white labels.

There have been bottles with the legend "Gaja" on them for four generations, a legacy started by her great-grandfather and, like so many of Italy's most famous brands, entrusted only to blood. Decisions affecting the Gaja winery, which are now a global matter, are still made around the family table.

She's the family's window to the world, constantly travelling and gathering intelligence on the market's reaction to the growing collection of wines. Her mother still oversees all the accounts, her sister manages the family's three estates in northern Italy, and her father, Angelo Gaja, watches over it all.

The producer, whose wines include Gaja Barbaresco (which is made using the nebbiolo variety native to the denomination), San Lorenzo, Barolo Dagromis, Sperss and Rossj-Bass, is one of Italy's best-known winemakers.

Gaja is following in her father's footsteps with her trips to Hong Kong. Angelo was an ambassador for the label in the early 1990s, keeping in touch with his family by fax, according to then writer Kevin Sinclair, who noted in 1993 that Gaja wines were venerated, although expensive, with some fetching HK$230 a glass.

Gaia is in town to meet her new distributor, Altaya's founder Paulo Pong, one of the city's leading wine merchants. Altaya also runs the three etc wine shops, which represent France's three most famous wine regions, and other retail outlets.