It was a joy to host Giuseppe Vaira in Australia early this year, spending time with our friends in the wine trade in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. There’s always plenty of philosophical reflection during our time together, always infused with humility and humour.
On a couple of occasions, we were treated to an anteprima of the 2022 Barolo. “It was not an easy vintage,” the critic Antonio Galloni wrote when reviewing the range from our friends in Vergne. But, Galloni asserted, “This is a fine set of wines from the Vaira family. The 2022 Barolos are a touch light, but they are also classy and impeccably balanced.”
These adaptive, aesthetically aware traditionalists have always thrived within a paradox; they have a keen eye for both light and shade. A theme that came up during Giuseppe’s visit was people’s tendency to conflate difficulty with disappointment. “Often ‘difficult’ gets translated into ‘bad’,” he said. “But if you think about our own lives, at least it is true for me that some of the hardest moments were the moments that made me mature the most.”
This unified team rises to challenges like 2022; such is the wisdom, force of will and sense of purpose at G.D. Vajra that the good will out. Always.
The background to this Barolo release—global geopolitical factors and local climatic conditions alike—makes the triumphs even more special. “What we do is carry the torch of a more beautiful, unarmed approach to life,” Giuseppe told the Vininspo! podcast. “An approach in which you realise that gifting and giving are more important than taking. You realise that there’s a beauty in the gentleness of all things. A gentleness of farming, a gentleness of how you touch on the things of life, on the people you’re given.”
Giuseppe sees nurturing “an amazing team” and bringing out the beauty of the vineyards as a social responsibility—a response to all the gloom out there. “The point is that once you walk into our life, whether it is physically walking at the winery or by popping the cork of a bottle, you might make an experience of the fact that there can be brightness even in darker times,” he said.
So don’t think the bleak headlines are the last word. “We see real changes in our life, in the way we work, and this is also how it’s going to change the result,” Giuseppe said. “And I totally believe a good wine can change someone’s life for a meal or a day. And that is where we start.”
And thus we kick off our presentation of these lovely 2022 Barolos, in anticipation of the rays of hope and pangs of delight they will bring.