Wines of the Gaja Family Italy Tasting ToDoTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Wine Tasting

	Wines of the Gaja Family Italy Tasting Date: April 30, 2026 Haskells Wine & Spirits of Minnetonka 12900 Wayzata Blvd, Minnetonka, MN 55305 Phone: (952) 544-4456 www.Haskells.com

To say E and my lives are interesting would be an understatement. We both went through a decade or two after moving to MN and lived single in the Twin Cities. Then marriage and a decade or two or three as parents and grandparents and now comes the fun times. We take care of grandkids until six, including the drama of yesterday’s possible broken arm, she’s fine, no break.  But after the 5:30 news of the day we enjoy learning about life. We found out about a decade ago that the true portion of the world is revealed in wine and the art and culture that surrounds it. So, we like going to wine events and learning about many aspects of the world.

Last week a friend Doug had a class about Italian wine in his 6 oz pour class at North Loop Wine & Spirits. We took the class and after spending two weeks on the Med last year for our first time. We are intrigued for more information about the wine of the region and the culture. We learned a lot about Italy and the 400 wine grapes that call Italy home.

So, when I was surfing around and found the Gaja Family Italian Wine Class last night at Haskells I said sign us up. Not to go overboard on Tuesday France 44 has ANOTHER Italian wine class and guess who will be there! We have had ONE class on Italian wines this year, in a week we will have four. It doesn’t rain but it pours.

Italy once was a mystery to us, now we can actually name regions like: Tuscany, Piedmont and that island just off its coast called Sicily, who’s residents are Sicilians NOT Italians. 

Last night’s class was on the Gaja  winery that has grown to four vineyards of Italy. Three in the Piedmont region of Italy near Switzerland and one from Sicily. The owner of the Gaja winery wanted to grow his business so bad, monthly for years he visited a neighboring CA Marcanda winery to try to convince them to sell it to him. After years they finally agreed. The first new wine he created from that winery was adeptly called: “The House of Endless Negotiations.”

We had the local rep take us through Gaja wines last night and tell us about what made them special. They were NOT your typical wines. The price point started, on sale for $39 a bottle and went to $440 a bottle. We enjoyed the six wines we tasted but found nothing that could get us to open our pocketbook.

If you are buying a relatively expensive wine which we would classify at over $20 you should at least try it first, which we taste weekly so we usually can spot something good at a deal.

Haskells had cheese, grapes, tomatoes and crackers for us to try the wines with food which can be very important when you are trying to find the perfect wine when you are entertaining.

A few of the grapes we tasted were Nebbiolo, Cab Sav, Barbera, Merlot, Chardonnay and Sav Blanc.

It was an interesting tasting, to us it seemed like for a tasting wine over $100 they should have been better. But as our tastes change every year, perhaps we just felt they were different, who defines better.

It was a better time last night than watching the news.

Contact us Dennis@ToDoTC.com