Daniele Cernilli, co-curator of the Vini d’Italia guide book which annually awards the prestigious Tre Bicchieri awards, openly criticized Angelo Gaja in his December editorial for the monthly magazine, Gambero Rosso. Just this year Angelo Gaja earned his thirty-third Tre Bicchieri rating from the guide book.
Cernilli’s criticism was directed at Gaja both personally and professionally. While deploring the astronomical costs of his wine, Cernilli described Gaja as an antagonist to wine legislators, the press and other producers. Cernilli went on to describe Gaja as a ‘big and famous producer who just happens to be Italian and make his wines in Barbaresco’, he is not ‘the best representative of Italian wines’. The scathing editorial did not go unnoticed by others in the Italian press.
Wine Report journalist, Franco Ziliani, noted that Cernilli’s publications, the Vini d’Italia guide book and the Gambero Rosso magazine, have done perhaps more than anyone else to promote Gaja and his wines. Ziliani said that if Cernilli wants to be taken seriously then he needs to either resign from his role as as co-curator of the famous guide book or make sure that Gaja’s wines are not again the most consistently top-rated in the publication.
