Being a consummate story-teller, Gaia Gaja has many tales to tell, but the one that lingers in one's mind, like the wine (Gaia & Rey, a full-bodied Chardonnay) named after her and her paternal grandmother, Clotilde Rey, is about how Darmagi got its enigmatic name. In the Piedmontese dialect, it means ‘what a pity', and there hangs the tale.

Back in 1978, when Piedmont 's uncrowned prince of wine, Angelo Gaja, decided to set the cat among the pigeons by planting Cabernet Sauvignon in the heart of the Nebbiolo country, Barbaresco, his father, Giovanni, told him to implement his mad scheme far from the sight of his family and neighbours. For the venture to succeed, Angelo had first to know where in Barbaresco was the soil the best for Cabernet Sauvignon. To find out, he sent three soil samples to his father's friend in Montpellier , France 's best-known centre for agricultural research. The report that came back said that Plot B was the best. Plot B, ironically, was the land around the Gaja family villa in Barbaresco.

The plantings started in January, when Giovanni usually set off for less colder climes to escape Piedmont 's winter, so a shock awaited him on his return. When he asked one of the workers about the new plantings and learnt that he had no choice but to see vines bearing Cabernet Sauvignon grow under his eyes, he exclaimed, Darmagi.

But the wine he scorned helped Gaja become a formidable international brand name. Because, as Gaia explained on a visit to Delhi on the invitation of Vinitaly India 2006, Darmagi opened the door for the family's famous Barbarescos in those days when the international market was finding it difficult to get used to the austere taste of Nebbiolo.

Angelo Gaja is a universally acknowledged visionary and a pioneer. Gaia, the eldest of his three children, and an economist by training, respects this heritage.

She speaks with pride about the plantation practices introduced by her iconoclastic father. One of them was the notion of a “green harvest,” which meant pruning 70% of the young branches every June. “Fewer branches mean fewer grapes, which guarantee healthier plants, fewer chemical sprays and greater concentration of flavours. Vines, like young people, have vigour in them. You must channelise this vigour into the development of roots so that they go deep in search of nutrients that will enrich the grapes.” At Gaja's vineyards, you'll find the roots finding their way as deep as 17-20 metres.

Gaja swam against the prevailing current by promoting the idea of vertical plantation, which was a 180-degree departure from tradition. Barbaresco has a continental climate, so it rains heavily when it does. Vertical plantings ensure rain water does not collect, and by planting just enough grass, top-soil erosion is stopped.

From Gaja's perspective, what was more important was the opportunity to plant more vines – up to 6,000 vines per hectare, compared with 4,800 under the traditional system. It triggered “an intense competition for alimentation,” which drove the roots deeper into the soil. “The deeper the roots go, the more flavours they extract from the soil, so the plants manage to be less dependent on the climate.” The utility of this innovation has become apparent in an atypically dry and hot growing season.

Most wine producers in Gaja's time hadn't studied oenology, so they weren't confident enough to make a clean break with tradition. Vineyard management, though, wasn't enough to satiate Gaja's thirst for innovation. He carried the process into the winery, where he introduced thermal-controlled stainless steel tanks for fermentation.

It was necessary because sometimes it does get very cold during the post-harvest season in Piedmont . At such times, it became necessary to stretch the fermentation process to a couple of months, which, in turn, extended the skin contact time. That was bad news for the wines, because extended skin contact meant a greater extraction of tannins from the Nebbiolo grapes. That gave the Barbarescos of the past their reputation of being austere, rough at the edges, not ready to be drunk for at least ten years.

The new technology reduced the fermentation time to 21 days, thereby reducing skin contact to a desirable level. As a result, Gaja's Barbaresco and Nebbiolo blends have softer tannins and are as ready to be drunk as they're capable of being aged.

Gaja was also the first to support barrique aging in Barbaresco. All his wines are now aged for a year in French barriques and for another year in casks made with Slavonian oak. Gaja is so particular about the quality of the oak used in the barriques that he gets oak from France and ages it for three years in Barbaresco to make sure that what goes into the barriques is right. The French oak, partly treated with hot vapour and partly toasted, is employed by a cooper in Barbaresco to make barriques comparable to the French product. Gamba is the name that Gaja has given to these barriques.

Gaia's eyes sparkle with excitement as she shares this information over a pot of white tea from Darjeeling at the new lobby lounge of the Taj Palace hotel in the Indian capital. She is happy that Italian wines are going up the quality chain, partly because of the success of Italian fine-dining around the world. She's particularly impressed by Japan .

“My father says that you can find the best Italian food outside Italy in Japan ,” Gaia says. “If you visit any Italian town, you'll find at least one Japanese working in the kitchen of every restaurant.” These young men go to Italy in large numbers because the demand for trained Italian chefs is showing no signs of a slowing down in Japan . “And guess what is Italy 's most popular cuisine today?” she asks with a twinkle in her eye. “Chinese!”

No wonder, the Chinese are getting so seriously into wine production that wine-making professionals in France can have a party for many years. But now, 60% of imports into the world's sixth largest wine-producing nation comprises Chilean bulk wine.

In India , Italian fine-dining is still in its infancy and the knowledge about wines is basic. “To appreciate the wines of a country, you need to understand its culture as well, so it'll take some time before Indians start understanding wine,” Gaia says. There's a big need, therefore, to demystify wines by creating an Indian vocabulary for flavours and tastes. “How can you expect someone who has not grown up eating truffles or blueberries to appreciate the language of sommeliers?” she asks.

It is possible, I said, to describe the bouquet of a wine using mangoes, lychees, guavas and jasmine as parallels. “Jasmine?” Gaia asked. “It's interesting you mention jasmine. When I told my co-workers I smelt jasmine in the Babar esco 2003, they were surprised.” The new vocabulary may upset those with their feet firmly rooted in tradition, but then, you can't be Gaja's eldest daughter and not challenge received wisdom.