A deep and age-worthy blend of Barbera and Bonarda from 70-year-old vines, “Macchiona” is fermented in tank and aged in large Slavonian oak casks. Wild aromas of black fruit, iron, dried flowers, and balsamic herbs carry through a powerful yet balanced palate. Structured and soulful, this wine has the guts to age another decade but at almost 10 years of age it is showing amazing.
2016 La Stoppa “Macchiona” Rosso
95 PTS
— Orazio Campoli, September 2026
About the Producer
La Stoppa occupies a nineteenth-century estate in the Val Trebbiola, in the Colli Piacentini hills of Emilia. Under Elena Pantaleoni, with Giulio Armani in the cellar, it abandoned international varieties in favour of the region’s own and became one of the reference points of Italian natural wine. Everything is fermented with native yeasts, made without additives and bottled unfiltered.
Ageno is among the wines that made extended skin contact legible to a wider audience: Malvasia di Candia Aromatica with Ortrugo and Trebbiano, macerated on the skins for weeks, deep golden, with dried citrus, tea leaf, honey and resin on a firm, tannic frame. Decades on, it remains one of the pinnacles of Italian orange wine.
The reds come from Barbera and Bonarda. Macchiona, from 70-year-old vines, is fermented in tank and aged in large Slavonian oak: wild, iron-tinged and age-worthy, with black fruit, dried flowers and balsamic herbs. Trebbiolo is the vibrant, rustic everyday red, fermented naturally with no added sulfites, full of cherry, blackberry, earthy spice and wild herbs.