Extraordinary orange wine made with extreme care from a place you probably never heard of. La Stoppa is an historic estate in the province of Piacenza in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. Organic, little to no sulfur; wines are aged in a range of Slavonian oak botti and used French barriques. 90% Malvasia/10% Ortrugo & Trebbiano Toscano. Mixed varietals are co-planted and average 30-years-old. The fruit is picked together, de-stemmed and macerated with the skins for approximately a month (less time in warmer vintages, more in cooler ones); a cap of skins and seeds forms and is not broken but is kept moistened with the fermenting wine. Fermentation is with native yeasts only in steel tank; malolactic fermentation occurs naturally as well. The wine is aged for a year, half in stainless steel and half in used French oak, followed by two years in bottle before release. And what’s the result of all that careful winemaking? Decanter says: “A full bodied, spicy and honeyed wine with haunting aromas of rose, musk, chamomile and thyme. Full of deep, pure, head-turning flavours, modulating from rose-water charm through clean apple-orchard fruit, oranges and rhubarb. Notes of cinnamon and ginger come through on the memorable finish. Somehow more than the sum of its parts.”