La Stoppa, Ageno, Emilia, Emilia Romagna, Italy, 2011

Who would have thought that a defiantly tannic orange wine made with 30 days of maceration would triumph in this tasting? Yet triumph it did, proving that Malvasia di Candia Aromatica (the dominant variety here) takes to skin contact like bees to a honeypot. La Stoppa’s 50 hectare organic estate in Emilia-Romagna has been established for more than a century, with the enigmatic Elena Pantaleoni its grande dame for the past 23 years. She prefers the term ‘artisanal’ to the more nebulous ‘natural’ for her wines. 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.