Trebbiolo 2018 La Stoppa: an excellent natural wine from Piacenza to combine with lamb dishes
Trebbiolo 2018 La Stoppa is an appetizing and cheeky red wine. It is greedily fresh, light, and unpretentious, but it has that drinkability that makes it impossible to stop drinking and makes you finish the bottle before you even realize it.
It is not a complex aging wine like La Macchiona; in fact, it is quite the opposite, and the beauty is that you will not have to wait 10 or 15 years to enjoy a wine at the peak of maturity.
Let’s face it, La Macchiona is a stellar and sumptuous wine, but to fully enjoy it, you have to give it time, wait, and be patient. It is not a defect; far from it, it is a hymn to the seriousness of this cellar.
But if instead you want a wine to combine on the fly with a plate of Coppa Piacenza and fried cake, Trebbiolo is perfect.
How Trebbiolo 2018 La Stoppa is produced
The blend is an everlasting classic that ferments in all the cellars of Piacenza. It is made from Barbera and Bonarda grapes, but the grapes come from younger vineyards at the bottom of the valley.
We don’t want to call it second-choice wine, but it is certain that the most valuable raw materials rightfully end up in the Macchiona tanks.
The management of the vineyards is organic; no chemicals are used; there is no weeding; there are no fertilizers; and the grassing is spontaneous.
The grapes are hand-picked, macerated in steel or cement for 20 days, and then they naturally ferment, once more without the use of wood.
Organoleptic characteristics
The result is a true, pure, and spontaneous wine that does not need embellishments and does not follow fashions, but is offered with the cheeky simplicity of those who know they are right and do not need labels.
This wine is a reflection of a place that is hard to understand, not because of its soil or weather, but because it is known as an industrial area that makes millions of bottles of sparkling Gutturnio that are sold in large quantities for 3 euros.
But don’t worry; people with big hearts work at Stoppa who love wine and produce with absolute transparency.
The bouquet is spectacular for cleanliness, crystalline clarity, and directness, offering you a cornucopia of red fruit, oranges, roses, and earthy returns of rhubarb and gentian. Minty finish with herbs and hints of undergrowth again. Nothing is difficult, but what is there is punctuated with precision.
On the palate, it is fresh, light, and never heavy. It moves easily, thanks to the wine’s great acidity, and the tannins have been carefully shaped.
The structure is not exaggerated, the length of the sip is good, and the pulp is infinite and addictive. It’s not a colossal wine, but it does its dirty work admirably without falling into any faults.
Price
13-15 euros. Calibrated price.