Messorio

I still remember the day I first saw the property. A glorious stretch of wheat fields and olive trees. So many things have changed since then.
Bolgheri has become the new frontier of Italian winemaking. The hectares of land planted with vineyards have grown exponentially and investors keep rolling in from every side.
However, the Bolgheri area has lost nothing of its original charm. The sweet hills, the woods, the olive groves, hectares and hectares of countryside now covered in vineyards and beyond, the sea, looming on the horizon.
In this magic place, a source of inspiration even for Giosuè Carducci, our dream slowly took shape.
Le Macchiole is a small winery, one of the first ever established here. Over the years, we have grown into our own style, first of all, by pouring obsessive care into vineyard management.
In such a new area from the winegrowing point of view, we had no choice but to focus on our land, in order to determine both its weak points and potential, to try to make wines living up to the area’s standard of excellence, and all this without inflicting harm upon the environment.
Now the winery has definitely found its way: organic farming since 2002 and converting to biodynamic winegrowing methods, while focusing on the production of the single-varietal wines you all know very well.
We are constantly abuzz with new ideas and dreams, and so much we have yet to do. That’s how I like thinking of Le Macchiole.
We are heading in more than one direction, by venturing, for instance, in the Messorio04 project. A winery like Le Macchiole, which has always been committed to varietal and terroir expression, feels morally obliged to help the local government to enhance and promote Bolgheri’s cultural heritage, first and foremost the works by poet and Nobel Prize winner Giosuè Carducci.

Il vino

Messorio is our personal interpretation of one of the grape varieties most commonly grown in the Bolgheri area: Merlot.
Though grown on the estate since the first year of production, Merlot was made into a single varietal wine after many years, in a limited production of 300 bottles of vintage 1994.
We have two vineyards planted with Merlot grapes: Puntone, planted in 1993, and Vignone, planted in 1999, both of them featuring excellent pedoclimatic characteristics, including a good percentage of clay and sand, which allow for wines of great complexity and finesse.

Each vineyard gives different wine styles: Merlot grapes from the Puntone vineyard give wines with fresh aromas and elegant tannins, backed by acidity which lends the wine a more vertical style; the wines produced from the Vignone vineyard are, instead, more complex, with intense fruity notes and a more structured tannic texture, supported by excellent minerality.

The name Messorio has ancient origins. It refers to the ancient Tuscan practice of wheat harvesting. We chose it because harvesting has always been the most important time of the year in the countryside: once it meant wheat, now, to us, it is all about grapes.

Il progetto

Every day, in our every gesture, we strive to make our wines as representative as possible of the land they come from.
Bolgheri, a world-famous winegrowing area, is a place rich in natural and artistic beauties and definitely worth visiting.
Anyone, at least once in a lifetime, should take a trip to this lovely corner of Tuscany, just a few kilometers away from the seaside, masterly described by Giosuè Carducci in his poems and stories.
We have decided to dedicate to Bolgheri a collector’s label, designed by artist Stefano Tonelli, a true work of art and the fruit of a project unique of its kind.
It is a single painting divided into 48 parts, each of which will become a label for as many Mathusalem bottles (six-liters) of Messorio 2004, our 100% Merlot wine.
This exclusive art project aims to celebrate and promote Bolgheri across the world and it is no chance that we chose Messorio as ambassador: the wine that best expresses the terroir’s strong personality, structure, elegance and aromas.
The bottles’ back label will show the number corresponding to the section of the painting belonging to the bottle owner.
Graphite, charcoal, water, acrylic and enamel are the materials used to create the label, which is also a painting and many paintings at the same time. The colors are those of the Bolgheri countryside, a piece of paradise poised between the earth, the sky and the sea.
<<Like the vine digging deep into soil looking for water or like its shoots reaching for the sky to take in all the sunlight, so I wound myself around my task till the epiphany>>, says Stefano Tonelli to describe “his” Bolgheri, which will travel the world with Messorio, in the hands of those who love it.

All proceeds will be used to support the Town of Castagneto Carducci and the whole Bolgheri area in an initiative aimed at promoting the region by installing “frames” showcasing Giosuè Carducci’s best-loved sites and offering visitors the chance to explore our land through the eyes of the Italian poet and Nobel Prize winner.

L'artista

Le Macchiole and Stefano Tonelli, the artist chosen to design the label of the special edition of Messorio 2004, were destined to meet.
Both deeply in love and having a special bond with Bolgheri, both artists in their own way, they came together to create a work of art which will make our land better known across the world.
Stefano Tonelli, who was born in Montescudaio near Pisa, after years spent travelling the world and holding solo exhibitions in Rome, Milan, Berlin, New York, Paris, Hamburg, Madrid and Lisbon, came back to his homeland to express all his love of art and, in this case, of wine. An experimental artist in both content and style, a man of his times, representative of a painting style based on ongoing research, Tonelli has created for Le Macchiole a work of art which, just like the wine it was created for, gives voice to the small world of Bolgheri.

See interview whit Stefano Tonelli

Nel mondo

With only 48 numbered Methuselah bottles released, this wine is a literal collectors item. Each vessel is bottled by hand and featu- res its own unique label making a true one of a kind.
Every collector who is in possession of a Messorio special label Methuselah, is joining us in support of our initiative, and will be prominently acknowledged on the Le Macchiole web page we will launch in 2015 devoted to this special event.
We hope to trace these bottles to collectors all over the world. In 2024 we will organize a one-time event in our estate for the owners of these special six liters as a "reunion" to recreate the painting as a whole celebrating Messorio and Bolgheri all together.