Today, Paleo Rosso is one of the symbols of Bolgheri, maintaining a non-standardized wine style, and it is one of the world's most famous wines made from Cabernet Franc. The name "Paleo" is the generic name for a grass species, Festuca Pratensis (of the Gramineae family), which grows wild along the Tuscan coast. Wine connoisseurs know that this is a rare wine, as only 20,000 bottles are produced annually. Production is handled by the Le Macchiole winery.
Dating back to the early 1980s, Le Macchiole is one of Bolgheri's historic wineries, and over the years it has become a benchmark for Tuscan quality wine. Founders Eugenio Campolmi and Cinzia Merli were among the region's pioneers and significantly contributed to Bolgheri's growing reputation through their work in creating wines with character and personality that have become emblematic of the region. Today, Cinzia runs the winery with the vital support of her sons Elia and Mattia, who, along with a close-knit team of enthusiastic colleagues, have become a key presence at the winery.
The harvest is entirely by hand, after which the entire juice is aged for at least 16 months in oak barrels. Le Macchiole uses new oak, steel, and amphora for this purpose. The aroma offers overwhelming hints of red fruit, blood orange, mocha, licorice, and exotic spices.
The 2021 vintage is characterized by elegance. This elegance is also a direction Le Macchiole itself took several years earlier.
- James Suckling: 96/100 points
- Robert Parker: 97/100 points
- Antonio Galloni: 97/100 points
