Antigua Bodega

Meet the winemakers

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Glug Staff

Wednesday 04 November 2026

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This article is from

Uruguay

issue 68

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A shining example of traditional family winemaking in Uruguay, Antigua Bodega was founded in 1928 and is now run by the fifth and sixth generations of the same family. Virginia Stagnari, the current owner and winery director, who gave up a career in medicine to take up the reins, works alongside her daughter, winemaker Mariana Meneguzzi, and her son Carlo Meneguzzi, who is in charge of the vineyards.

The family descends from two lines of Italian immigrants. Pablo Stagnari arrived from the Marche in 1898 and, as a teenager, worked in the Aicardi quarry at La Paz, where he married the owner’s daughter, Adela. Pablo Moise, the son of a farmer and winemaker from Turin, came by way of Argentina, working on the construction of a railway toward Paraguay. He and his wife Ecilda bought three hectares at Santos Lugares, which at the time had neither electricity nor running water; the windmill they built over their well still stands at the winery’s entrance. The families were joined in 1955, when Héctor Nelson Stagnari married Mariana Moise.

On the winemaking front, Mariana works closely alongside Laura Casella, who has worked in the winery for more than 30 years, and was one of the first female winemakers in the country.

Antigua Bodega’s vineyards cover a total of 30 hectares, at Santos Lugares and along the banks of the Santa Lucía River at Melilla. In Santos Lugares, you will find Merlot and Sangiovese, while in Melilla the family grows white varieties such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Albariño, and reds including Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Marselan, Merlot, Syrah and Tannat.

The winery is blessed with an excellent terroir, with rocky soils that allow for excellent drainage. In Santos Lugares, the subsoil is decomposing pink granite known as Granito de La Paz, which is exclusive to this area and between 500 and 600 million years old. The vineyards are still ringed by stone quarries, and the family’s top Tannat, Il Nero, honours Héctor Nelson.

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