Cantina alla Maggia: The Merlot Born in the Delta

A short walk from Ascona and Lake Maggiore, the river Maggia opens into a fertile, luminous, almost unexpected plain. This is where Terreni alla Maggia has been farming one of Ticino's most significant agricultural stories since 1930.

It is more than a wine estate. It's a living landscape, where fields of rice, maize and wheat grow alongside vineyards; where farming doesn't just produce raw materials, but gives rise to products that speak precisely of a territory: rice, polenta, pasta, flours, wine and spirits.

Today Terreni alla Maggia and Cantina alla Maggia farm 85 hectares of fields between Ascona, Locarno and the Magadino Plain, together with 11.5 hectares of vineyards in the Maggia Delta. It's a rare project in scale and coherence: from land to harvest, from vine to bottle, from grain to table.

A land that keeps innovating

Their story is rooted in tradition, but also built on bold choices.

Wine production began in 1948. In 1989 came a concrete commitment to protecting the Delta's biodiversity. In 1997 Terreni alla Maggia introduced the first rice cultivation in Switzerland: this is how Loto rice was born, grown using the dry method and ideal for risotto.

Then came maize, durum wheat and barley. From these fields come white, red and black polenta, pasta made with Ticino durum wheat, flours and many other specialities. These aren't simply local products: they're the result of a supply chain you can trace, see and understand.

From the Delta to the winery

Cantina alla Maggia grows out of this same agricultural heritage. Here Merlot meets a distinctive microclimate, shaped by the closeness of Lake Maggiore and by mineral soils formed over centuries by the river Maggia.

Winemaker Ettore Biraghi and his team oversee every stage in-house: caring for the vines, harvest, vinification and ageing. Merlot remains at the heart of production, alongside Kerner, Chardonnay and Bondola, one of Ticino's most distinctive native grape varieties.

The wines tell different stories, from the freshness of La Lepre and Kerner to the depth of Ascona Riserva, made from the estate's oldest vines and long aged in barrique. The spirits are born of the same drive to explore the territory: Whisky di Ascona, produced since 2008, was Ticino's first single malt.

Why Sapori.world chose them

We chose Terreni alla Maggia and Cantina alla Maggia because they represent a complete vision of what we look for: excellent products, a precise origin and people who look after a place instead of exploiting it.

Here Ticino isn't just a word on the label. It's the rice grown in the Delta, the maize turned into polenta, the durum wheat that becomes pasta and the grapes that, in the same soil, become wine.

It's a story that starts in nature and reaches the table without losing its identity. And that's exactly the kind of flavour we want to tell on Sapori.world.