Lambrusco 101

by David Rosengarten

#7: Italian Sparkling Red

"There is a restaurant near my apartment called Sezz' Medi.....which features, amomg other good things, a wood-burning oven turning out excellent pizza. And when I go there for pizza--or when I go there in the summer, no matter what I'm eating--I always drink the same wine: an off-dry, fizzy red from Sorrento, near Naples. It makes me so happy!

...Now, whenever I pour this wine for other people.....they raise objections, at first. "You want fizzy red," they ask? "Is that really wine? Isn't that 'pop' wine?" Then I pour it, then they drink it, then they say "yum." It is so deliriously delicious, no one could possibly object.

But I know what they're thinking.

They're recalling a time in the 1970s when there was a major marketing effort in the U.S. to sell a fizzy red from the Emilia-Romagna region called Lambrusco. They sold it through the medium of a guy named Aldo Cella, in a white hat, who exhorted people in commercials to "chill a Cella!" The problem is that Cella Lambrusco was insipid and very, very sweet......and turned Americans off for a very long time to fizzy Italian red.

In reality....wine-drinkers of all stripes in Emilia-Romagna, arguably Italy's greatest gastronomic region, have long guzzled dry Lambrusco like crazy with their meals, considering it the perfect tipple with everything from prosciutto, to creamy pasta dishes.

Dry Lambrusco is even greater than my beloved Penisola Sorrentina Gragnano.....and, if you don't have dry Lambrusco in your life already, I am imploring you to go get some before the summer is quite over.

So what is it exactly?

Well, as usual, the Italian regulations are in flux and, ahem, slightly confusing......so I'm going to try to make this as simple as possible. Lambrusco is, first of all, a grape variety--a wild-vine variety, one of Italy's oldest, that was probably put under cultivation by the Etruscans (that's even before ancient Rome!).

It is grown today, principally, in the broad region of Emilia-Romagna--the same region responsible for prosciutto di parma, parmigiano-reggiano, tortellini, balsamic vinegar.

Forget Tuscany; Emilia-Romagna is revered by in-the-know Italian eaters as one of the greatest places to eat on the peninsula.

When you get there--to Bologna, to Modena, to Ferrari, to Rimini--you discover that everyone around you in restaurants is drinking fizzy red wine. "Oh my God," you say....."they're all chilling Cellas!" But they're not. What they're chilling is most definitely not sweet Cella--it is dry Lambrusco, fizzy, tart, grapy, and ridiculously refreshing.

It is the kind of wine that people who really love wine really drink--because real wine-lovers drink wine every day, wine that goes easily with food, wine that doesn't tear your palate out with tannin, or wood, or alcohol (most dry Lambrusco is around 11.5% alcohol, a very light number). When you buy wine of this type, you will find a number of naming possibilities on the label.

Once upon a time, there were four DOC names to look for: Lambrusco di Sorbara, a producing zone in Emilia, near Bologna, named for a sub-variety of the Lambrusco grape (Lambrusco Sorbara); Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, a producing zone in Emilia, near Bologna, named for a sub-variety of the Lambrusco grape (Lambrusco Salamino); Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro, a producing zone in Emilia, near Bologna, named for a sub-variety of the Lambrusco grape (Lambrusco Grasparossa); and Lambrusco Reggiano, made in great quantity in Romagna, in the eastern half of Emilia Romagna, closer to the Adriatic Sea, from four different sub-varieties (Lambrusco Salamino, Lambrusco Marani, Lambrusco Montericco, and Lambrusco Maestri).

On my visits to Emilia-Romagna, I've developed an absolute, hands-down favorite among these four DOCs: Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro, which is always the liveliest to me, the freshest, the fullest, without sacrificing any of its "little wine" appeal.

Now there's a fifth possibility, a new IGT wine. As I've discussed before in the Rosengarten Report, the Italian government, in 1992, decided to bring a new label designation to the table, alongside the pre-existing ones: IGT, or Indicazione Geografica Tipica, or, in English, Typical Geographic Indication. The only problem is--most of the wines that fall within this category are anything but geographically typical!

The category was created for wines that are, basically, experiments, done in non-traditional ways.....so why the government would muck all of this up and called the non-typical "typical".....I have no idea! In any case....we now have a new IGT that is known either as "Emilia," or "Lambrusco dell' Emilia" (i've seen it both ways on labels).

The old DOC wines from the Emilia part of Emilia-Romagna are still being made (Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, and Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro)--now joined by this new stuff.

How does the new stuff differ?

From what I've tasted, it's a little darker, richer, fuller--which seems to indicate that the new IGT is perhaps allowing the addition of other grapes into the blend, or perhaps allowing some new viticultural practices that produce riper grapes. Either way.....I would normally panic about this type of new-fangled meddling with an old formula that works.....except that the IGT wines I've tasted have been delicious! There was so much leanness in DOC Lambrusco before.....that the extra richness still leaves the wine light and graceful!

The other good news, of course, is that all of these wines are much more readily available in the U.S. now than they ever were before.

Dry Lambrusco, in fact, in the summer of 2008....has become something of a thing! I urge you.....I IMPLORE you!.....find a way to get some of these into your house this summer, and see if you don't love them with food as much as I do!

...

Lastly....I have just discovered a new producer (new on me) of fizzy Emilia-Romagna red, whose wines I like very much.....and whose wines are fabulous additions to the summer table. The producer's name is Medici Ermete, and its wines are available through a terrific importer in Pasadena, California, named JK Imports.

Reggiano Lambrusco Secco, Quercioli, Medici Ermete (DOC)
Deep and dark, with bluish-purple edging into red. Restrained nose--just a subtle hint of dark berries. The most elegant of all these wines....and the most like a glass of still red wine. Very dry, shyly vinous in flavor, delicious lick of tannin that gives the wine a kind of seriousness.

Reggiano Lambrusco, Concerto, Medici Ermete (DOC)
A little more purple-bluish. Wildly grapy, with aromas resembling Concord. Just a touch of sweetness--but not much--making this wine more party-like than the Quercioli. Soft bubbles, but also with a lick of tannin in the finish."

JK IMPORTS
Quality. Tipicità. Pleasure.
Los Angeles - San Francisco - New York

Phone: 1-800-WINEDAY (946-3329)
E-mail: james@jkimports.com