Lambrusco does not enjoy the best of reputations, either at home or abroad. This sad but true state of affairs is mostly due to power plays and marketing: Production is dominated by cooperative wineries that pay their suppliers by the ton. Thus most farmers produce as much as they can because volume, not quality, makes for higher earnings.

The problem of high yields has been compounded by the decision of the cooperatives to make their lives easier by moving the vineyards down off the hills onto the flatlands, where the vines are planted in widely spaced rows, trained high off the ground to give tractors easy access. How do they get the high production? From 30-foot-long shoots 10 feet above the ground that extend towards the adjacent rows on either side (seen from a distance the vines look very much like the ribbed framework of a stell shed). This is a far cry form the densely planted vineyards one finds on the hillsides of Italy's great wine-producing regions, and the wine produced is what one might expect.

However, things are changing. >>>