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Lambrusco was, for many people and for a very long time, a wine much like Chianti from a straw-covered flask or Soave in a litre bottle from the local pizzeria. It was one of those wines of the 1970s that, after a night of heavy drinking and even heavier smoking, would leave you waking up around Sunday lunchtime with a pounding headache. This wine has since largely faded into obscurity, because roughly a decade ago a handful of dedicated winemakers set out to repair the image of Lambrusco — an image that had been thoroughly ruined by large industrial producers. They succeeded, in no small part thanks to the support of restaurateurs such as Massimo Bottura, who was among the first to put this remarkable wine back on the menu at his award-winning Osteria Francescana. Lambrusco has become Lambrusco once again…
What exactly is Lambrusco?
Lambrusco is the traditional wine of Emilia — that part of Emilia-Romagna which stretches north-westward from the regional capital Bologna towards Modena and Cremona, towards violin-making and luxury sports cars, towards Aceto Balsamico, Parmigiano Reggiano, and Prosciutto.
Lambrusco is a wine that most people remember as being off-dry, yet it is produced just as frequently in a dry style, though always with a certain degree of effervescence.
It derives its name — and indeed its character — from old, often ancient grape varieties rooted in wild vines known in Italian as lambrusca. Lambrusco is therefore not the name of a single grape variety, nor of a family of varieties, nor even of a clearly defined style; for these wines can be lightly or vigorously sparkling, undergo their secondary fermentation in tank or in bottle, and be produced as deep red, rosé, or white, and as sweet, off-dry, or dry. And yet today the name stands as a synonym for sparkling wines from Emilia and, to a lesser extent, from Lombardy.
Country Wine from the Countryside
One of the leading protagonists of the Lambrusco revival was and remains Vanni Nizzoli.
Vanni comes from a family of farmers who have always grown grapes and, as was once common practice, ran a mixed agricultural operation.
The estate lies slightly off the beaten track, nestled in the idyllic surroundings of Puianello di Quattro Castella, not far from the town of Reggio Emilia. It was in 2003 that Vanni decided to go all in and dedicate himself entirely to producing wines that draw on ancient traditions and grape varieties. His parents had already named the estate after its oldest vineyard, Cinque Campi, back in the 1980s and had sold their first own bottlings to local restaurants and merchants — but Vanni wanted to start afresh from the ground up.
Crucial to this endeavour was the fact that he had access to over seven hectares of old vineyards with old clones and grape varieties that had never been treated with systemic sprays within his family.
He therefore began the process of organic certification and from then on immersed himself in the traditional wine styles of Emilia. He quickly earned a reputation for producing one of the most charming and authentic Lambruscos in the region.
Cinque Campi – Five Fields
Vanni’s vineyards are Cinque Campi and Le Marcone, which he inherited from his parents, as well as Botteghe and La Bora Lungha, which he was able to acquire subsequently. All of them are characterised by a mixture of sand, silt and clay with generally high silica content in varying proportions and with different aspects to the sun.
»The high silica content of the sandy sections lends the wine freshness and acidity, an almost skeletal character that I refer to as the bones of the wine. The chalky subsoil complements this with a degree of body and minerality,« Vanni explains when describing the influence of his soils on the wine. Growing here are the traditional varieties Malbo Gentile and Spergola as well as Lambrusco Grasparossa, but also Trebbiano dell’Emilia, Marzemino, Cabernet Sauvignon, Muscat and Carmenère.
Minimal Intervention
What begins in the vineyard with organic and partly biodynamic farming is carried through consistently in the cellar.
If there is vin naturel anywhere in Emilia-Romagna, it is here.
Even the second fermentation he began without additives, using only a chilled must from his own grapes, whereby the quantity added determines the final pressure in the bottle. With less must it becomes a Frizzante, with more must a Spumante.
The riddling and disgorgement of the approximately 11,000 bottles produced annually at Cinque Campi are carried out by Vanni, his father and his son themselves.
Text and wine expertise: Christoph Raffelt
Natural Lambrusco
Tasting Case Cinque Campi
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