![]() A salmon pink fluorescent looking sparkling with some haziness coming from the refermentation in the bottle. Angelo Marchesi showing Sorbara with the typical millerandage (grape bunches containing berries that differ in size and maturity) helping the wine to increase some natural acidity. “We have 100ha of organic prunes to sustain our business at the moment, but our allocations are sold out,” Angelo replies. I ask if their business model is working. ![]() This organic farm, which kicked off with the 2017 vintage, has taken a stand to produce only Metodo Ancestrale Lambrusco (the oldest way of making sparkling wine) in Magnum at €30 a bottle – a statement that claims Lambrusco deserves a better place in the restaurant fine wine lists all over the world. “In our estate they were kept standing thanks to a history professor, but we noticed our vineyards were growing with lower yields per hectare (around 10 tons) but with higher quality”. “The ‘Pianura Padana’ (Po Valley) used to be packed with Roman training camps, tiered down for obvious logistical purposes,” they explain. Starting my journey in the brand new winery of Marchesi di Ravarino, north east of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region, father and son owners Angelo and Nicola tell me the four squares of 400m2 of vines located around the wine estate used to be training camps for Roman soldiers. The name was coined by the Romans, a portmanteau from ‘labrum’ (meaning edge, or border in Latin) and ‘ruscum’ (meaning rustic, wild, spontaneous). Genetically, the Lambrusco grape comes straight from the Labrusca wild vine that grew at the borders of the fields in ancient times, and there is evidence it was cultivated by the Etruscans. From its ancient Etruscan and Roman origins to the red-cola wines of the 1980s, Italy’s famous red frizzante has evolved into a vibrant, crunchy and saline fine wine, according to Filippo Bartolotta. A new wave of Lambrusco has started to emerge from the shadows.
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