Lambrusco – where have you been all my life?

During a recent visit to the gastronomic region of Italy, Emilia Romagna, we stumbled across a wine which we really weren’t expecting – and it was everywhere!

But first, the food.   Bologna is the real foodie capital of Italy, with the local Tortellini, Lasagne and Tagiatelli on every menu in town.  Just up the road is Modena – the home of Balsamic Vinegar.  Then 40 minutes further west (north-west) is Parma – you guessed it, Parma Ham and Parmesan cheese.

The wines from the region of Emilia Romagna are somewhat overshadowed buy it’s neighbouring states, but there are some fantastic wines being
produced in this area.

We visited Monte Delle Vigne, outside a town called Ozzano Taro (20km from Parma).  This is a modern and spacious property, the vines looked in great condition and the state of the art winery was very impressive.   They produce a number of high quality wines here but what we were interested was their Lambrusco(s).

Now why does this word strike fear into our hearts?  Is it due to the similarly named Lambrini?  The ‘Urban Dictionary’s’ definition of which is amusingly as follows: “Lambrini is cheapo wine that is around 7% and its only about £2.00 Mainly drunk by chavs because they cant afford any decent sort of beverage.”

That aside, Lambrusco is a red grape of which there are around 60 different varieties – similar to Muscat in that sense.  The grape skins carry a rich pigment which produces ruby coloured wines, whose foam can only be likened to cherryade.

We were interested in their most traditional style wine, ‘I Calanchi’, which is made from Lambrusco Colli di Parma.  This wine is totally dry – whereas some of the scary Lambruscos we had dared to taste in Bologna were much sweeter.   Actually, pleasantly surprised.  Served at a nice chilled 12 degrees or so with some delicious Parma Ham and Parmesan, this wine was actually very pleasant and made for a nice change.

You will see in the video below that we were actually slightly frightened by the look of it, but, don’t be, if you see it, it’s really worth a go.

See our video here: https://youtu.be/vcHPoElszy