Lambrusco Cialdini 2017

If there's one things those Italians do rather well it's a good old renaissance. One second you're in the dark ages farming turnips, the next Michelangelo's up some scaffolding painting babies on the ceiling. Well, that's what we learned in Oddbins history class, anyway. Lambrusco is the latest Italian to experience a renaissance. For a while you'd avoid the guest who brought you a bottle of that glorified Cherryade like they were a member of the Borgias family. No longer, wines like Villa Cialdini Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro are defining the category. Ruby red in colour, with plenty of bright bubbles. On the nose it has a fresh, pronounced and very fine fruity scent. On the palate the wine is delicate, tangy and well-balanced, with pleasant refreshing acidity, floral notes and forest fruits on the finish. A wine fit for Da Vinci!

Cousins Anselmo and Mauro Chiarli started the project of Castelvetro in 2002: it was a very ambitious project to build a state of the art winery to produce top quality Lambrusco. They developed this project in the historical Azienda Agricola Castelvetro with its old vineyards and the Villa Cialdini, a beautiful ancient building that has been of the Chiarli family since 1860s. The renovation of the Villa took a year and in 2003 the new winery started the production.

The estate covers 70 hectares of which 52 are vineyards on the undulated alluvial deposits typical of the fertile Padana plain. The main grape variety planted here is Grasparossa, the lower yielding and most concentrated clone of Lambrusco. The resulting Lambrusco is deeply coloured, dry and structured while retaining the pronounced fruitful profile that has made Lambrusco so successful.

The Grasparossa grapes are picked at the end of September. Soft pressing of the grapes and immediate refrigeration is followed by settling and filtration. The must is preserved in stainless steel vats which are refrigerated at 0°C. After the initial fermentation, the second fermentation takes placed in sealed, pressurised vats at 16-18° C for 90 days. The wine is stabilised at -3°C and Isobaric cold bottling of the wine is obtained with the Method Charmat.