This Glowing Wine Is Having a Shocking Comeback

Within the hilltop village of Castelvetro di Modena, they have been dancing within the streets. It was mid-September, and the revelers have been there for the city’s annual Sagra dell’Uva, or Grape Pageant. All around the northern Italian area of Emilia-Romagna, winemakers have been selecting, urgent, and fermenting the newest classic of Lambrusco, a predominantly purple glowing wine that has been produced there for hundreds of years. 

In Castelvetro that night time, the traces for the bars snaked by the throng of dancers in the principle sq.. A DJ blasted tunes from the steps of the village corridor as the sunshine from an enormous disco ball strafed the gang. 

I had come to Italy to satisfy a bunch of winemakers who’re altering Lambrusco’s worldwide fame. Outdoors of Italy, the concept that this wine deserves celebration might come as a shock. Within the late Nineteen Sixties, Riunite, a wine cooperative, started exporting a dark-red, powerfully candy model of the drink. Lambrusco grew to become synonymous with that sickly tipple—which bore no resemblance to the refreshingly dry and crisp Lambrusco guzzled by Italians. 

However the world is waking as much as the actual factor. Lambrusco now seems on restaurant and wine-bar menus from London to Los Angeles, and it has some big-name evangelists. Cameron Diaz’s wine model, Avaline, features a Lambrusco produced in Emilia-Romagna. 

My self-driving journey across the area was organized by Journey + Leisure A-Checklist member Matteo Della Grazia of Fuoritinerario–Uncover Your Italy. It started at Opera02, a wine and vinegar producer a few miles from Castelvetro. Unfold throughout 42 acres of rolling hills dotted with farmhouses, the property has an eight-room B&B at its middle, housed in a transformed barn. The minute I entered I used to be hit by the highly effective aroma of fermenting grapes—not from wine, however from a whole bunch of barrels of DOP-certified balsamic vinegar, which have been maturing in a glass-walled loft subsequent to the foyer. 

I met the proprietor, Mattia Montanari, on the terrace overlooking his fields. He focuses on a grape known as Grasparossa, one in all 13 cultivated Lambrusco varieties. Its title means “purple stalk,” and beneath us waves of crimson have been washing by the vines as they darkened into their fall colours. 

Montanari, who grew up in Castelvetro, doesn’t come from a household of winemakers (his mother and father have been in actual property). He was pushed into the enterprise by his love of Lambrusco and his frustration on the scorn it acquired overseas. “I felt dangerous,” he mentioned. “I knew the actual Lambrusco, and I wished to indicate it off.” 

He began his winery in 2002 with 10 acres, all organically cultivated, and through the years added to it little by little. He opened the resort a few decade in the past to attract extra vacationers and showcase his wines. He now produces 70,000 bottles a yr—about 75 p.c of that are bought to the U.S. 

A part of Lambrusco’s enchantment, he mentioned, is its versatility. Most frequently used for glowing darkish reds, it additionally is available in white and rosé, and could be bone-dry or fruit-forward and fragrant. “You may have a complete meal with simply Lambrusco,” he mentioned. As we chatted he opened a bottle and poured us a few glasses. The colour was deep and darkish—the type of shade I affiliate with heavy reds. However this was contemporary and effervescent, with tender bubbles, silky tannins, and delicate notes of cherry and blueberry. It was gentle sufficient to work as an aperitif, however its cleaning acidity would work equally properly with meat. In different phrases, it was frighteningly straightforward to drink. 

Subsequent, I drove 40 minutes north, into the flatlands of the Po Valley, the place I met Cecilia Paltrinieri, a fourth-generation winemaker in her mid 20s. Her household’s winery, Cantina Paltrinieri, was began by her great-grandfather, who made wine for enjoyable. He additionally constructed the elegant red-brick buildings clustered across the warehouse the place the wine is made at the moment. After a tour of the winery—together with the towering metal vats the place the current harvest was starting to ferment—we sat down within the tasting room. 

I requested Paltrinieri to elucidate Lambrusco’s rising recognition. “We’re seeing a giant pattern for simple wines, and a flip away from wealthy, advanced wines,” she mentioned. “That’s why so many individuals have been consuming pale rosé.” She introduced out a bottle of Radice, one in all her rosé Lambruscos. Constructed from a grape known as Lambrusco di Sorbara, which grows within the plains between the Secchia and Panaro rivers, it’s tartly acidic and carries hints of orange and rhubarb. As a result of it’s bottle-fermented with pure yeast, it additionally has that earthy funk beloved by followers of pure wine. With its metal cap and barely cloudy complexion, it could match proper in at any wine bar in Brooklyn.

As the worldwide enchantment of Lambrusco has grown, extra of Emilia-Romagna’s winemakers have turned their vineyards into trendy locations. One afternoon I finished at Cantina Ventiventi, opened in 2018 by Vittorio Razzaboni and his three sons, Riccardo, Andrea, and Tommaso. The Razzabonis are luring guests with cool, modern structure: the winery’s principal constructing is a Modernist glass field surrounded by geometric, Japanese-inspired swimming pools and a waterfall, the place you’ll be able to get pleasure from a crisp glass of Lambrusco in one of many bubble chairs that dot the patio. Inside, the occasion house (and occasional restaurant) is neglected by an enormous purple teddy bear. 

I used to be on my option to Relais Roncolo 1888, a winery resort on the reverse finish of the design spectrum. It’s a part of the 320-acre Tenuta di Roncolo property, within the foothills of the Apennine Mountains, which dates again to the fifteenth century. In 2015 it was purchased by Julia Prestia, a Viennese ex-financier, and her Sicilian husband, Giuseppe. The couple set about renovating the property’s Nineteenth-century villa and outbuildings, turning them into a luxurious resort that mixes unique touches like frescoed ceilings with mid-century Italian furnishings. My room, tricked out in shades of mushroom, opened onto a hallway coated in its unique wallpaper, depicting a sea battle full with roiling water, boats stuffed with pugnacious sailors, and, within the background, a dusky panorama of historical ruins. 

The afternoon I arrived, I walked down the lengthy, cypress-lined driveway to the vineyard to satisfy Prestia and the winery’s expertise supervisor, Vittorio Baghi. As we headed inside, we handed a coated courtyard the place a number of members of Prestia’s workforce have been feeding freshly picked grapes right into a juicing machine. The property’s earlier homeowners started to make wine there again within the Seventies, and by the 80s the flagship bottle was a wealthy purple Lambrusco known as Rubino del Cerro. It’s nonetheless made at the moment, together with a dizzying assortment of different varieties, together with elegant whites with the biscuity fizz of champagne. 

Prestia has taken an entrepreneurial strategy to discovering a brand new viewers for her wines. At one level she opened a bottle of the glowing Lambrusco that she says is her means of “piggybacking on the rosé pattern.” She hopes that it may be a gateway into the world of Lambrusco for many who’ve by no means tried it earlier than. “That’s what’s so enjoyable about it,” she mentioned. “It’s not one factor. It’s such a large spectrum.” 

For the subsequent hour, Baghi introduced out bottle after bottle till there have been a few dozen arrayed on the desk, every a subtly totally different expression. Once we completed our tasting, Prestia supplied to present me a carry again up the hill to the resort. However my head was as cloudy because the bottle-fermented Lambrusco I’d simply drunk. I wanted the stroll. 

A model of this story first appeared within the June 2025 difficulty of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “Italian Revival.”