Base Wine & Blend

The base wine of Lambrusco from Modena and Reggio Emilia is a red or rosé wine that hasn't yet gone sparkling. EU law requires a minimum total alcohol of 8.5 percent for a sparkling wine blend, and 9 percent for quality sparkling wine. For semi-sparkling wine, 9 percent total suffices, with 7 percent coming from the wine itself.

Because a second fermentation follows, the base wine can't be heavy. The liqueur de tirage, meaning the sugar and yeast that triggers the sparkle, may raise the blend's alcohol by no more than 1.5 percent by volume. The harvest, then, doesn't fall on the last possible ripening day but at the moment when acidity and fruit are still in balance. Waiting too long in the vineyard brings more color and sugar, but less acidity — and in the tank, that acidity is sorely missed.

Color comes from contact with the skins. If the cellar master leaves the must on the skins for a long time, the wine turns dark and tannic; a short contact keeps it pale. The counterpart is Blanc de Noirs: pressed from red grapes like a white wine, and in Germany it may be labeled as sparkling wine under that name if it shows white-wine-typical color. With Lambrusco, the goal is exactly the opposite.

The blend comes from mixing different batches. Color, acidity, and tannin are balanced out; a winemaker in Castelvetro or Sorbara can combine vineyard sites and varieties within the permitted shares to do this. Reserve wines from earlier harvests, an important tool in Champagne, are rarely used here.

A vintage usually doesn't appear on the label either. A Lambrusco is meant to be drunk young and fresh, not after years on the lees. Here, the blend is more a question of balance than of age.