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Last week, I ended my book tour with an event at Elliott’s in Edinburgh for the city’s book festival. These tastings usually take place on a week night, so I tend to opt for three easy-drinking favourites. A kabinett riesling? Check. A fruity côtes du Rhône? Check. Then I spied a lambrusco. I love starting the evening with a joyous glass of something fizzy but, to my surprise, many members of the audience remarked how they didn’t have the best memories of lambrusco.
I suppose I’m showing my age here, because all I know of lambrusco is the delicious, bone-dry examples that pop up at chic chef residencies and firmly at the top of wine lists in brilliant Italian restaurants. Most of my audience, however, recalled it rather less fondly: as a super-sweet drink that seems to have wedged itself irreversibly into the brain of anyone who was alive and drinking in the 1970s and 80s.
If super-sweet is your thing, have at it, but it’s my great pleasure to inform the rest of you that there’s so much more to discover. Lambrusco comes from the region of Emilia-Romagna, where there are eight related lambrusco varieties that produce a range of styles – dry, off-dry, red, pink, white – so there’s something to fit every palate.
Indeed, while I was in Edinburgh, I had a good lunch at Sotto, an enoteca and trattoria that opened last year, where I was pleased to see a bottle of lambrusco on the menu. It’s a wine that owner and sommelier James Clark says has an important part to play on his list: “Lambrusco challenges people’s preconceptions: you can bring a table of people from my parents’ generation a glass of something dry, floral and elegant that is unrecognisable from what they thought lambrusco is.”
And what of food pairings? “It can comfortably sit alongside a range of foods,” Clark says. “It’s great with cured meats and fried antipasti, say, and even spicy food. We often have a gnocchi fritto with culatello [a type of cured pork] on the menu, and I cannot think of a better pairing for that than a glass of lambrusco.”
Lambrusco is also my go-to pizza wine. The dish and the drink share a conviviality, and the red fruit meets the freshness of good tomato sauce. If you’ve got a friend whose quarter/midlife crisis has come in the shape of a hi-tech pizza oven, give them an excuse to fire it up and bring over a bottle of red fizz.
Four lambruscos to surprise your palate
Nivola Lambrusco £13 (or £12 on ‘“mix-six”) Majestic, 10.5%. Slightly sweet and full of fruit, this is deep, dark cherry.
Medici Ermete ‘Concerto’ Lambrusco £14.75 Hic!, 11.5%. Dry with bright red fruit, this is the one Sotto has on its winelist.
Paltrinieri Solco Lambrusco £19.95 Buon Vino, 11%. Off-dry and balanced. I reach for a bottle whenever I see it in an indie.
Cleto Chiarli Vecchia Modena Lambrusco Sorbara £19 Hic!, 11%. Wild, fresh and 100% lambrusco di sorbara.
