Ceci La Luna Lambrusco
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Italy, Emilia-Romagna
2007
Price: $15.99
The Food.... How could
a region that creates some of Italy's most culinarily advanced, refined
and profound foodstuffs make such lousy wine? Put another way, could
the land of Prosciutto di Parma, Balsamico and Parmignano-Reggiano
really be inhabited by people also willing to swill cheap Lambrusco
with their artisanally-crafted wares? In a word, no. The story is not
so simple. From afar it would seem like Emilia Romagna is a
viticultural backwater, but the truth is closer to a reality shared by
the (in)famous DOC of Soave in the Veneto. A handful of industrial
brands wrecked the image of Lambrusco, led by Riunite, a wine so not
nice they recommended serving it on ice. The colder the better I'm
sure, to dull the senses and tamp down the cloying simple sweetness.
The Land... A glance
at the map and the purported state of things in Emilia-Romagna becomes
even more unlikely. Bordered by Tuscany to the south and Veneto to the
north, this region is basically surrounded by producers of many of the
world's greatest red and white wines. In Bologna, Emilia-Romagna has an
outstanding center for its food culture, a metropolis that is both
center of gravity and defining point for the culture of the surrounding
land, similar in role and stature to Genoa, Verona, Naples, even Rome.
In terms of gastronomy Emilia Romagna is to the Italian landscape as
Burgundy is to France. It is the belly of Italy, a land that may rank
first in importance among twenty fiercely local and quality-obsessed
regions of this great peninsula. It
is probably impossible for most Italians to extricate allegiance to the
foodstuffs and traditions of the region of their birth from this sort of qualitative debate. But to
an outsider, the raw materials of Emilia Romagna make it a primary
destination for hungry tourists planning Italian holidays. The raw
materials of the region deserve the sort of diligent protection one
would grant a UNESCO world heritage cultural site.
As the name implies, Emilia Romagna is not geographically uniform. It's
actually broken into at least four distinct and important wine-growing
areas, two of which are appended to form its moniker. Grapes like the
white Albana and ubiquitous red grape Sangiovese make for compelling
drinking, and in Emilia, Lambrusco reaches a greatness currently only
understood by locals and a small band of international wine
intelligentsia (also known as wine nerds.) At the same time, many of
Romagna's leading estates are pushing ahead with an increasing amount
of quality French varietal bottlings. A familiar pattern as exists
across much of the 21st century wine landscape.
The Wine... So the
real wines got buried. A handful of diligent farmers maintained the
wine traditions of this region, away from the spotlight. Cantine Ceci
makes wine following a more ancient template. For three generations
this family estate, founded by an innkeeper in the Emilian lowlands,
has crafted wines in accordance with high-quality local wine
traditions. They farm according to organic principles. The Italian wine
press is catching on - this estate received a promising review from Gambero Rosso (the
annual Italian wine guide) in 2008, a sign that the old style of
Lambrusco is beginning to get the attention it deserves. Lambrusco is
actually a (woefully misunderstood) family of grapevines, the fruit of
which can be made into white, rose or red wines. While sweet and fizzy
versions are abundant, many compelling dry versions exist, often made
lightly effervescent through secondary bottle fermentations, similar to
methode ancestrale wines from all over France. Today to order
this type of Lambrusco in a trendy wine bar is a way to show that you
"get it" that you are a foodie/wine geek who is willing to seek
authentic flavor at or beyond the boundaries of conventionally accepted
"quality" wine zones.
http://www.drvino.com/2009/11/17/greenwashing-wine-ceci-la-luna-lambrusco/