Tuesday, July 17, 2012

TLC: The Lambrusco Chronicles

By 1983 Lambrusco, a true Italian original, had gone through an extreme makeover:

A classic dry, lightly sparkling (frizzante) Italian red wine had been turned into a super sweet, super fizzy white wine.

The "industrial" Lambrusco boom which had started in 1968 ended abruptly for various reasons in 1985.

Lambrusco was being 'replaced' by 'White Zinfandel' and 'White Wine Coolers'.

The Lambrusco bust had a devastating effect on the entire region of Emilia.

In 1985 Nicolas Belfrage publishes "Life beyond Lambrusco".

Yet, exactly ten years later (1995), the very first 50 cases of real (red, DOC, single vineyard, cork-finished, secco, frizzante (slightly fizzy), top-quality, limited production: 10,000 bottles) Lambrusco are imported into California and sold to two top restaurants in San Francisco (L'Osteria del Forno and Rose Pistola) but mostly to a private clientele in Los Angeles.

The following year (1996) 'True Lambrusco' is featured at Felidia, one of hottest NY's restaurants at that time. ("Lambruscos have been misrepresented by industrial versions that have the soda pop flavor they think Americans want."- Lidia Bastianich)

S
lowly, but surely, many, many more top NY restaurants will follow over the next 6 years exclusively accomplished through marketing strategies developed by a small California specialty importer of Italian wines.

Matt Kramer was the very American wine writer to recognize the pleasures of true Lambrusco AND to actually write about it!

In 1996 he published the first ever great review about a 'True Lambrusco' in the LA Times. Still, not a single restaurateur or wine retailer in Los Angeles was willing to give authentic Lambrusco a chance.

A Los Angeles wine buyer of an up-scale grocery chain told us:

"I need real Lambrusco as much as I need a hole in my head." (The very same retailer continues to stock exclusively industrial Lambrusco.) At one of our many, many "Lambrusco Resurrection Tastings" (New York, 1998) throughout the country we were told by one of the largest US importers of Italian wine to see 'Big Night'* (1996): "It would help us to understand why "genuine Lambruscos will never make it in this country."

"Lambrusco? Thanks, but no thanks!" was the standard response from every US retailer, sommelier, importer, wholesaler, distributor, and wine writer throughout the USA for the next 10 years ("calls to many of the better wine retailers in and around Manhattan [to find a respectable bottle of  Lambrusco] produced little more than giggles." - Eric Asimov, New York Times).

In 1998 we introduced 'True Lambrusco' at symposiums in Seattle, Chicago and New York. The event was moderated by Burton Anderson. Twenty of the 21 participating US importers featured "in wines" like Amarone, Brunello, Barolo, and Super Tuscans --- ours was LAMBRUSCO SECCO! (We were told, that only a crazy person from California would run around with....Lambrusco.)

Against all odds our 'True  Lambrusco'  becomes 'famous' in NY and SF.

Our promotions via countless tastings throughout the USA (Boston, Aspen (Food & Wine Classics), Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, New York, Chicago (Spiaggia became the first and only restaurant to serve authentic Lambrusco in IL), Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc.) were starting to pay off.

By 2005 our 'dry fizzy red' had been placed on wine lists of some of the most important restaurants in New York and San Francisco.

Nobody had thought that this was going to be possible. Nobody! Not another US wine importer - not even the producer of the Lambrusco.

Yet as a result of our NY placements - starting in 2006 - more and more authentic (and also more industrial/commercial) Lambruscos are finding US importers and their way into New York and the USA, thereby helping further to re-build the market for real and "not-so-real" Lambruscos.

In 2006, Eric Asimov (NY Times) and Jon BonnĂ© (SF Chronicle) publish excellent articles on authentic Lambrusco and finally starting in 2009/2010 other food and wine writers and wine bloggers are beginning to take a closer look at real Lambrusco - one of the most enjoyable classic Italian red wines and a world original. (And Riunite adds TWO dry Lambruscos to the portfolio!)

Our 'True Lambrusco' placements at two top restaurants in Las Vegas opened eyes and helped to spread the word about real Lambrusco throughout the USA and the world: "The waiter presented me with the dark bubbly and I was spellbound. How exciting, something new! It was fizzy, slightly sweet, and rich with berry flavor. I loved it! (2007)"

Lambrusco's image had been rehabilitated by 2010 after it had been known as "the wine with the world's worst reputation" for 25  years (19985 -2010).
All of this had been started and accomplished not by a famous PR agency with a "multimillion-dollar" advertising budget or the largest US importer of commercial  Lambrusco or one of the Italian  Lambrusco Consorzios***, but by three guys from California who had made it their mission to exclusively import top-quality, authentic, indigenous, completely unknown, unrated** Italian wines in 1991.

Today (2010), it's possible to say (without 'giggles'):  Here's to real Lambrusco, one of Italy's greatest red wines!

And after 15 years of "Lambrusco Research" (1995-2010) we are proud to introduce a truly artisanal dry Lambrusco:

Pronto: An authentic, true frizzante (pressure between 1 & 2.5 atm), top‐quality, small production (10,000 bottles), 100% estate-bottled, non-pasteurized ("cooked"/heated to 166 degrees F;  a very common treatment during the production of Lambrusco - even for top-of-the-line Lambruscos!!),  non-stabilized (neither by chilling nor by adding chemicals), secco (dry, 11% alcohol - authentic Lambrusco has to have a minimum of 10.5% alcohol by law) Lambrusco, hand-crafted by Paola Rinaldini, one of Emilia's top small Lambrusco estates (neither a co-op nor a "bottler" (= no Lambrusco holding tanks.)

Detailed time-line: TLC: The Lambrusco Chronicles.

For more information about Pronto,
click here.
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