October 22, 2025 • 45 mins
Looking for a refreshing sparkling wine that pairs with many cuisines? Look no further than Lambrusco. Produced exclusive in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region around Modena, Lambrusco is one wine with many styles, from a crisp frizzante rosé/rosato with notes of red berries and violets to a deep purple spumante bursting with plum and dark berries. Either way, your palate will enjoy a low alcohol sparkling wine perfect for pairing with spicy, savory, salty and buttery foods, from snacks to mains.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I am not in a vineyard, but
I'm giving you the feeling that I'm a vineyard because
today we're going to do a wine show about a
place I recently visited. Many of you know that I
co host a show with my husband, David Ranson, who
is a wine writer and editor for a major wine
(01:03):
print magazine called The Connected Table Live, and we love
to travel the world and meet with producers and learn
about different wine regions and food to bring our listeners
and viewers the information we gather from the places we visit,
the people we meet, the wines of food we taste
and bring them to you well. I also like to
do it on fearless fat with this you in my
(01:25):
own special way, where the Connected table tends to focus
on conversations with leading people and producers and who they
are and their families, etc. I like to take a
more fun, fabulous approach because I know that really, at
the end of the day, you just want to know
what to drink and why you want to choose a
(01:45):
certain type of wine, how to pair it with food,
figure out where to buy it, how much it costs,
and just feel comfortable selecting wine because gosh, there are
so many selections out there. I am a certified Specialist
of Wine with the Society of Educators. I spent two
years doing that program while I was taking care of
my mother. I found out it was a great way
(02:06):
to pass the time and frankly do something that I
truly love. While I was doing a challenging thing taking
care of my mother, I was immersed in learning more
about wine. And I am so fortunate to be able
to travel with David to different regions with the Consortio
or the trade organizations who host us who want us
to learn about wine. And the regions and the producers
(02:29):
and bring this information back to our listeners and viewers
here in the United States. So we're going to talk
about a region that I had never been to in
all my trips to Italy seventh this year, twenty twenty five.
But this one region I had heard so much about
and I'd never been, and I'd always wanted to go.
(02:49):
It's on my Italian travel bucket list. The region is
Amelia Romana. It's a big region in north central Italy.
It stretches from the Adriatic Sea over to way Over
I just under the Veneto. A lot of it is
a big fertile plane from the Po Valley. And what's
interesting about Emilian Emilia Romana, Amelia Romana, it's hard to
(03:14):
say sometimes, is that it's considered the bread basket of Italy.
It's considered the heart of much agriculture and some amazing cuisine.
So when I was telling people that I was going there,
They're like, Oh, You're so lucky, You're going to have
all these amazing foods. I said. But we're also going
to focus on the wine, specifically Lambrusco, which is a
(03:38):
wine that we're going to talk about today and they
were like, Wow, Lambrusco, I haven't heard about Lambrusko in
a while. What's going on there? Well, I'm here to
demystify Lambrusco and we'll talk about the foods of Amelia
Romano and where I went and visited on this show today.
So buckle up and get ready to take a virtual
(03:59):
trip to to the vineyards around Modena, one of the
main towns cities in Emia Romana. Where is it? There's Bologna.
Bologna is the biggest city in one of Italy's biggest cities.
Bologna means the fat one. You may have heard of
pasta bolognaise, a very rich meat sauce. Bologna very famous
(04:21):
for food. It's also famous for a very large university,
so it's a big student town, a lot of youth
and energy there. It's also known for these amazing walkways
called porticos. They're covered and arched and they're all over
the town and connected and they're actually a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, and they're known for these huge towers. It's
(04:43):
a city of great food towers and these the teto,
the covered walkways is what they're called. We only spent
a day in Bologna, and we flew in and out
of Bologna, and then we were wisked off to Modina,
a lovely ancient town, very walkable if you go where
comfortable shoes because all the streets are cobblestone, and not
(05:04):
even cobble big stones, rocky stones. Everywhere you go. Monina
is very historic. And around the vineyards of around the
city of Modina are these vineyards where Lambrusco is produced. Okay,
so what do you know about Lambrusco wines. We're gonna
start there one. As I've said, they're produced exclusively in
(05:27):
Amelia Romana, but in the Amelia part of Amelia Romana
Ramana is better known for still wines like Abana Romana, oh,
a very ancient white grape, and a lot of Sangiovese wines.
Red Lambrusco is often and incorrectly perceived as a sparkling,
(05:48):
sweet red wine from Italy and many years ago in
the nineteen seventies, that's kind of what we here in
America knew about Lambrusco because there's a big company called Rhanniti.
You may if you're my age, you know reunity on
ice Reunedy so nice. Yes, that's real needy and it's
still around. And I actually recently tasted some real needy
(06:09):
wines here in New Orleans during tales of the Cutfill
and they were perfectly fine. They were great, but nobody
knew anything else. It's like only knowing one white wine
or one red wine or one show to ay. They
only knew ran Needy for many, many years. However, thanks
to many efforts to create better educational programs to support
(06:31):
and highlight artisan wines of Italy region by region through
education and the quinsortio the consortio or the trade groups
that are member driven with many producers from small artisanal
producers to cooperatives to growers. Their job is to get
the word out about the wines of their region and
(06:54):
support these producers to help obviously bring the wines to
the world their trade groups, but they also do a
lot of education. So our trip was organized by the
Consortio Tutula Lambrusco and we spent about five days. We
saw six producers and we toured all around the production area.
So this is what I have learned. So yes, there
(07:16):
is a sparkling red wine called Lambrusco but there's so
much more. So Labrusco is one wine in many styles.
Lambrusco is also the name of a number of grape
varieties and different clones of great varieties that are grown
in this area. There's specific production zones and so the
grapes may be named after that production zone. Those are
(07:37):
used to make the Lambrusco wines. Okay, so there is
a wine called Lambrusco, there are grapes called Lambrusco, and
their production zones named after the grapes. Okay, I'm gonna
make it less complicated. Here's what you need to know.
The commonality with all Lambrusco is that these are sparkling
(07:59):
wine wine. Sparkling wines. They can be frizanti, which is
slightly fizzy. It all depends on atmospheric pressure, and I'll
get into that in a minute. To sparkling, full on, sparkling,
crunchy or small bubbles. I'll explain why they all When
you pour them, there's like this little moose like the
(08:20):
head of a beer, like Mussu Frison. It's just sparkling wines.
So that's number one. Number two. They're made exclusively in
Amelia Ramana. You can't find them anywhere else in production
zones in the ram in the Amelia area. And they
can be dry, they can be semi sweet. They can
(08:46):
be rosato, which is pink, pale, pink, dark pink, salmon, pink, orange, pink, yellowy, pink,
golden pink like a rose. Or they can be rosso
red and colors like dark blueberry, BlackBerry plum, really like
grape juice and everything in between. So it's really one wine,
(09:08):
many styles, always sparkling for zanti or bulan spumante, which
is sparkling in Italian. They could be dry to sweet.
They could be crisp and lightly fruity or really fruity
and jammy okay, so really versatile wines. And this is
(09:29):
another commonality. These Lambruska wines have lower alcohol by volume
on average, usually under twelve percent, so these are refreshing
sparkling wines. Dry to semi sweet, lightly fruity and like
strawberries and raspberries to dark cherry plum and BlackBerry with
(09:54):
more tannin. Always refreshing and low alcohol by volume. So
if you're looking for wine to enjoy fras with picnics,
the beach light meals casual meals appertivos compare with the
range of foods you will love lambrisco. Okay, so let
(10:17):
me explain a little bit a little bit, let me
get a little geeky here. So what makes the differences
in lambrisko? Okay they can It's all in the production method, okay,
and the grapes because there's different grapes source from different
areas and basically grape juice. Even if if it's a
(10:37):
red grape, it's white juice. So it all depends on
how long the grapes are pressed to the skins because
the color is in the skins to make the wine. Okay,
that's all rosatto, red everything. There are a few black grapes,
red grapes that do have red juice. There's a few.
They're called tinturiers, but not here now. Lambrisko made can
(11:00):
be either charmont Okay. Charmont means that the fermentation primary
and secondary takes place in a large tank. Another wine,
sparkling wine that is always made in the Charmette method,
also called in Italy the Martinanti method, is prosecco. Lampusco
and prosecco are both sparkling wines. Majority of lambruscos are
(11:24):
made in the sharp Charmont method, but they are completely different.
Prosecco is produced in the Veneto north of Venice in
a very specific production zones kinnic Leano, Voldabiani and Cartzi
from a grape called Glara. That Glara grape creams a
lot of green apple, okay, one grape. They are sparkling
(11:45):
white wines. However, recently there have become prosecco rosato's rose's
because demand created it. Prosecco has gone off the charts.
Like len brusco. It has that crunchy bubbles because of
the Charmont method. But as I said, lambruce can be
rosato terroso even some pale almost yellow. The second way
(12:07):
that lambrusco can be made, and this is kind of
what makes it exciting because you can get so many styles.
So if you don't want the crunchy grapes, the crunchy
bubbles of a Charmont method, there is metado classico or
the traditional method, which is the method Champennise. Here the
primary fermentation is the same in that and then secondary
(12:32):
fermentation takes place in the actual bottle and it's a
very labor process where you have to riddle the bottles
and rack them and riddle them and turn them and
turn them and turn them to loosen sediment, and then
eventually the sediment is expulsed and you've got this beautiful
sparkling wine. How is it different in your palette method?
(12:52):
Champenn was metado classico. Sparkling wines, including those of Lambrusco,
tend to have a finer bubble. Okay, so crunch eat
to very fine. That's the difference. And if you sat
down and tasted these side by side, you'd get it.
The third way that lembrisco is made and less so,
but we taste it a lot of them, is called ancestral.
(13:15):
This is when all the fermentation takes place in the
actual bottle. Nothing is moved, nothing is change. It is
all done in the bottle. The sediment rests to the
bottom and you have to shake it and release it,
and not shake it, but turn it, turn the bottle
so you can release the sediment. Sometimes the wines tend
to be a little cloudy because there's more sediment. It
can affect the taste a little bit. That's where it
(13:38):
comes into the term natural wine because nothing is really
done to it. But all wines really are made naturally
in most cases. It's just another way of making sparkling wine.
It's a matter of taste. For me personally, I love
the method Chimpin wants. But I got to tell you
a lot of the sparkling wines that are Lambrusco or
made in the Sharmant method, and they are terrific. Okay,
(14:00):
I'm mis going to a lot of grapes, like ten
to twelve grapes make Lambrusko. Here's what you just need
to know when you want to order lambrusco at a restaurant,
buy a bottle at a retailer, and serve it at
a dinner party. There's three main styles. The one that
I actually knew nothing about until this year when I
first tasted it is the one that everybody is talking
(14:21):
about Lambrusco D Sorbara s O R B A R A.
This is more of a rose style Lambrusco. It's drier, crispier.
It's got very high acidity, which means you're going to
have that crispy also crunchy, but the crunchy not in
(14:42):
terms of the crunch of the bubbles, but just that zippiness,
that zestiness, that dry crisp that you love. Very line
on the palette. The color is paler. It can range,
as I said earlier, from light pink to rosy, the
light garnet color. Okay, so even the light ruby, you're
gonna have more redberries, strawberries, raspberries, some violet. I got
(15:07):
a lot of violet and purple flowers when I tasted
these wines. I love them. Lambrusco di Sbora, these wines,
how would you pair them apertivo like a rose salumi?
Because we'll get into what's known familiar. Mounta is known
for their salumi, so morte della procuda, parama, salumi and charcuterie.
(15:28):
Great so great for charcuterie boards with cheeses, batty cheeses
and salumi. But also these wines would go with a
light pasta, light vegetarian dishes, tato chips, salty think salty fat, okay,
salty fat, buttery cuts through that really terrific. The second
(15:52):
Lambrusco that you should think about is the one that
you may have visualized more, the darker red one. It's
called Lambrusco d grass borosa, grass barossa. It's this is
the red Lambrusco, so it's fruitier and floral, more tannin.
Because it's got more red wine characteristics to it. You're
(16:13):
gonna get a lot of BlackBerry, dark plum, dark cherry,
the real grapefruit, the real grape juice that you're used to.
But it's so much better than that, very refreshing and
compare well with some meat dishes, burgers, barbecue, oh my god,
really great with barbecue, and some of the red sauce,
(16:33):
bolonnaise apastas that are known in this region. They're both
incredibly good and refreshing. They just taste different on the palate.
You'll get a little bit more of the residual sugar
in the grass barosa, but not as much as the
next category, which is Lambrusco amobile. Lambrusco's mobili is probably
(16:55):
what many people consider the typical Lambrusco, but in my
mind it's not. It's just a third category, and this
is going to be a semi sweet style of Lambrusko,
usually dark. Okay, So you've got the dark colors and
higher residual sugar, so you could have these with rope
(17:15):
for cheese really tangy cheeses, or you could have it
with cantucci, you know, like a mondo bread. Cantucci is
a mondol bread of Italy. It's like an almond almond cookie.
I'm often there have with ice cream, have at the
end of the meal. But they're not sugary sweet. They
are semi sweet. So what that means is they go
really actually great with savory dishes. So if you like
(17:37):
a little sweetness in your sparkling wine, you're gonna like
the Ammobilie. If you want less sweet gop bread and
fuller bodied feeling in the mouth, really juicy pop, go
for a grass barosa Lambruska. If you want a drier
smile style like a sparkling rose, do a Lambruska de sorbara.
(17:59):
So basically there's a brusco for everybody, and they're really
easy to find in your probably not a supermarket. Go
to a wine shop, get to know your wine shop,
get to know a few wine shops where you live,
or go online. There's you know, go to winsearcher dot com.
I always recommend to research where to buy wines. So
(18:22):
Lucky met David and I got to meet six producers
that make Limbersco wines, and all but one are currently
imported in the United States. I'm going to briefly talk
about them, but not talk about specific wines because I
also want to talk about what's to eat if you
go okay, and we'll be doing another show on the
Connected Table more in depth on the producers. So I'll
(18:44):
just basically tell you that what was interesting about all
these producers is their family owned and I don't you know,
they all seem to have started in nineteen twenty five
twenty six, which is really interesting to me because I
was thinking what was going on in Italy in nineteen
twenty five, because most wine growers in Italy were growers
(19:06):
who made what we call contadini wine. You come and
you like a filling station, just pour up your wine.
So to make a sparkling wine, which takes a little
more effort and process because of the secondary fermentation. I
had to wonder, that's pretty significant in nineteen twenty five. Obviously,
in champagn they've been making champagne okay for millennium, but
(19:28):
this is nineteen twenty five. So I did a little
Google search and only cold fine was in nineteen twenty five,
Mussolini was taking over and fascism was running through Italy.
No connection, but I'm just still curious what was going
on that these visionary producers decided to settle down by
land acchoir Land and start making sparkling wines that became Lambrusco.
(19:53):
I don't know, but here the six producers. The first
one established in nineteen twenty five, Alfredo Bartolani. This is
a terrific producer. I just learned that a lot of
their wines are very popular here Lebusco ones here in
New Orleans. At this winery, we also tasted a greap
(20:13):
called Spergola local to the area that does a sparkling
white wine. This is This is a sparkling wine area
in this production zone between Bologna and Parma, around Modina.
So the first one is Bertolani. Okay, terrific producer and
widely available the United States. The second one is Cantina Pultroneri,
(20:37):
also established by Achille Pultnery in nineteen twenty six. I
wonder if they all knew each other. Also important in
the United States beautiful wines, mainly the Charmont method, which
the majority of Lebrusco are, but we also tasted some
really nice ancestral method and they also produce a pulternary
acetto balsamic vinegar Boma vineger de Modena, which we'll get
(21:02):
into in a few minutes, but that is something you
must try and must buy if you go to Modona.
The next producer is Tanuta Galvano Superiori. They're all in
different production zones, so they specialize in different areas. This
is all one hundred percent certified organic winery. Everything is
hand harvested. The wines were beautiful. All the wines had
(21:24):
their own unique characteristics, so they used different One of
the great varieties used to make Lambrusco. Cantina Francesco Ballet
is not available in the United States, but it's owned
by a family that also owns and produces French Acorda wines.
French Aquorda is a very renowned DOCG sparkling wine made
(21:44):
in the northern part of Italy, much like Champagne all
Champagne method and of course at Cantina Francesco Bilay, they
specialize in the mettado classico aka champagnoise method production. So
you're going to have that kind of fine bubble type wine.
Unfortunately they're not they the United States. But my last
producer I'm going to mention, oh No. Two more Contino
(22:06):
Contina Pollonello Acoviolo is a cooperative cooperative. I want to
be very clear. Is I consider it the we work
of Italian wine production. So it's when producers pool their
resources and share equipment and have certain plots and basically
come together as a community producer. They are their own names,
(22:27):
but they and they have their plots of land, but
they pool resources. It's an efficient way for smaller producers
that may not have the financial resources to invest in
heavy equipment, to use equipment and do it as a
cooperative effort. Is not a negative. It is a positive.
And I just simply say to people, think of it
like shared office space, you know, or what we call
(22:50):
we work here in the United States. And the wines
were terrific. I particularly like the Sbarro wines, the Lambrusk,
they sa borrow wines, the Rosato's just incredibly beautiful. And
they also sell food there. You can visit It's they
have a shop, you can make appointments. Visit all these wineries.
But they must be made in advance, and if you
(23:10):
go get a current driver. There are very strict drinking
and driving laws in Italy. You do not want to
be a part of it. It could be very bad.
You could be arrested. So get a driver or a
tour guide and make reservations in advance. None of the
places that I'm mentioning have on site accommodations. The best
thing to do is stay in Modina. The last producer
(23:32):
which I love because this women run three sisters, also
founded in nineteen twenty five. So Interesting Ballet was founded
in twenty five nineteen twenty five, Bartillani in nineteen twenty five,
Paltranell in nineteen twenty six, and then Lombardini. Lombardini was
founded in nineteen twenty five. The father, Marco is the
(23:55):
winemaker and the three sisters run the place. They introduced
us warmly. They were so excited to see us, say
showered us with love and food. So Kiana, Cecilia, Virginia,
thank you for your Virginia, thank you for your hospitality.
These wines are available in the United States and they
are terrific. Some of my favorite ones are not. You
(24:17):
just have to go there because They have won many
awards for their Italian sparkling wines, but the key limbrus God, Saboro,
and grass Barosa are here in the United States. So
I think I've covered why you should be drinking Lembruska.
But let me just say again, these are very refreshing
sparkling wines. Dry to semi sweet, great fruit, balanced mint
(24:43):
to high acidity, so very refreshing. And the alcohol level
by volume level is usually around eight to ten percent. Okay,
just to put that in perspective, a typical bottle of
wine is thirteen point five fourteen percent, and some red
wines from what we call hot regions, so high temperature
(25:07):
regions can be fifteen percent. I've even had a sixteen percent.
So if you really want to keep your alcohol levels
down and sip the wine all day and share our
friends and you don't want that quick buzz, these are
great wines. Okay, They're just terrific wines. So that's my
little tutorial on Lambrusco. As I said, it's not like Prosecco,
(25:31):
which is another special sparkling wine of Italy produced in
the region in the north of Venitzia in the Venetto
by the Glara gray. It's similar but not quite broquetto
d Asti semi sweet red sparkling wine produced in the
Piamonte area, also very good, but tends to be more
residual sugar. Lambrusco has its own personality. And as I said,
(25:55):
it's one wine, several styles, so you'll find one for you,
and I say, just you go out and give it
a shot. Chill it up, drink it chilled, not too warm,
not too cold, never too cold. We always tend to
drink our wines too cold or sparkling wines too cold.
You don't want to do that. You don't want too warm,
and always try to drink it within two years of bottling.
(26:16):
So you want these younger vintages. So we were tasting
twenty twenty fours. Okay, if somebody offers you a len
Bruce good, that's twenty ten, eh, you don't think so
you don't want that one. I did taste one old
one and had lost its seffroate vescence. So these to
be drink young, okay, So as I said it being
in the show, Ameliaimimi is considered the bread basket of
(26:36):
Italy and everybody I told that I was going there,
I said, oh, you're so lucky, you're going to eat
e eat, And you know what we did. We ate
a lot. We had a whole lot. And the good
news is that there's plenty of options for vegetarians because
I don't eat meat, and this is a very meat
centric area. So here's the thing you need to know
(26:57):
about this region. So Bologna means the fat one, okay,
and you are going to have a lot of pork.
It is known for its salume. Salumi. Salumi is the
is basically the plural for individual types of saluma. Salumi okay, salume.
So there's mortadella. Mortadella is that big, large round sausage,
(27:20):
very pale, pink. You're going to see chunks of white,
large cubes of lard in it, and pistachio nuts. It's
a delicacy often served just on Mostly these are shirt
served on beautiful charcuterie platters, but you may also have
them wrapped in a piadina, which is a flat bread.
So mortidella you must try. If you eat salumi prosciutto
(27:42):
di Parma. That is the finest prescudo ever, thin slicely thin, salty,
delicate and amazing flavor to it. And uh, there's another
one called salami. Salami salami rosa a smaller type of
pork sausage. There all pork sausages with cubes of lard,
(28:03):
a little bit smaller. We got charcuteries sent to us.
They were just fanned out on a plate with beautiful
slices of cheese. Excuse me, so David reached for the
salumi and I reached for the cheese. Okay, if you're
going to Amelia Ramana, you are going to love and
(28:26):
make sure you buy and bring back because it's very
expensive in the United States. Parmisano reggiano wheels of it everywhere.
You chunk it. You get a special knife and you
chunk it, serve it chunk. You can also grate it
over pastas. It is not parmigan cheese, So that shaker
parmigan cheese you see in grocery stores, no, not authentic.
(28:50):
Parmigiano reggiana is only made in Amelia Romano. Around the
area of Parma, there are farms and farms of pigs,
excuse me, and cattle. This is ranch land. This is meatland.
The way to tell that's authentic is that you will
look at the rind, and you will see embossed in
(29:10):
the rhine parmesan and regiana in a date that's very important.
These are hard cheeses that are on average aged eighteen
months or more, usually four years, but even more. The
longer it ages, the more intense the flavor. The best
way to the best way to enjoy it other than
(29:31):
grated over pastas and meat dishes, is to drizzle balsamic
vinegar demodin on it, which is what I'm going to
get to next. So if you go there, eat a
lot of parmigan and regiana, because you'll never have anything
like in the United States, and if you do, it's
going to be like three times the price, particularly now
with tariffs. If you want something to bring back and
(29:51):
give to people's gifts, bring back wedges. They'll vacuum packet
so you can pack in your suitcase. I wish we
had done that, because as soon as we got back,
I had regret that we had not purchased parmegana reggiano
because I went to the store and I'm like, they
don't even have it here, got it? Okay? Before I
get to balsama vinegar, there's one other cheese that we
(30:12):
discussed that was so good. It's like a soft, tangy cheese,
kind of like a barada that you would get in
southern Italy, but a bit tangier and almost meltier. Meltier
is that a RB. It's called squat carooni squacaroni, and
you it was served for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner
(30:32):
on the charcuterie plates. I couldn't get enough out of it.
I was as hard as Parmigiano reggiano is, as soft
and spreadable squad Krooni is, and I loved it. I
think it goes really well with a little drizzle of
honey versus balsamic vinegar. But a lot of people drizzled
it with the older balsamic vnder, which has sweetness to it.
It's delicious. You can, I think, pick it up to
(30:55):
bring back, but your your better, beit probably for holding,
is parmagana reggiano. So what we brought back was a
Ceto balsamic vinegar DMNAA. So that is the official name
Ascetto balsamic vinegar demodina. It is the thick, amazing, flavorful
(31:18):
balsamic vinegar only made in the modaet area. Okay, so
this is super important. It has been recognized but both
the Italian government and the European Union as a denomination
of protected origin or denomination origin countra lata, which means
it is the highest level of recognition as an artisan
food product. This really is artisan vinegar at its best,
(31:42):
particularly aged, and it's you know, amazing drizzled over ice cream.
We drisled over vanilla ice cream for dinner party this weekend.
Our friends were like, we have to get this. You
drizzle it over strawberries, You drizzle it over chunks of
parmigana regiana. I would drizzle it over my Greek yogurt.
It's better than honey, just better. So how is it made.
(32:05):
It's made from crushed, unfermented grapes, usually a grape called
trebiano modense. Because grapes tend to take on names, they
have different grape strains varieties that are local to each area.
The grape to bowl down to create a thick syrup
that's left to ferment and condense, and then the liquid
(32:27):
is placed in these very small wood barrels. They can
be made of cherrywood, juniper wood, many kinds of wood,
and they're left to age over time. In fact, the
word balsamic balsam refers to the balminess of the wood
and the aromas that would come out of the little
production rooms, because they're literally rooms that are separated off
(32:50):
and have natural air coming in filter to let these vinegars,
you know, age over time. We went to Paltrionelli, who
I referenced Katina Petronelli has a production facility and we
visited it. We ended up bringing back I think they're
fifty five year old balsamic and these are in small quantity,
(33:11):
so usually unfamiliar the family. I think it was ninety euros,
so these are not inexpensive, but there are a lot
more when you get back to the United States. So
I think we bought one that was five years I
don't know, but it was a little more affordable, maybe
thirty euros. And as I said, we served it drive
over a vanilla ice cream for a dinner party, and
(33:32):
all I just wanted was to add blackberries. It would
have been perfect, just amazing. So that is a product
you definitely want to buy because anything you see to
grocery store called balsamic vinegar here is just vinegar. It's
not a seto balsamic vinegar demodina probably the best thing
to buy. Great gift. You can bring back vacuum packed
(33:54):
properly vacuum pack proshooter to Parma and others. Salumi. I
wouldn't just because I still think that the dogs are
going to sniff them out. But you can't. So what
else seat when you're there? Okay, this is meat and
pork country, which is a challenge for me because I
don't eat meat and pork, but David loved it. You
may have heard of lasagna a la boolonnaise. Okay, lasagna
(34:18):
is one of the great dishes of the area. Here's
something you should know where Tuscany and further south in
Italy is a cuisine that is olive oil based. They
ain't no olive trees up north. It's butter butter based cuisines.
That was a big difference because my body's used to
olive oil. But you got to adjust to buttery rich food,
(34:39):
so your pastas are going to be made. Also, more
egg noodle versus wheat, egg noodle versus wheat, and butter
cooked in butter. So lasagna. Even if you don't eat meat,
you gotta try lasagna. I actually tried lasagna. It was delicious.
It was delicious. It was meat, and I didn't love
the meat taste, but oh god, I love the rest
(34:59):
of it. Nutmeg and the Marscaponi and the id love
to learn how to make lasagna. We had lasagna, We
had green lasagna, we had eggplant lasagna. We had a
lot of lasagna. You can make a vegetarian. And I
actually have here in front of me a wonderful book.
I don't know if I can hold it up. It's
called Tasting Italy. Yeah, Tasting Italy. It's by America's Test Kitchen.
(35:20):
I was using it as reference. That's a terrific book
that the colony for by Jack Bishop. It takes you
through Italy and you can learn a lot. But there's
some easy to prepare recipes in cooling lasagna, green lasagna.
Bolonnaise ragu is a meat sauce so spaghetti a la bolonaise.
Basically bolonaise sauce is a ragou and it's made with
(35:42):
different cuts of meat and pork simmered slowly added herbs.
It's a process. They say that you can just smell
the ragu, and we could as we were walking around
modina and often it's served with egg noodles, long egg noodles,
so the ragou tends to stick to the noodles and
it's delicious. There's a lot, I mean, every restaurant serves
(36:04):
this from. Another specialty is tortellini and broto. So the
little stuff tortellini you see the women making them in
the windows, usually stuff with pork or chicken and served
in a chicken broth. I tasted them and I'm sure
there's pork, and they were delicious. This is and they're small,
(36:25):
They're just delicious. You can also get stuffed flat breads,
which are like street food. Handhelds usually eat stuff with
slices of mornidella, the squatch rony cheese and some lettuce
and tomato, and it's just hand held. You see a
lot of people eating that. Of course, you see a
lot of pizza. Vegetarians, don't worry. I had some amazing
(36:50):
vegetable plates with wonderful radicio from Trevisa in the north.
Fresh tomatoes, fresh vegetables. This is a great agricultural egion
for vegetables, so you will not feel you're missing out
where Sometimes when I'm in Tuscany, I'm like, where are
my vegetables? Okay, you will have them. In fact, they
went to a couple of vegetarian restaurants. My favorite dish
(37:12):
that I ate everywhere too, actually, and they're both vegetarian
kappalichi di zuka. So these are bigger instead of the
smaller totalini. These are like bigger hat. They're big. They're
called big hats. They're known like so total in your
little hats, kapaali to your big hats. And there's stuff
with pumpkin or squash or sometimes Swiss charred or spinach
(37:36):
of because I love the pumpkin because we're in fall.
They were just divine buttery sauce you're not gonna get
olive oil and of course grated with fresh parmesano regiano.
I had that everywhere. The other dishes that I absolutely
love that I had for breakfast, lunch and dinner and
snacks because I would take the ones for breakfast and
put it in my bag was something called herbazon eate.
So these are like savory Swiss charred pie. Sometimes they
(38:00):
have cheese in them. They're kind of like span acoppita
in Greece, but not quite Filoy but almost I ate
so many of those. They you can make them like
a sheet cake and cut them up in squares, which
is the way I had most of them. I think
they just literally cook them in a sheet cake pan
and square them up. I actually have a there's a
(38:22):
recipe for them in this book Tasting Italy by America's
Test Kitchen, and I was telling Davy before the show,
I really want to try to make these herba zonis
because what's nice about them. They're great for breakfast for
people like me that like say every breakfast, but they're
also fun to have us or d'ruvs when you're having
a dinner party and just terrific. Also lots of black truffles,
(38:43):
so I was blessed to have Tagliatelli with black treffles
shaved over it. Pretty happy about that. The breads are
really good, really good for kanca, Whereas in Tuscany the
breads taste like sponge. Pocaca has more flavor and you're
gonna have a lot of facaca breads up in Amelia Ramana.
So it's just a terrific area to have savory, flavorful,
(39:03):
rich botery, meat centric, port centric, but options for vegetarian
foods and what goes really well with these Lambrusko, because
Lambrusco can cut through the fat, stand up to the salt, compliment,
the tanginess and the richness. That's why Lambrusko works, because
(39:24):
they often say in the wine and food world, what
grows together goes together. Perfect example is here. However, if
you're entertaining and you don't want to do Italian meal,
I would enjoy Lambrisco wines with Asian food, spicy Asian
food like dumplings, dumplings or spicier I would pair it
(39:45):
with sushi. I would probably do a so borrow with
the sushi. For the Lambrusko girassparoso, I would probably do
like a beef dish, an Asian Sejuan beef dish. I
think it would go really well. Of course, all the
cajun Fair we have down here in Louisiana, because cajun
Fair tends to have a lot of and dewey sausage,
(40:07):
very sausage and pork based and spice. So Lambrusco does
well here, which is why Bertolani Alfredo Bertollani sells a
lot of their Lambruscos here in Louisiana. I haven't tried
it with Indian food. I would think that the sorbarro
probably do better than the grassparosa with curries, but I'd
like to try it, and also with Mexican food. But
(40:29):
fried chicken, I can only imagine what fried chicken would
taste like with either Lambrusko de sapora or like a
hot chicken with the grass barosa Nashville hot chicken. I
think of like amazing and barbecue pork or beef or
chicken with Lambrusko grasparosa. Perfect pairing. So these are personal wines.
(40:50):
I love them. I hope that you're excited about trying them.
If you choose to go to Italy and you want
to go to Miliaramana, the easiest thing to do is
fly directly into Bologna. There many airlines service Bologna because
it is a major college town, one of the greatest
and oldest universities in Italy. It is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site for their network of these covered walkways, the Tetto.
(41:15):
You're going to see these famous tall towers that are
actually leaning. You're just wondering if they're going to topple
over because the area has been impacted in the past
by earthquakes. You're going to see amazing history and buildings
and of course more food than you can imagine, So
be prepared to eat heartily and heavily wash everything down
(41:38):
with an appartivo and some Lambrusco wines, and of course
save room for dessert. Was there some wonderful torta cakes.
I didn't save enough room for dessert, but I had
some wonderful apple torts because of the season, and just cakes.
And of course save room in your suitcase to bring
back balsama vinegar, parmisiano whiano, because when you get back
(42:01):
the United States and you did not have them in
your suitcase, you are so going to regret it, like
I do now. I wish I had just brought more
back because it is so much more expensive here. It's
worth it. So I think that wraps up my little
special on visiting the may Ramana and Modina and Lambrisko.
Oh one last thing. If you're going with your spouse
(42:23):
and maybe they're maybe you're tired of looking at food
all day, and there's some very historic food shops and
pastry shops in Modina, and also Bologna. This is two
things to note. There is a Luciano Pavaranti Museum because
Luciano Pavarati was born in Modina, and so you can
get a car and driver or hire a tour guide
to take you to his museum. And within walking distance
(42:47):
of Modina is the Enzo Ferrari Museum. There's actually two museums.
There's one that is dedicated to the life of Enzo
Ferrari where he was born, a little further out because
Ferrari is everywhere. You can see the signs in Ferrari
everywhere because he was born around Modina. You can even
see where his barbershop was. But the one we went
to it was all cars. I called it car porn
(43:07):
because I've never seen so many gorgeous cars in your life.
And of course David was all excited, and all the
guys were excited, and you sew car movies and you
learn about Enzo Ferrari and how he created these special
engines and become, you know, the motor the racing champion
of the world. If you are into cars or your
other half, your better half, now your other half is
(43:29):
into cars, go to the Ferrari museums. It's a really
fun and easy to walk from Modina to see Okay,
lots of museums, music cars, great food souvenirs. I think
Millia Muana is a place I want to go back
and explore more, and I hope you consider visiting as well.
(43:50):
I want to thank the Concertio Totila Lambrusco, who organized
her trip. Other than that, I'm giving you the show
out of my pure excitement for the area and my
desire to help you step outside your comfort zone when
it comes to eating and of course trying wines, because
I want you to sip fearlessly and fabulously and always
in moderation and with responsibility, but with great joy, because
(44:13):
it's about savoring life to the fullest. And with that,
I close and say, you have a choice on what
you do and how you live, and where you go
and who you ways spend time with. Be choosy and
always choose fearless and fabulous and anything that brings you
joy and gives joy to others, because that's what life
is all about. Chin Chin. I'm Melanie Young. Please follow
(44:36):
me and Melanie Fabulous. Check me out on Melanie Youong
dot com. Check out my books, Getting Things Off My Chest.
A Survivor's guide to saying fearless and fabulous in the
face of preast cancer. I'm a survivor and fearless fabulous
You lessons on living life on your terms, which is
the inspiration for this show. Live life on your terms.
You deserve it and I'll see you on another epis
(45:00):
so to Fearless Fabulous Shoes, Gabatsia chin Chin
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
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We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
W four WN Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I am not in a vineyard, but
I'm giving you the feeling that I'm a vineyard because
today we're going to do a wine show about a
place I recently visited. Many of you know that I
co host a show with my husband, David Ranson, who
is a wine writer and editor for a major wine
(01:03):
print magazine called The Connected Table Live, and we love
to travel the world and meet with producers and learn
about different wine regions and food to bring our listeners
and viewers the information we gather from the places we visit,
the people we meet, the wines of food we taste
and bring them to you well. I also like to
do it on fearless fat with this you in my
(01:25):
own special way, where the Connected table tends to focus
on conversations with leading people and producers and who they
are and their families, etc. I like to take a
more fun, fabulous approach because I know that really, at
the end of the day, you just want to know
what to drink and why you want to choose a
(01:45):
certain type of wine, how to pair it with food,
figure out where to buy it, how much it costs,
and just feel comfortable selecting wine because gosh, there are
so many selections out there. I am a certified Specialist
of Wine with the Society of Educators. I spent two
years doing that program while I was taking care of
my mother. I found out it was a great way
(02:06):
to pass the time and frankly do something that I
truly love. While I was doing a challenging thing taking
care of my mother, I was immersed in learning more
about wine. And I am so fortunate to be able
to travel with David to different regions with the Consortio
or the trade organizations who host us who want us
to learn about wine. And the regions and the producers
(02:29):
and bring this information back to our listeners and viewers
here in the United States. So we're going to talk
about a region that I had never been to in
all my trips to Italy seventh this year, twenty twenty five.
But this one region I had heard so much about
and I'd never been, and I'd always wanted to go.
(02:49):
It's on my Italian travel bucket list. The region is
Amelia Romana. It's a big region in north central Italy.
It stretches from the Adriatic Sea over to way Over
I just under the Veneto. A lot of it is
a big fertile plane from the Po Valley. And what's
interesting about Emilian Emilia Romana, Amelia Romana, it's hard to
(03:14):
say sometimes, is that it's considered the bread basket of Italy.
It's considered the heart of much agriculture and some amazing cuisine.
So when I was telling people that I was going there,
They're like, Oh, You're so lucky, You're going to have
all these amazing foods. I said. But we're also going
to focus on the wine, specifically Lambrusco, which is a
(03:38):
wine that we're going to talk about today and they
were like, Wow, Lambrusco, I haven't heard about Lambrusko in
a while. What's going on there? Well, I'm here to
demystify Lambrusco and we'll talk about the foods of Amelia
Romano and where I went and visited on this show today.
So buckle up and get ready to take a virtual
(03:59):
trip to to the vineyards around Modena, one of the
main towns cities in Emia Romana. Where is it? There's Bologna.
Bologna is the biggest city in one of Italy's biggest cities.
Bologna means the fat one. You may have heard of
pasta bolognaise, a very rich meat sauce. Bologna very famous
(04:21):
for food. It's also famous for a very large university,
so it's a big student town, a lot of youth
and energy there. It's also known for these amazing walkways
called porticos. They're covered and arched and they're all over
the town and connected and they're actually a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, and they're known for these huge towers. It's
(04:43):
a city of great food towers and these the teto,
the covered walkways is what they're called. We only spent
a day in Bologna, and we flew in and out
of Bologna, and then we were wisked off to Modina,
a lovely ancient town, very walkable if you go where
comfortable shoes because all the streets are cobblestone, and not
(05:04):
even cobble big stones, rocky stones. Everywhere you go. Monina
is very historic. And around the vineyards of around the
city of Modina are these vineyards where Lambrusco is produced. Okay,
so what do you know about Lambrusco wines. We're gonna
start there one. As I've said, they're produced exclusively in
(05:27):
Amelia Romana, but in the Amelia part of Amelia Romana
Ramana is better known for still wines like Abana Romana, oh,
a very ancient white grape, and a lot of Sangiovese wines.
Red Lambrusco is often and incorrectly perceived as a sparkling,
(05:48):
sweet red wine from Italy and many years ago in
the nineteen seventies, that's kind of what we here in
America knew about Lambrusco because there's a big company called Rhanniti.
You may if you're my age, you know reunity on
ice Reunedy so nice. Yes, that's real needy and it's
still around. And I actually recently tasted some real needy
(06:09):
wines here in New Orleans during tales of the Cutfill
and they were perfectly fine. They were great, but nobody
knew anything else. It's like only knowing one white wine
or one red wine or one show to ay. They
only knew ran Needy for many, many years. However, thanks
to many efforts to create better educational programs to support
(06:31):
and highlight artisan wines of Italy region by region through
education and the quinsortio the consortio or the trade groups
that are member driven with many producers from small artisanal
producers to cooperatives to growers. Their job is to get
the word out about the wines of their region and
(06:54):
support these producers to help obviously bring the wines to
the world their trade groups, but they also do a
lot of education. So our trip was organized by the
Consortio Tutula Lambrusco and we spent about five days. We
saw six producers and we toured all around the production area.
So this is what I have learned. So yes, there
(07:16):
is a sparkling red wine called Lambrusco but there's so
much more. So Labrusco is one wine in many styles.
Lambrusco is also the name of a number of grape
varieties and different clones of great varieties that are grown
in this area. There's specific production zones and so the
grapes may be named after that production zone. Those are
(07:37):
used to make the Lambrusco wines. Okay, so there is
a wine called Lambrusco, there are grapes called Lambrusco, and
their production zones named after the grapes. Okay, I'm gonna
make it less complicated. Here's what you need to know.
The commonality with all Lambrusco is that these are sparkling
(07:59):
wine wine. Sparkling wines. They can be frizanti, which is
slightly fizzy. It all depends on atmospheric pressure, and I'll
get into that in a minute. To sparkling, full on, sparkling,
crunchy or small bubbles. I'll explain why they all When
you pour them, there's like this little moose like the
(08:20):
head of a beer, like Mussu Frison. It's just sparkling wines.
So that's number one. Number two. They're made exclusively in
Amelia Ramana. You can't find them anywhere else in production
zones in the ram in the Amelia area. And they
can be dry, they can be semi sweet. They can
(08:46):
be rosato, which is pink, pale, pink, dark pink, salmon, pink, orange, pink, yellowy, pink,
golden pink like a rose. Or they can be rosso
red and colors like dark blueberry, BlackBerry plum, really like
grape juice and everything in between. So it's really one wine,
(09:08):
many styles, always sparkling for zanti or bulan spumante, which
is sparkling in Italian. They could be dry to sweet.
They could be crisp and lightly fruity or really fruity
and jammy okay, so really versatile wines. And this is
(09:29):
another commonality. These Lambruska wines have lower alcohol by volume
on average, usually under twelve percent, so these are refreshing
sparkling wines. Dry to semi sweet, lightly fruity and like
strawberries and raspberries to dark cherry plum and BlackBerry with
(09:54):
more tannin. Always refreshing and low alcohol by volume. So
if you're looking for wine to enjoy fras with picnics,
the beach light meals casual meals appertivos compare with the
range of foods you will love lambrisco. Okay, so let
(10:17):
me explain a little bit a little bit, let me
get a little geeky here. So what makes the differences
in lambrisko? Okay they can It's all in the production method, okay,
and the grapes because there's different grapes source from different
areas and basically grape juice. Even if if it's a
(10:37):
red grape, it's white juice. So it all depends on
how long the grapes are pressed to the skins because
the color is in the skins to make the wine. Okay,
that's all rosatto, red everything. There are a few black grapes,
red grapes that do have red juice. There's a few.
They're called tinturiers, but not here now. Lambrisko made can
(11:00):
be either charmont Okay. Charmont means that the fermentation primary
and secondary takes place in a large tank. Another wine,
sparkling wine that is always made in the Charmette method,
also called in Italy the Martinanti method, is prosecco. Lampusco
and prosecco are both sparkling wines. Majority of lambruscos are
(11:24):
made in the sharp Charmont method, but they are completely different.
Prosecco is produced in the Veneto north of Venice in
a very specific production zones kinnic Leano, Voldabiani and Cartzi
from a grape called Glara. That Glara grape creams a
lot of green apple, okay, one grape. They are sparkling
(11:45):
white wines. However, recently there have become prosecco rosato's rose's
because demand created it. Prosecco has gone off the charts.
Like len brusco. It has that crunchy bubbles because of
the Charmont method. But as I said, lambruce can be
rosato terroso even some pale almost yellow. The second way
(12:07):
that lambrusco can be made, and this is kind of
what makes it exciting because you can get so many styles.
So if you don't want the crunchy grapes, the crunchy
bubbles of a Charmont method, there is metado classico or
the traditional method, which is the method Champennise. Here the
primary fermentation is the same in that and then secondary
(12:32):
fermentation takes place in the actual bottle and it's a
very labor process where you have to riddle the bottles
and rack them and riddle them and turn them and
turn them and turn them to loosen sediment, and then
eventually the sediment is expulsed and you've got this beautiful
sparkling wine. How is it different in your palette method?
(12:52):
Champenn was metado classico. Sparkling wines, including those of Lambrusco,
tend to have a finer bubble. Okay, so crunch eat
to very fine. That's the difference. And if you sat
down and tasted these side by side, you'd get it.
The third way that lembrisco is made and less so,
but we taste it a lot of them, is called ancestral.
(13:15):
This is when all the fermentation takes place in the
actual bottle. Nothing is moved, nothing is change. It is
all done in the bottle. The sediment rests to the
bottom and you have to shake it and release it,
and not shake it, but turn it, turn the bottle
so you can release the sediment. Sometimes the wines tend
to be a little cloudy because there's more sediment. It
can affect the taste a little bit. That's where it
(13:38):
comes into the term natural wine because nothing is really
done to it. But all wines really are made naturally
in most cases. It's just another way of making sparkling wine.
It's a matter of taste. For me personally, I love
the method Chimpin wants. But I got to tell you
a lot of the sparkling wines that are Lambrusco or
made in the Sharmant method, and they are terrific. Okay,
(14:00):
I'm mis going to a lot of grapes, like ten
to twelve grapes make Lambrusko. Here's what you just need
to know when you want to order lambrusco at a restaurant,
buy a bottle at a retailer, and serve it at
a dinner party. There's three main styles. The one that
I actually knew nothing about until this year when I
first tasted it is the one that everybody is talking
(14:21):
about Lambrusco D Sorbara s O R B A R A.
This is more of a rose style Lambrusco. It's drier, crispier.
It's got very high acidity, which means you're going to
have that crispy also crunchy, but the crunchy not in
(14:42):
terms of the crunch of the bubbles, but just that zippiness,
that zestiness, that dry crisp that you love. Very line
on the palette. The color is paler. It can range,
as I said earlier, from light pink to rosy, the
light garnet color. Okay, so even the light ruby, you're
gonna have more redberries, strawberries, raspberries, some violet. I got
(15:07):
a lot of violet and purple flowers when I tasted
these wines. I love them. Lambrusco di Sbora, these wines,
how would you pair them apertivo like a rose salumi?
Because we'll get into what's known familiar. Mounta is known
for their salumi, so morte della procuda, parama, salumi and charcuterie.
(15:28):
Great so great for charcuterie boards with cheeses, batty cheeses
and salumi. But also these wines would go with a
light pasta, light vegetarian dishes, tato chips, salty think salty fat, okay,
salty fat, buttery cuts through that really terrific. The second
(15:52):
Lambrusco that you should think about is the one that
you may have visualized more, the darker red one. It's
called Lambrusco d grass borosa, grass barossa. It's this is
the red Lambrusco, so it's fruitier and floral, more tannin.
Because it's got more red wine characteristics to it. You're
(16:13):
gonna get a lot of BlackBerry, dark plum, dark cherry,
the real grapefruit, the real grape juice that you're used to.
But it's so much better than that, very refreshing and
compare well with some meat dishes, burgers, barbecue, oh my god,
really great with barbecue, and some of the red sauce,
(16:33):
bolonnaise apastas that are known in this region. They're both
incredibly good and refreshing. They just taste different on the palate.
You'll get a little bit more of the residual sugar
in the grass barosa, but not as much as the
next category, which is Lambrusco amobile. Lambrusco's mobili is probably
(16:55):
what many people consider the typical Lambrusco, but in my
mind it's not. It's just a third category, and this
is going to be a semi sweet style of Lambrusko,
usually dark. Okay, So you've got the dark colors and
higher residual sugar, so you could have these with rope
(17:15):
for cheese really tangy cheeses, or you could have it
with cantucci, you know, like a mondo bread. Cantucci is
a mondol bread of Italy. It's like an almond almond cookie.
I'm often there have with ice cream, have at the
end of the meal. But they're not sugary sweet. They
are semi sweet. So what that means is they go
really actually great with savory dishes. So if you like
(17:37):
a little sweetness in your sparkling wine, you're gonna like
the Ammobilie. If you want less sweet gop bread and
fuller bodied feeling in the mouth, really juicy pop, go
for a grass barosa Lambruska. If you want a drier
smile style like a sparkling rose, do a Lambruska de sorbara.
(17:59):
So basically there's a brusco for everybody, and they're really
easy to find in your probably not a supermarket. Go
to a wine shop, get to know your wine shop,
get to know a few wine shops where you live,
or go online. There's you know, go to winsearcher dot com.
I always recommend to research where to buy wines. So
(18:22):
Lucky met David and I got to meet six producers
that make Limbersco wines, and all but one are currently
imported in the United States. I'm going to briefly talk
about them, but not talk about specific wines because I
also want to talk about what's to eat if you
go okay, and we'll be doing another show on the
Connected Table more in depth on the producers. So I'll
(18:44):
just basically tell you that what was interesting about all
these producers is their family owned and I don't you know,
they all seem to have started in nineteen twenty five
twenty six, which is really interesting to me because I
was thinking what was going on in Italy in nineteen
twenty five, because most wine growers in Italy were growers
(19:06):
who made what we call contadini wine. You come and
you like a filling station, just pour up your wine.
So to make a sparkling wine, which takes a little
more effort and process because of the secondary fermentation. I
had to wonder, that's pretty significant in nineteen twenty five. Obviously,
in champagn they've been making champagne okay for millennium, but
(19:28):
this is nineteen twenty five. So I did a little
Google search and only cold fine was in nineteen twenty five,
Mussolini was taking over and fascism was running through Italy.
No connection, but I'm just still curious what was going
on that these visionary producers decided to settle down by
land acchoir Land and start making sparkling wines that became Lambrusco.
(19:53):
I don't know, but here the six producers. The first
one established in nineteen twenty five, Alfredo Bartolani. This is
a terrific producer. I just learned that a lot of
their wines are very popular here Lebusco ones here in
New Orleans. At this winery, we also tasted a greap
(20:13):
called Spergola local to the area that does a sparkling
white wine. This is This is a sparkling wine area
in this production zone between Bologna and Parma, around Modina.
So the first one is Bertolani. Okay, terrific producer and
widely available the United States. The second one is Cantina Pultroneri,
(20:37):
also established by Achille Pultnery in nineteen twenty six. I
wonder if they all knew each other. Also important in
the United States beautiful wines, mainly the Charmont method, which
the majority of Lebrusco are, but we also tasted some
really nice ancestral method and they also produce a pulternary
acetto balsamic vinegar Boma vineger de Modena, which we'll get
(21:02):
into in a few minutes, but that is something you
must try and must buy if you go to Modona.
The next producer is Tanuta Galvano Superiori. They're all in
different production zones, so they specialize in different areas. This
is all one hundred percent certified organic winery. Everything is
hand harvested. The wines were beautiful. All the wines had
(21:24):
their own unique characteristics, so they used different One of
the great varieties used to make Lambrusco. Cantina Francesco Ballet
is not available in the United States, but it's owned
by a family that also owns and produces French Acorda wines.
French Aquorda is a very renowned DOCG sparkling wine made
(21:44):
in the northern part of Italy, much like Champagne all
Champagne method and of course at Cantina Francesco Bilay, they
specialize in the mettado classico aka champagnoise method production. So
you're going to have that kind of fine bubble type wine.
Unfortunately they're not they the United States. But my last
producer I'm going to mention, oh No. Two more Contino
(22:06):
Contina Pollonello Acoviolo is a cooperative cooperative. I want to
be very clear. Is I consider it the we work
of Italian wine production. So it's when producers pool their
resources and share equipment and have certain plots and basically
come together as a community producer. They are their own names,
(22:27):
but they and they have their plots of land, but
they pool resources. It's an efficient way for smaller producers
that may not have the financial resources to invest in
heavy equipment, to use equipment and do it as a
cooperative effort. Is not a negative. It is a positive.
And I just simply say to people, think of it
like shared office space, you know, or what we call
(22:50):
we work here in the United States. And the wines
were terrific. I particularly like the Sbarro wines, the Lambrusk,
they sa borrow wines, the Rosato's just incredibly beautiful. And
they also sell food there. You can visit It's they
have a shop, you can make appointments. Visit all these wineries.
But they must be made in advance, and if you
(23:10):
go get a current driver. There are very strict drinking
and driving laws in Italy. You do not want to
be a part of it. It could be very bad.
You could be arrested. So get a driver or a
tour guide and make reservations in advance. None of the
places that I'm mentioning have on site accommodations. The best
thing to do is stay in Modina. The last producer
(23:32):
which I love because this women run three sisters, also
founded in nineteen twenty five. So Interesting Ballet was founded
in twenty five nineteen twenty five, Bartillani in nineteen twenty five,
Paltranell in nineteen twenty six, and then Lombardini. Lombardini was
founded in nineteen twenty five. The father, Marco is the
(23:55):
winemaker and the three sisters run the place. They introduced
us warmly. They were so excited to see us, say
showered us with love and food. So Kiana, Cecilia, Virginia,
thank you for your Virginia, thank you for your hospitality.
These wines are available in the United States and they
are terrific. Some of my favorite ones are not. You
(24:17):
just have to go there because They have won many
awards for their Italian sparkling wines, but the key limbrus God, Saboro,
and grass Barosa are here in the United States. So
I think I've covered why you should be drinking Lembruska.
But let me just say again, these are very refreshing
sparkling wines. Dry to semi sweet, great fruit, balanced mint
(24:43):
to high acidity, so very refreshing. And the alcohol level
by volume level is usually around eight to ten percent. Okay,
just to put that in perspective, a typical bottle of
wine is thirteen point five fourteen percent, and some red
wines from what we call hot regions, so high temperature
(25:07):
regions can be fifteen percent. I've even had a sixteen percent.
So if you really want to keep your alcohol levels
down and sip the wine all day and share our
friends and you don't want that quick buzz, these are
great wines. Okay, They're just terrific wines. So that's my
little tutorial on Lambrusco. As I said, it's not like Prosecco,
(25:31):
which is another special sparkling wine of Italy produced in
the region in the north of Venitzia in the Venetto
by the Glara gray. It's similar but not quite broquetto
d Asti semi sweet red sparkling wine produced in the
Piamonte area, also very good, but tends to be more
residual sugar. Lambrusco has its own personality. And as I said,
(25:55):
it's one wine, several styles, so you'll find one for you,
and I say, just you go out and give it
a shot. Chill it up, drink it chilled, not too warm,
not too cold, never too cold. We always tend to
drink our wines too cold or sparkling wines too cold.
You don't want to do that. You don't want too warm,
and always try to drink it within two years of bottling.
(26:16):
So you want these younger vintages. So we were tasting
twenty twenty fours. Okay, if somebody offers you a len
Bruce good, that's twenty ten, eh, you don't think so
you don't want that one. I did taste one old
one and had lost its seffroate vescence. So these to
be drink young, okay, So as I said it being
in the show, Ameliaimimi is considered the bread basket of
(26:36):
Italy and everybody I told that I was going there,
I said, oh, you're so lucky, you're going to eat
e eat, And you know what we did. We ate
a lot. We had a whole lot. And the good
news is that there's plenty of options for vegetarians because
I don't eat meat, and this is a very meat
centric area. So here's the thing you need to know
(26:57):
about this region. So Bologna means the fat one, okay,
and you are going to have a lot of pork.
It is known for its salume. Salumi. Salumi is the
is basically the plural for individual types of saluma. Salumi okay, salume.
So there's mortadella. Mortadella is that big, large round sausage,
(27:20):
very pale, pink. You're going to see chunks of white,
large cubes of lard in it, and pistachio nuts. It's
a delicacy often served just on Mostly these are shirt
served on beautiful charcuterie platters, but you may also have
them wrapped in a piadina, which is a flat bread.
So mortidella you must try. If you eat salumi prosciutto
(27:42):
di Parma. That is the finest prescudo ever, thin slicely thin, salty,
delicate and amazing flavor to it. And uh, there's another
one called salami. Salami salami rosa a smaller type of
pork sausage. There all pork sausages with cubes of lard,
(28:03):
a little bit smaller. We got charcuteries sent to us.
They were just fanned out on a plate with beautiful
slices of cheese. Excuse me, so David reached for the
salumi and I reached for the cheese. Okay, if you're
going to Amelia Ramana, you are going to love and
(28:26):
make sure you buy and bring back because it's very
expensive in the United States. Parmisano reggiano wheels of it everywhere.
You chunk it. You get a special knife and you
chunk it, serve it chunk. You can also grate it
over pastas. It is not parmigan cheese, So that shaker
parmigan cheese you see in grocery stores, no, not authentic.
(28:50):
Parmigiano reggiana is only made in Amelia Romano. Around the
area of Parma, there are farms and farms of pigs,
excuse me, and cattle. This is ranch land. This is meatland.
The way to tell that's authentic is that you will
look at the rind, and you will see embossed in
(29:10):
the rhine parmesan and regiana in a date that's very important.
These are hard cheeses that are on average aged eighteen
months or more, usually four years, but even more. The
longer it ages, the more intense the flavor. The best
way to the best way to enjoy it other than
(29:31):
grated over pastas and meat dishes, is to drizzle balsamic
vinegar demodin on it, which is what I'm going to
get to next. So if you go there, eat a
lot of parmigan and regiana, because you'll never have anything
like in the United States, and if you do, it's
going to be like three times the price, particularly now
with tariffs. If you want something to bring back and
(29:51):
give to people's gifts, bring back wedges. They'll vacuum packet
so you can pack in your suitcase. I wish we
had done that, because as soon as we got back,
I had regret that we had not purchased parmegana reggiano
because I went to the store and I'm like, they
don't even have it here, got it? Okay? Before I
get to balsama vinegar, there's one other cheese that we
(30:12):
discussed that was so good. It's like a soft, tangy cheese,
kind of like a barada that you would get in
southern Italy, but a bit tangier and almost meltier. Meltier
is that a RB. It's called squat carooni squacaroni, and
you it was served for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner
(30:32):
on the charcuterie plates. I couldn't get enough out of it.
I was as hard as Parmigiano reggiano is, as soft
and spreadable squad Krooni is, and I loved it. I
think it goes really well with a little drizzle of
honey versus balsamic vinegar. But a lot of people drizzled
it with the older balsamic vnder, which has sweetness to it.
It's delicious. You can, I think, pick it up to
(30:55):
bring back, but your your better, beit probably for holding,
is parmagana reggiano. So what we brought back was a
Ceto balsamic vinegar DMNAA. So that is the official name
Ascetto balsamic vinegar demodina. It is the thick, amazing, flavorful
(31:18):
balsamic vinegar only made in the modaet area. Okay, so
this is super important. It has been recognized but both
the Italian government and the European Union as a denomination
of protected origin or denomination origin countra lata, which means
it is the highest level of recognition as an artisan
food product. This really is artisan vinegar at its best,
(31:42):
particularly aged, and it's you know, amazing drizzled over ice cream.
We drisled over vanilla ice cream for dinner party this weekend.
Our friends were like, we have to get this. You
drizzle it over strawberries, You drizzle it over chunks of
parmigana regiana. I would drizzle it over my Greek yogurt.
It's better than honey, just better. So how is it made.
(32:05):
It's made from crushed, unfermented grapes, usually a grape called
trebiano modense. Because grapes tend to take on names, they
have different grape strains varieties that are local to each area.
The grape to bowl down to create a thick syrup
that's left to ferment and condense, and then the liquid
(32:27):
is placed in these very small wood barrels. They can
be made of cherrywood, juniper wood, many kinds of wood,
and they're left to age over time. In fact, the
word balsamic balsam refers to the balminess of the wood
and the aromas that would come out of the little
production rooms, because they're literally rooms that are separated off
(32:50):
and have natural air coming in filter to let these vinegars,
you know, age over time. We went to Paltrionelli, who
I referenced Katina Petronelli has a production facility and we
visited it. We ended up bringing back I think they're
fifty five year old balsamic and these are in small quantity,
(33:11):
so usually unfamiliar the family. I think it was ninety euros,
so these are not inexpensive, but there are a lot
more when you get back to the United States. So
I think we bought one that was five years I
don't know, but it was a little more affordable, maybe
thirty euros. And as I said, we served it drive
over a vanilla ice cream for a dinner party, and
(33:32):
all I just wanted was to add blackberries. It would
have been perfect, just amazing. So that is a product
you definitely want to buy because anything you see to
grocery store called balsamic vinegar here is just vinegar. It's
not a seto balsamic vinegar demodina probably the best thing
to buy. Great gift. You can bring back vacuum packed
(33:54):
properly vacuum pack proshooter to Parma and others. Salumi. I
wouldn't just because I still think that the dogs are
going to sniff them out. But you can't. So what
else seat when you're there? Okay, this is meat and
pork country, which is a challenge for me because I
don't eat meat and pork, but David loved it. You
may have heard of lasagna a la boolonnaise. Okay, lasagna
(34:18):
is one of the great dishes of the area. Here's
something you should know where Tuscany and further south in
Italy is a cuisine that is olive oil based. They
ain't no olive trees up north. It's butter butter based cuisines.
That was a big difference because my body's used to
olive oil. But you got to adjust to buttery rich food,
(34:39):
so your pastas are going to be made. Also, more
egg noodle versus wheat, egg noodle versus wheat, and butter
cooked in butter. So lasagna. Even if you don't eat meat,
you gotta try lasagna. I actually tried lasagna. It was delicious.
It was delicious. It was meat, and I didn't love
the meat taste, but oh god, I love the rest
(34:59):
of it. Nutmeg and the Marscaponi and the id love
to learn how to make lasagna. We had lasagna, We
had green lasagna, we had eggplant lasagna. We had a
lot of lasagna. You can make a vegetarian. And I
actually have here in front of me a wonderful book.
I don't know if I can hold it up. It's
called Tasting Italy. Yeah, Tasting Italy. It's by America's Test Kitchen.
(35:20):
I was using it as reference. That's a terrific book
that the colony for by Jack Bishop. It takes you
through Italy and you can learn a lot. But there's
some easy to prepare recipes in cooling lasagna, green lasagna.
Bolonnaise ragu is a meat sauce so spaghetti a la bolonaise.
Basically bolonaise sauce is a ragou and it's made with
(35:42):
different cuts of meat and pork simmered slowly added herbs.
It's a process. They say that you can just smell
the ragu, and we could as we were walking around
modina and often it's served with egg noodles, long egg noodles,
so the ragou tends to stick to the noodles and
it's delicious. There's a lot, I mean, every restaurant serves
(36:04):
this from. Another specialty is tortellini and broto. So the
little stuff tortellini you see the women making them in
the windows, usually stuff with pork or chicken and served
in a chicken broth. I tasted them and I'm sure
there's pork, and they were delicious. This is and they're small,
(36:25):
They're just delicious. You can also get stuffed flat breads,
which are like street food. Handhelds usually eat stuff with
slices of mornidella, the squatch rony cheese and some lettuce
and tomato, and it's just hand held. You see a
lot of people eating that. Of course, you see a
lot of pizza. Vegetarians, don't worry. I had some amazing
(36:50):
vegetable plates with wonderful radicio from Trevisa in the north.
Fresh tomatoes, fresh vegetables. This is a great agricultural egion
for vegetables, so you will not feel you're missing out
where Sometimes when I'm in Tuscany, I'm like, where are
my vegetables? Okay, you will have them. In fact, they
went to a couple of vegetarian restaurants. My favorite dish
(37:12):
that I ate everywhere too, actually, and they're both vegetarian
kappalichi di zuka. So these are bigger instead of the
smaller totalini. These are like bigger hat. They're big. They're
called big hats. They're known like so total in your
little hats, kapaali to your big hats. And there's stuff
with pumpkin or squash or sometimes Swiss charred or spinach
(37:36):
of because I love the pumpkin because we're in fall.
They were just divine buttery sauce you're not gonna get
olive oil and of course grated with fresh parmesano regiano.
I had that everywhere. The other dishes that I absolutely
love that I had for breakfast, lunch and dinner and
snacks because I would take the ones for breakfast and
put it in my bag was something called herbazon eate.
So these are like savory Swiss charred pie. Sometimes they
(38:00):
have cheese in them. They're kind of like span acoppita
in Greece, but not quite Filoy but almost I ate
so many of those. They you can make them like
a sheet cake and cut them up in squares, which
is the way I had most of them. I think
they just literally cook them in a sheet cake pan
and square them up. I actually have a there's a
(38:22):
recipe for them in this book Tasting Italy by America's
Test Kitchen, and I was telling Davy before the show,
I really want to try to make these herba zonis
because what's nice about them. They're great for breakfast for
people like me that like say every breakfast, but they're
also fun to have us or d'ruvs when you're having
a dinner party and just terrific. Also lots of black truffles,
(38:43):
so I was blessed to have Tagliatelli with black treffles
shaved over it. Pretty happy about that. The breads are
really good, really good for kanca, Whereas in Tuscany the
breads taste like sponge. Pocaca has more flavor and you're
gonna have a lot of facaca breads up in Amelia Ramana.
So it's just a terrific area to have savory, flavorful,
(39:03):
rich botery, meat centric, port centric, but options for vegetarian
foods and what goes really well with these Lambrusko, because
Lambrusco can cut through the fat, stand up to the salt, compliment,
the tanginess and the richness. That's why Lambrusko works, because
(39:24):
they often say in the wine and food world, what
grows together goes together. Perfect example is here. However, if
you're entertaining and you don't want to do Italian meal,
I would enjoy Lambrisco wines with Asian food, spicy Asian
food like dumplings, dumplings or spicier I would pair it
(39:45):
with sushi. I would probably do a so borrow with
the sushi. For the Lambrusko girassparoso, I would probably do
like a beef dish, an Asian Sejuan beef dish. I
think it would go really well. Of course, all the
cajun Fair we have down here in Louisiana, because cajun
Fair tends to have a lot of and dewey sausage,
(40:07):
very sausage and pork based and spice. So Lambrusco does
well here, which is why Bertolani Alfredo Bertollani sells a
lot of their Lambruscos here in Louisiana. I haven't tried
it with Indian food. I would think that the sorbarro
probably do better than the grassparosa with curries, but I'd
like to try it, and also with Mexican food. But
(40:29):
fried chicken, I can only imagine what fried chicken would
taste like with either Lambrusko de sapora or like a
hot chicken with the grass barosa Nashville hot chicken. I
think of like amazing and barbecue pork or beef or
chicken with Lambrusko grasparosa. Perfect pairing. So these are personal wines.
(40:50):
I love them. I hope that you're excited about trying them.
If you choose to go to Italy and you want
to go to Miliaramana, the easiest thing to do is
fly directly into Bologna. There many airlines service Bologna because
it is a major college town, one of the greatest
and oldest universities in Italy. It is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site for their network of these covered walkways, the Tetto.
(41:15):
You're going to see these famous tall towers that are
actually leaning. You're just wondering if they're going to topple
over because the area has been impacted in the past
by earthquakes. You're going to see amazing history and buildings
and of course more food than you can imagine, So
be prepared to eat heartily and heavily wash everything down
(41:38):
with an appartivo and some Lambrusco wines, and of course
save room for dessert. Was there some wonderful torta cakes.
I didn't save enough room for dessert, but I had
some wonderful apple torts because of the season, and just cakes.
And of course save room in your suitcase to bring
back balsama vinegar, parmisiano whiano, because when you get back
(42:01):
the United States and you did not have them in
your suitcase, you are so going to regret it, like
I do now. I wish I had just brought more
back because it is so much more expensive here. It's
worth it. So I think that wraps up my little
special on visiting the may Ramana and Modina and Lambrisko.
Oh one last thing. If you're going with your spouse
(42:23):
and maybe they're maybe you're tired of looking at food
all day, and there's some very historic food shops and
pastry shops in Modina, and also Bologna. This is two
things to note. There is a Luciano Pavaranti Museum because
Luciano Pavarati was born in Modina, and so you can
get a car and driver or hire a tour guide
to take you to his museum. And within walking distance
(42:47):
of Modina is the Enzo Ferrari Museum. There's actually two museums.
There's one that is dedicated to the life of Enzo
Ferrari where he was born, a little further out because
Ferrari is everywhere. You can see the signs in Ferrari
everywhere because he was born around Modina. You can even
see where his barbershop was. But the one we went
to it was all cars. I called it car porn
(43:07):
because I've never seen so many gorgeous cars in your life.
And of course David was all excited, and all the
guys were excited, and you sew car movies and you
learn about Enzo Ferrari and how he created these special
engines and become, you know, the motor the racing champion
of the world. If you are into cars or your
other half, your better half, now your other half is
(43:29):
into cars, go to the Ferrari museums. It's a really
fun and easy to walk from Modina to see Okay,
lots of museums, music cars, great food souvenirs. I think
Millia Muana is a place I want to go back
and explore more, and I hope you consider visiting as well.
(43:50):
I want to thank the Concertio Totila Lambrusco, who organized
her trip. Other than that, I'm giving you the show
out of my pure excitement for the area and my
desire to help you step outside your comfort zone when
it comes to eating and of course trying wines, because
I want you to sip fearlessly and fabulously and always
in moderation and with responsibility, but with great joy, because
(44:13):
it's about savoring life to the fullest. And with that,
I close and say, you have a choice on what
you do and how you live, and where you go
and who you ways spend time with. Be choosy and
always choose fearless and fabulous and anything that brings you
joy and gives joy to others, because that's what life
is all about. Chin Chin. I'm Melanie Young. Please follow
(44:36):
me and Melanie Fabulous. Check me out on Melanie Youong
dot com. Check out my books, Getting Things Off My Chest.
A Survivor's guide to saying fearless and fabulous in the
face of preast cancer. I'm a survivor and fearless fabulous
You lessons on living life on your terms, which is
the inspiration for this show. Live life on your terms.
You deserve it and I'll see you on another epis
(45:00):
so to Fearless Fabulous Shoes, Gabatsia chin Chin
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