Parentage — A family of Emilian vines domesticated from the wild — the name means 'wild vine'
violet
wild strawberry
morello cherry
rose
red apple
Budbreak
Mid-late
Maturity
Late September into October, picked to keep the acidity
Leaf
Variable across the family; typically medium, three- to five-lobed
Bunch
Long, loose to moderately compact; Sorbara's prone to millerandage
Berry
Medium, spherical, blue-black under heavy bloom; high natural acidity
The wild one, by name. Labrusca was the Romans' word for the vine of the hedgerows, and the Lambrusco family — Sorbara, Grasparossa, Salamino and their kin — was domesticated from those wild vines in Emilia, where it still grows. It is less a grape than a tribe, and its wine is like no one else's: a frothing violet sparkling red, bone-dry to sweet, built to cut through Parma's ham and Modena's rich cooking.
The sweet export flood of the 1970s and 1980s made Lambrusco an international joke; the revival of pale, savoury, bone-dry Sorbara made the joke obsolete. Emilia itself never wavered — at the tables of Parma and Modena, the frothing red had never stopped being simply what one drinks.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine