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The Lini Lambrusco USA blogger visited the winery in Correggio last week and snapped the above photo.

That label, with the distinctive Bacchus drawing, was created expressly for a village fair that Lini hosted in 1972.

It would later be used, starting in the first decade of this century, as the now iconic label for Lini’s Lambrusco “Labrusca.”

Lini’s roots stretch back four generations in the world of Lambrusco and Italian wine. The family’s history is rich with cultural treasures — like this now unmistakable label, a Lambrusco icon!

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File under “sparkling wine production”…

Above: Racks for “riddling” classic method wines at Lini. In this and upcoming posts, we are going to look at sparkling wine production terminology and methods.

In today’s world of heightened wine awareness, knowledge, and education, it’s regrettable that there is still so much misinformation on the internets about sparkling wine production.

One of the best and most useful posts we found in our search for well-informed and well-written explanations of the different methods employed for sparkling wine production was “How Sparkling Wine is Made” on the excellent (and wildly popular) wine blog Wine Folly.

We highly recommend it to you. Beyond the introduction to Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine, edited by Tom Stevenson, it’s probably the most comprehensive introduction to sparkling wine production (and it’s free to access).

All of sparkling wine is made by provoking a second fermentation of the wine in a pressurized environment. Sparkling wine gets its fizziness from CO2, a natural by-product of fermentation. When fermentation takes place in an unpressurized environment, that CO2 escapes and the resulting wine is still (in other words, not sparkling). When fermentation takes place in a pressurized environment, the CO2 is captured.

Lini makes sparkling wine using two different methods.

The first is (properly) known as the “tank method.” This is sometimes called the “Charmat method” after the name of a man who patented technology for autoclaves or pressurized vats used in sparkling wine production. Many think he invented it. In fact, it was not invented but perfected by an Italian named Martinotti (it was invented by a producer of Champagne). In Italy, it’s often called the Martinotti method. But for our purposes here on the Lini blog, we should call it the tank method because that best describes the process.

(See this post on the origins of the Charmat or tank method.)

The second is the classic method — a term that causes a lot of confusion. The classic method calls for the wines to undergo their second fermentation in bottle, a process perfected by winemakers in Champagne where it is called the méthode champenoise or “Champagne method.” Because European Union regulations prohibit anyone outside of the Champagne region from using the term, European winemakers use the term classic method or traditional method.

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Alicia was thrilled to be invited to be a part of a panel organized by Vinitaly International on the occasion of Vinitaly, the Italian wine industry’s annual trade fair.

In the words of the organizer: “Following the success of “Iconic Women in Italian Wine”, held during the last edition of Vinitaly, the experiment is repeated this year with a particular focus on women involved in the production of Italian bubbles. Moderating the panel of producers who will present their sparkling or spumante wine and tell their own personal stories will be Alison Napjus, an authoritative wine critic and journalist, and an important figure at the U.S. magazine Wine Spectator.”

Alicia couldn’t have been more honored to be featured along with some of the Italian wine industry’s most influential producers of sparkling wine.

Click here to read more.

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Next year, the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado will celebrate its 40th year!

The Lini family would like to share our heartfelt thanks with American wine writer Wanda Mann and the editors of the Food & Wine magazine for including Lini’s wines in Wanda’s seminars at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado this month.

That’s Wanda, one of our favorite U.S. wine writers, below left, with Winebow director of public relations David Greenberg.

It seems like a dream come true to have our wines presented at this legendary gathering of the worlds top food and wine professionals and celebrities.

Thank you Wanda! And thank you Winebow for making it possible! Alicia hopes to be there next year.

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That’s Pablo, our favorite wine shop dog!

He spends his days at the 17th Avenue Liquor Boutique in Calgary (Alberta, Canada).

And he’s a big supporter of Lini 910!

Thank you 17th Ave. Liquor Boutique for sharing our wines with your city. We love you guys! Please say hello to Pablo for us!

Image via the 17th Ave. Liquor Boutique Instagram.

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The Lini family and the whole team at Lini 910 would like to share its thanks to the staff at deVine Wine and Spirits in downtown Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) for their ongoing support! We love you guys.

From the shop’s website:

Located in the very heart of downtown Edmonton in the historic Warehouse District, deVine Wines & Spirits has been providing our valued customers with a carefully selected portfolio of fine wines, premium spirits and craft beers since 2005. We look forward to serving our many new neighbors who have recently chosen to live Downtown and the many new visitors who will soon be visiting Downtown to attend events in the Ice District.

deVine Wines & Spirits is an independently owned business. We aim to offer you great customer service and products at fair prices. Please visit us at our store for personalized and professional service for all your individual or corporate needs. Whether you are planning a special dinner, event or party, selecting corporate gifts or thinking about building a wine cellar, we are here to help.

In recognition of the high level of customer service we provided and the shopping experience we created, our customers have voted us “Best Wine Store” for many years in Vue Magazine. Our peers at the Alberta Liquor Stores Association (ALSA) voted deVine Wines “Retailer of the Year” in 2006 and 2014. Thank you for your past and continued support!

Image via the deVine Wines and Spirits Facebook.

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We couldn’t have been more thrilled to learn that the Lini Lambrusco Labrusca Rosso has been included in prestigious Wine Spectator list of of top 100 wines under $25!

See the list here.

“All of the wines are rated 88 points or higher,” write the magazine’s editors, “priced at $25 or less and made in large enough quantities to be widely available.”

Lini was also included in this year’s Opera Wine, the Vinitaly-Wine Spectator list of top Italian wineries. Historically, Lini was the first Lambrusco producer to ever make the cut (in 2016)!

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Canada love month continues with a warm shout-out to Willow Park Wines & Spirits in Calgary, Alberta.

Not only are they an independent wine and spirits retailer. But they are also constantly giving back to and supporting their community through their “Vintage Fund.”

It’s a really cool shop with a wonderful staff that really knows it stuff.

Thank you Willow Park for supporting Lini wines! And thank you for all you do for our community!

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“Ever find yourself wandering aimlessly among bottles of chardonnay and pinot noir at the liquor store,” ask the editors of the Oak and Vine wine shop in Calgary, Alberta, “wondering what to buy? Instead of organizing wines by region, Oak & Vine organizes our hand-picked wine selection by flavour and uses a colour-coded system to categorize bold, juicy, smooth, sweet, bubbles, mellow and crisp wines. Categorizing wine by flavour helps everyone from the newbie wine drinker, to the seasoned oenophile, take home a wine in their flavour wheelhouse.”

It’s a totally unique and innovative way to help people connect with the wines that we love.

And we couldn’t be more proud to be part of their amazing program.

Thank you Oak and Vine for your support of Lini wines! And THANK YOU for changing the way we understand wine! Your shop is super cool!

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Last year the Calgary Co-Op celebrated 65 years of serving its community.

“It is very, very important to focus on financial sustainability,” said Co-Op CEO Ken Keelor in an interview published in December. “You can have all the heart and wonderful culture and all of that stuff, but if you are not financially sustainable you’re done. You can’t serve your community. You can’t serve anyone. I think where a lot of companies, especially those that are sort of much more socially focused like we are, can lose their focus is where the management team, leadership and board, lose track of the fact that you have to be financially sustainable.”

The Co-Op has more than 440,000 members and 30 wine, spirits, and beer locations.

We couldn’t be more proud to be part of this amazing community! Thank you Calgary Co-Op for your support!