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“Taste Test Winners: Italian Value Wines”
by Ray Isle
executive wine editor
Food & Wine

Back in 2013, Food & Wine executive wine editor Ray Isle sat down with New York restaurant legend and wine expert Joe Bastianich to taste “12 Great Italian Value Wines.” Lini was Ray’s pick for sparkling. Here’s what he had to say about the wine:

Lini Lambrusco Labrusca Rosso

A brisk sparkling red from one of the best traditional Lambrusco houses.

I love the way Lambrusco combines the effervescence of a sparkling wine with the body and flavor of a red wine, making it a fantastic partner for food.

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SAVE THE DATE: On Saturday afternoon, July 28, our blogmaster Jeremy Parzen (aka Do Bianchi) will be hosting a Lini Lambrusco tasting at one of his favorite San Diego restaurants, Jaynes Gastropub.

Jaynes Gastropub
4677 30th St.
San Diego CA 92116
(619) 563-1011
Google map

Stay tuned for details…

Please email Jeremy to register (not required but encouraged).

Thank you! We hope to see you in San Diego in July!

Image via Corkscrew Concierge.

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“In Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, often called the ‘culinary capital of Italy,'” said Oregon-based Italian expert Bruce Bauer in an interview with Imbibe magazine late last year, “they know a thing or two about food and wine… This region is where the finest Lambrusco comes from and a place where they drink gallons of it.”

Bruce, Italian buyer for VINO in Portland, recommended the “rare” Lambrusco Bianco by Lini for the piece:

    Since 1910, the Lini family has turned out first-rate Lambrusco from their vineyards in Corregio. Bauer recommends their rare and fabulously bright Lambrusco Bianco Lambrusca Lini 910, produced without contact with the skins during fermentation. Charlie Broder also serves Lini’s Lambrusco at Terzo (in Minneapolis), noting, “Lini 910 has been making clean and pretty Lambrusco that showcase the true potential of the Lambrusco region which has quite the bastardized reputation.”

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“Forget Lambrusco and discover ‘the Lambrusco,'” writes Alberto Lupetti, Italy’s leading authority on Champagne, “because this was likely the original Lambrusco.”

Lini 2005 Lambrusco Metodo Classico
92 points

If you’re expecting a classic Lambrusco, the nose of this wine will surprise you from the get-go. But in a positive way: You’ll raise an eyebrow as you experience an “ah-ha” moment. The wine is fresh and vibrant, with vivacious floral notes and a hint of citrus when you first taste it. Next come spice and medicinal herbs, roots, underbrush, and then finally the fruit appears: Small wild berries, more dry than sweet. Only as the nose begins to open up do you get the darker and more vinous notes. But the wine remains elegant and fresh all the while, with a faint hint of toast and umami aromas. You can’t help but be reminded of Pinot Noir in this wine… On the palate, the wine is fresh and silky (Fabio Lini’s decision not to allow for malolactic fermentation to take place makes for a winner: Chapeau, Fabio Lini!). The wine pivots between rhubarb and chinotto as its vinous character begins to open up and the acidity and complexity begin to emerge. The finish is clean and cleansing, with just a touch of delicate minerality and citrus…

Alberto Lupetti
May 2018

Alberto Lupetti is the editor of Grandi Champagne, now in its fourth edition, Italy’s authoritative guide to the wines of Champagne.

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The first iPhone had just been released two months prior.

And in just a few weeks the Financial Crisis would officially begin.

Earlier that year, a food and wine media consultant in the last year of his 30s had traveled to Italy in search of a classic method Lambrusco.

It seems like a lifetime ago.

It was back in 2007 that I first met and tasted with Alicia Lini at her family’s winery in Correggio in the heart of Lambrusco country. A tip from the owner of a wonderful restaurant an hour’s drive to the east had led me to her doorstep.

New York City had been my home for nearly 10 years and my 9-to-5 was a gig as the marketing director for a high-profile restaurant and wine imports group.

In August of that year, Alicia flew to New York where I had organized a series of tastings and meetings with top wine media. The highlight was her appearance on a WNYC talk show. The other guest that morning was Pattie Boyd, who had just published her memoir. When we met her in the green room, I discreetly whispered to Alicia (in Italian, hoping that the famous model wouldn’t pick up on how starstruck our handshake had left me).

“Do you realize who that is, Alicia???!!! It’s Pattie Boyd! George Harrison wrote ‘Something’ for her… Eric Clapton wrote ‘Wonderful Tonight’ for her.”

Alicia did great on the show and she and the wines ended up appearing in some of the top wine columns of the day.

I decided to leave New York later that year and return to California where I grew up. By the end of the following year, I had moved to Texas to be with my future wife.

The Financial Crisis devastated and decimated the New York restaurant scene. The upscale Italian where the above photo was taken closed not long after the bubble had burst.

But Alicia’s family’s wines had already been woven into the fabric of the city’s wine community. And Alicia and I stayed in touch, thanks in part to our fond memories of our work together.

When we met at Vinitaly this year, the Lini family asked me to come back into the fold. And we’ve set out to expand their presence in Texas and California, where the wines are now imported directly.

Back in 2007 when we first met, the wine blogging world had just begun to take shape. I had launched my own blog just a few months earlier. It seems like a lifetime ago and it seems like yesterday.

I couldn’t be more happy or proud to be part of the Lini team: Stay tuned to this blog for updates and news of Alicia and her family’s wines in America.

Thanks for being here.

Jeremy Parzen
blogmaster

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Above: The Gran Guardia Palace in downtown Verona were the Wine Spectator Top 100 Italian Wines are presented each year during the Opera Wine preview event at Vinitaly.

It seems like yesterday that the letter arrived: we are pleased to inform you…

We couldn’t have been more thrilled to learn that Lini had been included in the 2016 Opera Wine TOP 100 Wines selected by the editors of Wine Spectator.

And as if being one of Italy top 100 wines, along with some of the greatest wine-producing estates in the country, Sting’s winery Il Palagio was also included and he even performed at the awards ceremony!

Click here for a complete list of Wine Spectator TOP 100 wines for 2016.

Image by freakydesignz’ Flickr (Creative Commons).

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We are thrilled share the video below, produced by Grape Collective, one of the leading wine blogs in the U.S.

The interview was conducted by Grape Collective founder and editor-in-chief, Christopher Barnes, one of our favorite American wine writers.

Over the course of their conversation, Christopher asks Alicia to talk about Lambrusco’s “complicated” nature and history.

“Lambrusco is a very simple wine that comes from a very complicated story,” she tells him. “Because in the past, it’s been destroyed, the name and the fame, because it’s been produced in a very quick way. You can produce, obtain a sparkling Lambrusco in three days, in a week, but our entry level products will stay in the big tank for at least three months. So between a week and three months, there is a world of difference.”

Click the video below for the complete interview or click here for the transcription.