Orange soda

Donati 2008 Malvasia dell’Emilia (Emilia-Romagna) – An orange wine that really is orange (most of them are in the beige/tan/brown spectrum), or perhaps we could get swanky and call it a lighter sort of burnt sienna. And: sparkling. So, the heavy tannic overlay of the orange genre is lightened not by the counterpoint of fruit, nor of acidity (a rare thing in the category in the best of cases), but by a gentle – and fading – fizz. It’s more distracting than present at the moment, and it’s not going to do anything but fade, but it’s necessary for the wine’s tenuous grip on balance, which is falling deeper into a cider-esque hole with each passing month. It’s more an intellectual pleasure than a sensory one, because it pairs some extremes of technique with a relentlessly uncompromising weirdness, but as someone who enjoys this particular thought experiment I still quite enjoy it. That said, there are many who would not allow that this is “wine” any longer, based on its taste rather than its origin, and I would have sympathy for that opinion. But wine it is, nonetheless, and if you own any, you should drink it. (10/11)

Achieving saetti

Vigneto Saetti 2010 Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce (Emilia-Romagna) – Uncompromisingly dry, bitter (in the amaro sense; I very specifically don’t mean astringent, though it’s not exactly lacking in razory tannin either), and the definitional opposite of a cocktail wine. I mean, I suppose people who like shoving razor wire into their flesh just for the lulz would like to sip this with canapés and genteel conversation, but otherwise – more than any lambrusco I’ve ever tasted – it needs food. It cannot, in my opinion, be appreciated or even enjoyed without food. And the thing to realize is that this isn’t – despite what gob-loving sybarites would insist – a criticism, it’s a characterization. This is a wine that demands a very specific kind of participation, and if you don’t agree with those terms you will have an unsatisfactory experience. So…you’re now wondering…what’s it like? Well, what did I just say? (10/11)

Right now

Le Rocche Malatestiane 2009 Cagnina di Romagna “Adesso…” (Emilia-Romagna) – Sweet, a little sickly, but also just the barest touch bitter which almost saves the wine. Almost…but not quite. More like sucking on Italian candies than drinking wine. (6/11)

Blood-stained Lini

Lini “Labrusca” Lambrusco Rosso (Emilia-Romagna) – Fresh fruit with grit. Or perhaps grittiness. Tart, sharp but not razor-like, vibrant, and soiled (in a good way). Giant platters of charcuterie could disappear in this wine’s company, to the benefit of both. (5/11)

Fresh white Lini

Lini “Labrusca” Lambrusco Bianco (Emilia-Romagna) – Flower-sweet (off-dry, really, but the lightness of the wine emphasizes the sweeter aspects), white-petaled, pure extract of summer fruit. (5/11)

Nor Serbia

Montenegro Amaro (Emilia-Romagna) – Decidedly on the sweet, mellow side of amaro, showing caramel-based complexities more like a brandy than something more traditionally bitter. A simple pleasure. (9/10)

Lini-to

Lini “Labrusca” Lambrusco Rosso (Emilia-Romagna) – Sharp, pins-and-needles red fruit lashing and slicing its acidic path through the palate, cleansing everything and taking a layer of something or other with it. There’s some dirt and pepper, too. Really pretty glorious. (9/10)

Hidden Ageno

La Stoppa 2006 “Ageno” (Emilia-Romagna) – Very deep, rich, and shaded. A powerful, almost stravecchio style of orange wine (really more brown when taken to this extent), full of dessert spices, minerality, and preserved fruit. Absolutely delicious, albeit heady. (3/11)

Susan

Tedeschi 2007 Monteviglio “Spungola Bellaria” Pignoletto (Emilia Romagna) – Pine and tarragon with a slight prickle, though the latter doesn’t rise to a fully tactile sensation, preferring to remain a background shade. Seems to sweeten or dry as each accompanying food requires, which is a neat trick, and a small glass taken an hour later has grown in both aroma and richness. Fabulous wine. (11/10)

Donati or nice?

Donati 2008 Malvasia dell’Emilia (Emilia-Romagna) – Difficult. This is no slickified industrial wine, so variable performance is perhaps to be expected. But this is…difficult. Papery, dusty, wrenched, and odd. I keep peering, waiting for an explanation, and then the bottle’s gone and I’m just as confused as before. (12/10)

Underbrush

Ca’ de Noci a Quattro Castella 2007 “Sottobosco” (Emilia-Romagna) – Blackcurrant vinegar and raw pepper dust, trapped under an avalanche of ash with someone who hasn’t cleansed their armpits in…well, years. Grossly imbalanced in terms of both acid and tannin. Awful. This can’t be what this is supposed to taste like, can it? (8/10)

La Stoppa, la looka, la listena

La Stoppa 2004 “Ageno” (Emilia-Romagna) – Dark metallic orange with a heady rush of deep minerality. Sophisticated and striking. Absolutely delicious. (7/09)

Mooning

Ca' de Noci 2006 “nottediluna” (Emilia-Romagna) – Lush pear and apricot. Almost buttery. Somewhat flamboyant, but its an appealing showmanship…flirtatious, yet classy. (7/09)

Cà de Noci 2007 “nottediluna” (Emilia-Romagna) – Stale paper with a bouquet of flowers in slow emergence. Acrid. This needs…I don’t know. But it needs something. And less of some other things. (7/09)

Cà de Noci on the left-hand side

Ca' de Noci 2005 “riserva dei fratelli” (Emilia-Romagna) – Sparkling, though it’s more of a slushy froth than a proper pétillance. Apple and acid, with light bitterness and a fresh finish. However, the nose is odd, and mostly absent. Some are moved to a tentative declaration of cork taint (oddly, all such are female), but the importer (who is present) says not. Still, he agrees that the wine seems off in some fashion. (7/09)

Moonlit nights

Ca' de Noci 2006 “Notte di Luna” (Emilia-Romagna) – Not an orange wine, exactly (it’s far too pale and recognizable for that), but one in training, with the sandpaper scrape of tannin abrading a broth of whitish stone fruit, dried pith, and powdered stone, then finishing with the tactile buzz of newly-absent soda. While potentially gorgeous, it’s sorta elusive in my glass…not in the endless-descriptor fashion of the true orange-wine cohort, but in a more diffident fashion. This could just be a function of its context (other wines, food, distraction), and so I’d like another chance at this. Preferably several. (6/09)

I want Candia

Donati 2007 Malvasia di Candia Frizzante (Emilia-Romagna) – Straight from the bottle (which was, I believe, previously-opened), there’s a bit of traditional-lambic funk; alongside the spritz and the nippy acidity, this is like a far less painful Cantillon. These elements settle and cohere with air and rising temperature, bringing out some proto-peach and grapefruit precursors, a tactile but not gustatory salinity, and that ever-present spiky buzz of sparkle. If there’s a quibble, it’s that the wine is monotonic in pitch. But there’s a lot going on in that note, and so the quibble remains no more than a quibble. (6/09)

St. Joe

Aggazzotti Nocino “Notte di S. Giovanni Riserva” (Emilia-Romagna) – Nocino amped up, less with power than with density, like a slow-built stew with layers upon layers of flavor. There’s dark chocolate, Sicilian espresso, even the darkest of black cherries…though perhaps a slight devolvement of the walnut’s central role in such a liqueur. Nonetheless, this is fabulous, and if nocinos received points, this would probably be the beneficiary of a lot of them. (6/09)

Lini on me

Lini “Labrusca” Lambrusco Rosso (Emilia-Romagna) – There is, of course, plenty of deeply unserious Lambrusco. And then there are the serious, almost flagellant kind that seem to be a counter-reaction to the first. One is a travesty, the other is unnecessary. This bottling seems to live somewhere in the middle, with a fair amount of structure to its bursting, bubbly red fruit, and only the slightest touch of residual sugar. It’s very good, but not (for my palate) quite as groundbreaking as the Bianco. Still, one could hardly do all that much better. (4/09)

We three kings

TreRè Nocino (Emilia-Romagna) – Very spicy-sweet, like one of those hundred-year barrel-aged stickies from Australia. The texture is of something balsamic. There’s not all that much actual walnut aroma, though the skin bitterness of the nut is certainly present. And it finishes in – or perhaps on – fire. I like the idea, but the alcohol’s just too dominant for my tastes. (4/09)

Lini back

Lini “Labrusca" 2007 Lambrusco Bianco (Emilia-Romagna) – White flower petals, sweet green melon. Light and lively, but old-timey…an incandescent bulb radiating white light with a touch of yellow. Fun. (2/09)