You’re Sleeping on Lambrusco

• By WineBottleMag
• December 16, 2025
• Lambrusco Sleeping Youre
• With 0 comments

Seeking a dry, crisp, and savory wine that pairs well with just about any festive dish this holiday season? Climb aboard the booming Lambrusco hype train. According to CellarTracker, a wine review app with over 10 million users, sparkling wines rank as the #1 most consumed category over the holidays, and red sparklers, like Lambrusco, see the strongest seasonal spike of all (for good reason).

But Lambrusco isn’t just a seasonal outlier. Let the record state: Great Lambrusco has always existed. If your impression of the effervescent red wine is less than complimentary, you are forgiven. Once known as the cheap, cheerful, and fizzy go-to served with ice cubes, today’s top Lambruscos are a far cry from the industrially made, cloyingly sweet versions that flooded American shelves in the 1970s and ’80s.

“We have entered a new age of Lambrusco and we’re all better off for it. From the nervy, fresh and pink Sorbara to the inky and dense Grasparossa, these wines can do anything and their diversity is their strength,” says Writer-at-Large Jeff Porter, Wine Enthusiast’s resident Northern Italian wine reviewer. “The beauty of today’s Lambruscos is that they are serious wines that want to have fun.”

Hailing from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, Lambrusco is made from its namesake red grape. Or, to be exact, the extended family of varieties grouped under the Lambrusco umbrella.

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Once loved and then scorned for bottles with candied sweetness, a number of producers now make distinct, slightly sparkling Lambruscos that belong on every wine lover’s radar. However, it’s important to know that every bottle with “Lambrusco” on the label might not taste the same—the styles vary tremendously. The best Lambruscos are dry, crisp, and delicious, but high-quality sweet and off-dry bottles are easy to find as well. Most Lambrusco also come with the perk of being extremely well-priced.

“The intent of the growers and winemakers is focused on quality and you taste it in the glass,” says Porter, who recommends Lambrusco for casual sipping or pairing with pasta or even BBQ. “Lambrusco is where I want to be on the regular.”

To help you navigate the ever-evolving category, we’ve put together a guide to the top varietals and bottles worth seeking out.

Lambrusco di Sorbara

Lightly colored, fragrant, and boasting vibrant acidity, Lambrusco di Sorbara is made from the grape of the same name, and it’s the most refined wine of the Lambrusco category. Made around the village of Sorbara, north of Modena, the variety excels in the sandy, fertile plains between the Secchia and Panaro rivers.

Historically, Lambrusco di Sorbara was a dry, crisp wine that finished its fermentation in the bottle to produce a light effervescence. Large cellars then discovered the Charmat method, which is a much quicker and less labor-intensive process where the second fermentation occurs in steel tanks. This method also allowed for increased flexibility to produce sweet wines.“

The Charmat method generated a huge increase in production, but it also ended up destroying Lambrusco’s reputation,” says Alberto Paltrinieri, who runs his family’s winery, Cantina Paltrinieri. Founded in 1926 in the heart of Sorbara, the winery makes wines exclusively with estate grapes.

“Charmat can give excellent results and control quality, or it can be used to make industrial beverages to suit market trends,” says Paltrinieri. “However, longer fermentation times in the tank that last for three months, as opposed to three days, can yield more complex, aromatic wines.”

Paltrinieri notes a number of producers have gone back to the traditional practice of carrying out the second fermentation in the bottle with no disgorgement, leaving a fine sediment at the bottom. This method produces dry, terroir-driven wines with personality.These evolved methods have led to a renaissance for Lambrusco di Sorbara. However, the wine’s rebirth really began in the vineyard, says Paltrinieri, where “greatly decreasing yields has been fundamental.”

Anselmo Chiarli, managing director of Chiarli and Cleto Chiarli, agrees. While lowered yields and optimal vineyard sites have aided the resurgence, Chiarli says that identification of the best clones has further enhanced quality.

“In the 1980s, we began recovering the old clones in our vineyards,” he says. “After massal selection [where grafts are taken from existing old vines to propagate plantings, as opposed to planting new nursery vines], we planted the offspring of the best-performing vines.” These old clones give the wines more depth of flavor, which results in greater authenticity.

The best Lambrusco di Sorbara examples are dry, with enticing scents of violet and crisp red-berry flavors. They’re silky, lightly sparkling, and offer racy acidity. These are the most food-friendly Lambruscos, pairing beautifully with the region’s hearty cuisine, like cured meat or tortellini in brodo.

Wine Enthusiast recommends:

Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro

The polar opposite of Lambrusco di Sorbara, wines made with the thick-skinned, late-ripening Lambrusco Grasparossa grapes are darkly hued and have more tannic structure than other Lambruscos. And while Lambrusco di Sorbara excels in sandy soils on the plains, Lambrusco Grasparossa needs clay and silt for optimum results.

Grasparossa’s spiritual home is south of Modena, around the town of Castelvetro. Among the earthiest and fullest-bodied of all Lambruscos, Grasparossa di Castelvetro is the flagship wine for this variety.

“Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro is actually more like a red wine, thanks to its body, tannins, and structure,” says Fabio Altariva, who runs his family’s Fattoria Moretto winery in the heart of the Castelvetro hills, along with his brother, Fausto.

While other Lambrusco varieties grow in the plains, Lambrusco Grasparossa is the only one that does well on the hillsides, Altariva says, at around 650 feet above sea level, where it’s always breezy. Top producers keep yields far below the maximum allowed, and many of these leaders focus on specific vineyard sites for best results.

In the past, Grasparossa bottlings tended to be more rustic, but most producers now seek to make increasingly elegant wines. In part, this is done by careful management of skin maceration to ensure they only extract the right amount of tannins. The best Lambrusco di Grasparossa Castelvetro bottlings are dry, dark, and frothy. They offer dark berry and black-skinned fruit flavors, as well as a pleasantly bitter finish.

Wine Enthusiast recommends:

Lambrusco Salamino

The most planted of the Lambrusco varieties, Lambrusco Salamino can be blended with other grapes to add its generous color and marked acidity. It’s also commonly used to make off-dry and sweet wines, thanks to its structure and naturally high sugar levels.

Lambrusco Salamino is planted extensively in the province of Modena, especially in the northern part of the province around the Santa Croce hamlet near Carpi, where it originated.

The denomination devoted to the variety, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, mandates that these wines be made with at least 85% Lambrusco Salamino grapes, with other Lambrusco varietals finishing the blend.

Interestingly enough, Lambrusco Salamino also plays an important role in the production of Lambrusco di Sorbara wine. Sorbara has a flowering anomaly that results in sterile pollen, so growers plant Salamino alongside to act as a pollinator. Up to 40% of Lambrusco Salamino can be used in Lambrusco di Sorbara wines.

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While the Santa Croce growing zone has fertile soils similar to those of Lambrusco di Sorbara, Salamino can also be grown near the foothills of the Reggio Emilia province, where soils contain more clay and rock.

“Thanks to the soils, Lambrusco Salamino in this area produces richer wines, with more structure and tannins when compared to other areas,” says Alberto Medici, co-owner and part of the fourth generation of his family’s Medici Ermete winery in Reggio Emilia.

Fragrant and fresh, dry wines made with Lambrusco Salamino boast intense red-berry flavors and are well-balanced. To Medici, these bottles fit somewhere on the Lambrusco flavor spectrum between Sorbara and Grasparossa: “Lambrusco Salamino has vibrant acidity, but still lower acidity than Lambrusco di Sorbara,” he says. “And while they are well structured, Lambrusco Salamino wines aren’t as tannic as Grasparossa offerings.”

Wine Enthusiast recommends:

Lambrusco di Modena and Lambrusco Reggiano

In addition to Sorbara, Grasparossa di Castelvetro, and Salamino di Santa Croce, the small province of Modena also produces another, aptly-named Lambrusco. Covering the entire province, Lambrusco di Modena has more flexibility than the three flagship denominations, and can be made with a blend of numerous Lambrusco varieties with higher permitted grape yields.

Outside Modena, the province of Reggio Emilia also has a long Lambrusco tradition. Lambrusco Reggiano, like Lambrusco di Modena, can be made from a blend of Lambrusco grapes, although Reggiano dictates that up to 15% of the blend can be other regional varietals like Ancellotta and Malbo Gentile.

Given the large growing areas and more flexible grape blends, wine styles and quality vary tremendously, but there are some very good wines at great price points made under both designations.

Wine Enthusiast recommends:

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