Emilia-Romagna

Ah, Italy. The cul­ture of sub­lime art, mag­nif­i­cent food, and unques­tion­ing romance is arguably unpar­al­leled in the world. When it comes to wine­mak­ing the nation is home to a plethora of vine­yards, most often ele­vated up onto sun-streamed hilltops.

Over the next cou­ple blogs we are going to an in-depth look at Cen­tral Italy. In this first blog we will con­cen­trate on Emilia-Romagna, one of the rich­est and most devel­oped regions in Europe. With that in mind, let’s take a look at why these wines prove to be amongst, and enjoyed by the afflu­ent in Italy.

Emilia-Romagna is located above Tus­cany, and just to the South of Piedmont—and as the name sug­gests, it rep­re­sents two dis­tinct areas in Bologna. The peo­ple who live there can be clas­si­fied sin­gu­larly, though: rich. Some famous names that you might rec­og­nize that live in Emilia-Romagna:

•  Luciano Pavarotti

•  Gior­gio Armani

•  Enzo Ferrari

So how much wine do these high-brow socialites go through? A lot: Emilia-Romagna pro­duces more than 6 mil­lion hec­to­liters of wine on an annual basis. Time for Lib­i­amo ne’lieti calici!

Lam­br­usco

Sur­pris­ingly to some, the more pop­u­lar grape in Emilia-Romagna is the Lam­br­usco, with the style of pref­er­ence being a sparkling red wine con­sumed young.

Over here in North Amer­ica Lam­br­usco is nor­mally only found in a sweet style, so if you can find a dry vari­a­tion I sug­gest try­ing it out. If you don’t know what to look for on the label I’ll make it super easy for you:

•   Secco – Dry Wine

• Ama­bile – Sweet Wine

Emilia-Romagna is also known for fruit, in par­tic­u­lar peaches, straw­ber­ries, and pears. These fruits pair sub­limely with Lam­busco as well. In fact, in gen­eral a fruit is going to match up much bet­ter with a Lam­br­usco than a meat, so be care­ful with your food pairings.

San­giovese

The king pin in Romagna is San­giovese, which pro­duces a robust red wine with amaz­ing fruit fla­vors. They really cap­ture the ter­roir of this region. This is another vari­ety that, should you find float­ing around a cel­lar in North Amer­ica, I would highly rec­om­mend try­ing it. Pair it up with some Parme­san Cheese and Parma Ham (Lam­br­usco pairs excep­tion­ally well with those food choices as well.)

That wraps up Emilia-Romogna, but stay tuned for our next blog that will take a look at the ever-popular region called Tuscany.