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The Reggiano DOC wines are rascally "garçons"
that leave no table unattended.
Some imprudent people have made concerted efforts, though unsuccessfully,
to limit them to the narrow confines of a regional cuisine, misunderstanding
their youthful temperament.
They are impatient wines that defy classification, elbowing their
way through, upsetting gastronomic norms, and disrespecting protocols.
They are always at hand and the enticement of their effervescence
is irresistible.
They are shamelessly unfaithful. They are happy
to be in the company of tagliatelle, but on Saturday evening they
make a date with orecchiette.
Then they wink in complicity at boiled and roast meats, game, and
cured meats. They love to flirt with cheeses and rejoice when are
chosen to accompany a bit of something sweet. With pistachios, they
are the be-all to end-all.
Just one piece of advice: it is better to have them as friends.
Why should their charms be kept hidden?
For
centuries, the grapes that give body and blood to Lambrusco wine,
whose convivial exuberance still betrays its wild origins, have been
an integral part of the economy of the lands of the province of Reggio
Emilia, making an important contribution to the earnings of a highly
evolved agricultural sector that is well aware of its European destiny.
The fearless vine shoots that were strung like festoons from one tree
to the next have now become denser. Their tenacious inclination for
cultivation has merited the rigorous taxonomy of the grape variety
and wineries that respect the quality of the product.
"If someone took the initiative to prune it and look after it,
it would produce even bigger grapes and more voluminous clusters,"
hypothesised the Mediaeval jurist Pier Crescenzio Bolognese, speaking
of the indomitable Lambrusca vines. He was far-sighted.
But for the unkempt Lambrusco, entry into the upper echelons of wines
was not easy. The unsuspected recognition, following a wait of six
hundred years, would take place at the World Exposition of Paris in
1900, where Lambrusco was decorated with the bronze medal and related
honourable mention under beneath the fifteen thousand pieces of iron
virtuously assembled by the engineer Alessandro Gustavo Eiffel.
