wein.plus
Attention
You are using an old browser that may not function as expected.
For a better, safer browsing experience, please upgrade your browser.

Log in Become a Member

The cellar master has several possibilities to get from the initial product grapes to the final product Lambrusco. The different methods

Immediately after pressing, the must is cooled down to temperatures around zero degrees and only reheated at the moment when the date for bottling has been set and fermentation is to begin. Similar to Moscato d'Asti, the temperature is then slowly raised and fermentation yeasts are added to the must. Fermentation takes place slowly at cool temperatures of around 15°C. As soon as the desired residual sweetness is reached (a little for Sorbara and Reggiano, more for Grasparossa), fermentation is interrupted by means of cold shock. This method of producing Lambrusco directly from must, i.e. fermenting the must into Frizzante in a single fermentation, is not only costly (cooling the musts until fermentation, expensive technology) but also very risky.
Especially today, when we try to work with the lowest possible sulphuric acid concentrations, a very intimate knowledge of the musts and the microbiological processes in the cellar is necessary in order not to lose control over the Lambrusco fermentation. The great advantage of this method, however, is the unique fruit concentration that the wines obtained in this way have.
Since biological acid reduction can generally only be carried out on fully fermented wines, it is not possible to influence the acidity with the single fermentation method.
Apart from some of the tartaric acid that crystallises during cold storage, the finished Lambrusco is thus more or less the same as the initial must in terms of its acid structure. This means that at harvest time one must ensure that the grapes are picked at the appropriate stage of ripeness.

The traditional industrial school of Lambrusco production is based on industrial requirements: cost containment and oenological safety. The normal case is therefore to leave a larger part of the musts completely to ferment fully and to store them temporarily as dry red wines until the time of sparkling.
Such red wines are stable at normal cellar temperatures and can, if desired, be softened in their acidity by means of "BSA". As soon as a batch of Lambrusco is to be prepared for bottling, the Lambrusco still wine is conveyed into a pressure vessel and the required amount of must concentrate is added together with some pure yeast. Fermentation is interrupted at the desired residual sugar content and 2.5 bar by cold shock; stabilisation today is by sterile filtration.

In some cellars, a mixture of the two methods has become established: part of the fully fermented wine - for example two-thirds - is brought to the second fermentation with unfermented must from the cooling tank. This is an attempt to combine the advantages of both methods, namely fruit freshness as well as oenological safety and reduced costs.

Another method is not to leave the must completely to ferment fully after harvesting, but to stop it at around fifty grams of residual sugar. As soon as a batch is to be racked and bottled, fermentation yeast is added to the slightly sweet wine and fermentation resumes in the pressure tank. This method has the same advantages and disadvantages of single-pass fermentation.

To get from must and still wine to Lambrusco ready for shipment takes different amounts of time, depending on the quality requirements. Spumantisation can take anywhere from a few days to ten weeks or more. The more you want to invest in the quality of a wine, the finer the perlage and the aromas should be, the longer you take with the second fermentation. The less a Lambrusco may cost, the faster it must go. In some wineries, cold maceration of the grapes has become the norm. In order to extract as much aroma as possible from the Sorbara and Grasparossa grapes, the mash is cooled down to a few degrees Celsius immediately after the grape harvest and before pressing, and only gently pressed after a few days, in some cases - Corte Manzini does this with super-ripe batches of grapes - even after two weeks.

What makes the difference in the quality of Lambrusco? - The secret to a clean, aromatic product lies less in the base wine than in the sweet reserve used for the second fermentation. In order to prevent any microbiological activity, the clarified musts must be filtered several times and stored in cooling tanks at great expense.
In the end, the quality of the final product depends on how the sweet reserve was treated up to the moment of the second fermentation, whether fermentation and oxidation affect its freshness, whether the must comes from Emilia or elsewhere, whether it is banal must concentrate or cold-preserved, aromatic Lambrusco must.

Another contribution to the Lambrusco series
Lambrusco - Simply because it's fun

The above article was kindly made available to us by the Merum editorial team. Many thanks for this

Related Magazine Articles

View All
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More

EVENTS NEAR YOU

PREMIUM PARTNERS