Alberici Lambrusco dell Emilia La Fogarina

At some point in the middle 1960’s Amilcare, with the help of a cousin and the goading of the not-yet-famous Italian food journalist Veronelli, planted a couple acres of Fogarina vines behind his mother’s house in Gualtieri.

Fogarina was an almost extinct variety, the wines it makes are the antithesis of the insipid co-op bulk Lambruscos that flooded into America in the 1970’s. Using (now old) vines and traditional bottle fermentation methods, Alberici makes a dense, dark, dry Lambrusco which stridently demands Parmigiano-Reggiano, guanciale (which Amilcare also makes in the cellar) and abundant bowlfuls of ravioli.