Villa Cialdini Lambrusco Grasparossa

Villa Cialdini is the main house of the Azienda Agricola Castelvetro, an estate south-east of Modena that has been owned by the Chiarli family since 1860. Brothers Anselmo and Mauro Chiarli, who manage the family company, started the Castelvetro project in 2002. Their idea – ambitious today, let alone in 2002 – was to build a state-of-the-art winery to produce top quality Lambrusco. They spent a year renovating the winery and then, using the property’s old vineyards, began production in 2003.

The estate comprises 70 hectares, of which 52 are vineyards on the undulating alluvial deposits typical of the Padana plain. The main grape variety planted here is Grasparossa, the lower yielding and most concentrated clone of Lambrusco. The resulting Lambrusco is deeply coloured, frothing, dry and structured, while retaining the typical pronounced fruitiness cut by lovely acidity that has made Lambrusco such a mainstay of the restaurants of Modena and Bologna.

From the same vineyards comes the local sparkling white, Pignoletto, an ancient grape variety from Emilia, also known as Grechetto Gentile. This variety produces a fruity and extremely refreshing sparkling wine. Both these wines come with very smart packaging and unrivalled quality for this style of wine.

Lambrusco Grasparossa,

The Grasparossa vineyards are located in the Chiarli Family's Cialdini Estate in the heart of the foothills of Castelvetro.They grow on the ancient gravel sediments of the Guerro stream, at an altitude of 70-150 metres above sea level. The surface stratum, around 50-60cm deep, is comprised of dusky, reddish coloured silt-loam.The clones are obtained from a mass selection of the estate’s ancient vineyards.The vines are planted at a density of 3,300 vines per hectare.They are trained to a double curtain (GDC), and are suitable both for mechanical and manual pruning and picking.

Red/purple in colour, with a bright violet mousse. The palate carries intense notes of strawberry and plum, with elegant tannins and a long, dry finish.