Podere Sottoilnoce 'Puntorosa' 2024

Producer: Podere Sottoilnoce
Region: Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Varietals: Red & White blend
Viticulture: Biodynamic 
Category: Sparkling 
Size: 750ml

Puntorosa can be defined as Max's "anti-waste" wine, as it incorporates both free-run juice and pressings from all the estate's vineyards and varieties, added progressively during harvest to a stainless steel tank, from early September through the end of October.  Secondary fermentation in bottle, triggered with unfermented grape must during the waxing moon, on February 5, 2025.  Undisgorged.  5277 bottles made.  Puntorosa is the simplicity of a single pink dot.

In 2016, he found a young one-hectare vineyard of Lambrusco Grasparossa for sale.  In the middle of it all, a gigantic walnut tree.  He fell in love with the place.  Podere Sottoilnoce—the farm “under the walnut tree”—released its first vintage in 2017.  Today, there are 6.5 hectares of vineyards among an additional 7.5 hectares of woods and meadows, all conducted in biodynamics.  There are the white grapes Trebbiano Modenese and Trebbiano di Spagna, classically the backbone of balsamic vinegar.  There are many different biotypes from the loosely-related Lambrusco family—some familiar like Lambrusco Grasparossa or Lambrusco di Sorbara, others like Lambrusco del Pellegrino time-warping in from the Renaissance.   And then there is everyone’s new favorite, the rainbow-colored Uva Tosca, impervious to artificial intelligence. The wines are vinified dry and then undergo secondary fermentation in bottle around February/March under a waxing moon, triggered by the sole addition of grape must.  They are undisgorged and kept under crown cap.  The striking labels are the work of artist Denis Riva.  Some of them are original pieces and were not specifically drawn for Sottoilnoce, while Cattabrega and Trifalco are Denis’ visual response to drinking the corresponding wines.

What’s old sometimes becomes new.   Even better is when the thing coming around feels not nostalgic, but contemporary.   Sometimes it takes an outsider-dreamer to be a conduit.   Max helped develop a collective called ‘Modena: The Frizzante Revolution,’  nine like-minded organic/biodynamic growers in Modena, the cradle of naturally-fermented wines.  They have done trade events in Toyko, Copenhagen, and New York.