I came across a unique wine this week and it presented an interesting educational opportunity. Remember, you’re not drinking, you’re learning. And people look up to you for it.

The wine is the 2023 Santa Giustina Ortrugo Vivace. Ortrugo is the grape and Vivace is the style, both words I’m hoping are new to you. First, a little about the producer.

In the northwest corner of Emilia-Romagna sits a magical 100 hectare farm of various crops, forests and vineyards. All this surrounds an abandoned 1000 year old village that still boasts a few buildings and a church from 870. There entire estate is managed in the most natural and respectful ways. Since the family all have an allergy to sulphur, SO2 is not used anywhere in the winery.

Winemaking at Santa Giustina focuses on native varietals. One of those is the white grape Ortrugo. It is a grape indigenous to the Piacenza hills of Emilia-Romagna. Its name is derived from the local Piacenza Italian words altra uva, meaning ‘the other grape’, which is a nod to its primary role as a blending grape. By the late 1960s, it had all but disappeared from Piacenza, until a winemaker named Luigi Mossi decided to save an old plot of Ortrugo vines rather than uproot them. He made the decision to vinify the grape on its own and was pleasantly surprised by the result. He then set out to select specific cuttings and propagate the best vines, laying the groundwork for Ortrugo's renaissance.

Ortrugo typically makes easy drinking wines with aromas of apple, citrus and white flowers. It’s light and juicy on the palate with a simple and refreshing finish. It is often used to make easy drinking sparkling wines. That’s where we get to the second part of this.

Most of you are familiar with the term spumante, which is used to describe Italian wines that are full sparkling. Some of you may also recognize the word frizzante. We see plenty of both of these in the US. What we don’t often see is a category called vivace, which means ‘lively’, and is perhaps most closely compared to what we would call spritzy. To clarify the slide above, a bar of atmospheric pressure is a metric unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, which is very close to the normal air pressure on Earth at sea level. Fun. For comparison, champagne is bottled at about 5 to 6 bars of pressure.

Vivace wines are often drunk young and are perfect for the dinner table. The gentle carbonation and lively mouthfeel cuts through rich dishes, elevates acidity and accentuates fresh fruit aromas.

The 2023 Santa Giustina Ortrugo Vivace is flat-out yummy. The nose is clean and subtle: ripe citrus, baked apple, and dried green herbs. On the palate, its light and refreshing, with ripe citrus and juicy apple & pear. The bright acidity is perfectly matched to its spritzy personality. As I was drinking it and writing these notes, I kept thinking about ceviche and how the ripe apple would balance the citrus of the fish. This is a really fun wine and should stay under $20 retail. I’ll be buying a few more of these for those remaining days of summer.