Wines

Produced entirely from the indigenous white variety Pignoletto, “Steve”—named after, we kid you not, actor Steve Zahn, specifically in his role in the 2016 film Captain Fantastic—showcases the grape’s bristling acidity and straightforwardly delicious flavors of oranges and lemons. Aromatically, the combination of botanicals and spices remind one of a great gin-and-tonic, with richer supporting notes of candied almond and nougat. Simultaneously mouthfilling and driving, “Steve” leaves the taster smacking their lips, salivating, and reaching for the nearest hunk of cheese or meat.

Produced purely from an ancient hyper-local clone of Salamino di Santa Croce, “PerFranco” is named for Gianluca’s grandfather Franco. Pale in hue, it pours a lightly hazy salmon in the glass, yet its overall spirit is vinous and serious. With a blast of mouthwatering acidity that could awaken one from a coma, it buries its bubbles beneath a bracingly tense texture which delivers notes of lemon curd, green apples, and freshly plucked herbs with dirt still clinging to the roots. It finishes elegant and persistent, with a clear through-line of flavors and ample fruit.

Named after the patron saint of wine, the eye-poppingly vivid “San Vincent” is made entirely from the local Sorbara, which may in fact be related to Pinot Meunier, according to Gianluca. This bottling combines a breezy scrumptiousness with a penetrating intensity, offering well-delineated, lifted notes of cassis, raspberry, licorice, and plenty of the wild herbs which seem to pop up in all of Gianluca’s wines. “San Vincent” delivers an authoritative and satisfying retronasal impression on the palate, and its combination of saline minerality and scythe-like acidity prompts involuntary salivation.

Both a wine and a mission statement, “No Autoclave” is anchored by Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, and blended with Lambrusco di Sorbara and the autochtonous white grape Pignoletto in varying ratios depending on the year, and all three grapes are co-fermented. This wine soars from the glass aromatically: tangerine, earthy cherry, wild herbs, a wisp of appetizing volatility, Szechuan peppercorn; it’s a real maelstrom that manages to come together on a tangy palate of remarkable precision, with a clinging yet pure texture that somehow puts one in the mind of great Alpine wine, and subtle bubbles that hang back and let the vinous core of the wine shine through.

“Stiolorosso” is 100% Sorbara planted in 1960 at a friend’s biodynamic farm called Casalpriore, located in Stiolo di San Martino in Reggio Emilia, south of Terrevive’s home commune of Modena. Gianluca employs a traditional local style of vinification: three days of punching down, and that’s it. This keeps the wine lively and prevents over-extraction, though plenty of deep color is produced from such a brief period of pigeage. “Stiolorosso” offers a typically expressive nose of earthy black cherries, with a trace of well-gauged volatility and a subtle salty funk, and its palate is both juicy and tense, with those cherry flavors echoing. It is elegant on entry, with well-measured earth on the palate and a caressing sense of acidity.

There are experimental wines, and there are experimental wines… Steiner enthusiast that he is, Gianluca also keeps bees at Terrevive, and “BZZ” is a pure-Sorbara passito for which the bunches are dried in beehives. According to Gianluca, the constant movement of the bees’ wings keeps air flowing around the grapes, thereby preventing mold and assisting in the drying process. Appassimento accentuates the already prominent wild herbal notes found in Gianluca’s wines, and the delivery of such notes on a dried-fruit frame creates a mouthwatering savory-sweet interplay.

Gianluca’s only metodo classico (“Champagne method”) wine, “Fine” is pure Sorbara that spends two years on its lees for secondary fermentation before a disgorgement without dosage. In its soaring acidity and in the wild immediacy of its fruit, “Fine” is of a piece with the rest of Terrevive’s lineup; however, its bubbles are finer (pun intended?) and more active, and the wine enters and coats the palate with a rounder, softer touch—as one would expect given its method of production. It offers delicious flavors of crunchy pear, pomegranate, and anise, and it finishes with a long, slow descrescendo.

Produced in vanishingly small quantities, “Rosso” is the darker counterpart to the “Fine": a full-colored, macerated red sparkling wine produced in the Champagne method, from 80% Salamino di Santa Croce and 20% Sorbara. Tangy, precise acidity corsets feral fruit notes on a palate of immense juiciness and tension, offering a house-recognizable wine that forfeits a touch of wildness for power. This, like the “Fine,” spends two years on its lees for secondary fermentation before a disgorgement without dosage.

Gianluca loves to experiment with the fruits of his terroir, and this still rosé wine is a project is his produced solely from the Oliva grape, one of the ancient Lambruscco varietals that takes its name from the olive-like shape of its berries. Harvested from 70-year-old pergole vines, the wine sees a light maceration, and has an intriguing interplay of ripe vine fruit and a bitter sapidity, with relatively low acidity.