A red sparkling wine may not sound like a must-try. But trust me, this deliciously dry, fruity, cherry-colored frizzante will change your mind about Italy's lambrusco. Its fresh, lively earthy-berry flavors dance on the tongue, and its acidity and tiny bite of pleasurable bitterness in the finish make it just right with flavorful food.

I sampled it while trolling the several hundred liquid offerings at Vino 2011, New York's annual Italian wine expo held at the end of January. The Lini "Labrusca" was just one of a half-dozen fascinating bottlings made from Italian indigenous grapes being poured by import company Domenico Valentino.

This soft sparkler was a very welcome surprise. My memory of lambrusco is the cloyingly sweet Riunite, highly popular in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s, which was more industrial soda pop than wine. By contrast, the Lini is a real wine, dry and savory, with enticing fruit-floral aromas.

Lambrusco is the name of both the wine and the grape, whose history goes as far back as the Etruscans and Romans. It's not just a single variety -- there are about 60 different clones planted mostly in the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy's center. Lini's version is made from lambrusco salamino, the most widely planted variety, supposedly named because the grape bunches resemble the shape of a salami.

The winery celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010 and its line of artisanal lambruscos includes white and rosé bottlings as well as this red. Most examples, like this one, use the less expensive Charmat tank process to get the bubbles in, not the classic champagne method.

Lambrusco is all about gulpable pleasure and fun, a mood-changer. At the tasting, I asked for another pour, then grabbed a plate of mortadella, olives and a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and pretended I was in Italy, instead of snowy New York.

Elin McCoy is a wine and spirits columnist and author of "The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste."

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