What is it with Italian athletes and natural wine? One of our favorite producers in Piedmont is Olek Bondonia, a former champion snowboarder. And here in Emilia-Romagna, we find Gian Paolo Isabella, a world-class Muay... Read More

What is it with Italian athletes and natural wine? One of our favorite producers in Piedmont is Olek Bondonia, a former champion snowboarder. And here in Emilia-Romagna, we find Gian Paolo Isabella, a world-class Muay Thai martial artist who hung up his gloves to fight a different kind of battle: the redemption of Lambrusco.

You have to be a little bit insane to excel at sports at that level, especially obscure ones that rarely land you lucrative sponsorships. But when you apply that same level of fanaticism to wine—another field where you’re unlikely to get rich—the results for us drinkers are spectacular. Gian Paolo treats his vines with the discipline of a fighter, and the result is Podere il Saliceto, an estate that is single-handedly rewriting the rulebook of the region.

To understand why this matters, you have to look at the opponent. For decades, this region was defined by industrial factories churning out sweet, soda-pop sparklers destined for down-market grocery stores. Gian Paolo took the exact opposite approach. He focuses entirely on indigenous varieties and farms organically, refusing to cut corners.