Evan Sung for The New York Times  Joe Campanale shakes a Negroni Sbagliato at dell'Anima.  When it comes to people, I have always had a soft spot for self-deprecators. I only recently realized that this extended to cocktails as well. I met one with effacement in its very appellation. And I’ve been trying to boost its confidence by telling it how wonderful it is ever since.  The introduction was made by Joe Campanale, one of the principal owners of the restaurants dell’Anima and L’Artusi and the (apostrophe-deprived) wine bar Anfora, all in the West Village. And now that I think about it, I have to wonder if in some corner of his mind he was doing product placement, with an oracle’s vision of how this would all pan out. I’ll never know.  He was in a small group of people with whom I was drinking one night about two months ago, and he ordered a Negroni Sbagliato. That caught my attention. Although I knew what a Negroni was — gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, usually with an orange peel garnish — I’d never heard of this variation, and I was tickled by the name. Translated from Italian, it means a bungled Negroni. A Negroni in error. A mistake.  Something so self-professedly wrong just had to be right. And of course it was. As Mr. Campanale explained to me, and as a sip of the drink confirmed, it replaces the gin in a usual Negroni with a dry sparkling wine, and that changes everything, the way recasting a part meant for Kristin Scott Thomas with Kristen Wiig would. Things get less serious. Zingier. Bubblier.  It’s not just that the alcohol content of the usual Negroni is diminished. Its slightly syrupy quality yields to effervescence. The sparkling wine is game changer and mood lifter both. Drink the Negroni in autumn and winter, when you’re brooding. Drink the Sbagliato (pronounced sbahl-YAH-toe) in spring and summer, when you’re fizzing.  After that first tasting, I started asking after the Negroni Sbagliato. And I discovered another of its pleasures: it’s obscure enough that most bartenders don’t know it but simple enough that any bartender can be talked through it. Requesting one puts you in the know and prompts an exchange that, I found, most bartenders are happy to be drawn into. They’re excited to learn a new drink.  I recently dropped by dell’anima to talk with Mr. Campanale some more. He said that he first encountered the drink, which is meant to be an aperitif, about seven years ago when he was a student at New York University studying abroad in Italy. He was in thrall to the country. He was enamored with the whole Italian concept of aperitivo, an analog of sorts to happy hour, only the emphasis isn’t on discounts and volume drinking. And he was elated to find a new use for Campari, which he’d always enjoyed in an Americano, which combines it with sweet vermouth and club soda.  “It was a really hot day,” he said, “and I just thought this was the most refreshing cocktail ever.”  It stayed with him, but he didn’t think to give it an American showcase until dell’Anima, his first restaurant, had been open awhile. From the restaurant’s inception in October 2007 it served and promoted its version of a regular Negroni, made not only with the usual trio of ingredients but also with muddled roasted orange, and strained into a chilled cocktail glass. It wasn’t until 18 months later that he put a Sbagliato on the drinks list. (It’s not on the list at L’Artusi or Anfora, though bartenders there have been taught how to make one.)  Although the version Mr. Campanale first had in Italy was served on the rocks in a wine glass, and not shaken, he has tinkered with that. At dell’Anima the Sbagliato is made by shaking 1.5 ounces each of Campari and Carpano Antica vermouth with the muddled orange and ice, straining it into a rocks glass and topping it with about 1.5 ounces of sparkling wine. He has been using a Lambrusco Bianco but said that a cava or anything else “on the drier side” would do.  “I’d use the least expensive sparkling wine you’d drink on its own,” he said. “Don’t use anything too pricey, since the more nuanced flavors will be covered up.”  I wondered about the shaking. He said that something happens to Campari — a kind of blooming and thickening — when it’s shaken, and to illustrate the point we tried shaken and stirred Sbagliatos side by side. There was an even frothier disparity between them than you get from most drinks done both ways. I had the slightest of preferences for the stirred one.  But, really, there was no wrong. Except in the name itself.
Itâs natural to think that a Negroni Sbagliato â literally, a âbungled Negroniâ â is something of a mistake. But that would be wrong.