The twice-yearly meeting of Rome’s two Division I soccer teams, AS Roma and SS Lazio, is the Italian equivalent of a Subway Series. In fact, you could say that New York’s Yankees and Mets have similar geographic and cultural distinctions to those of Roma and Lazio: The Yankees are primarily the inner-city team, like Roma, while the Mets’ fans are mostly suburbanites, like Lazio’s. But in the end it really isn’t the same. Roma and Lazio share not only the same city but the same home stadium, and nearly a century of bitter competitive history.
Italy’s Serie A (Division I) season runs a marathon thirty-four weeks, from late September to early June. American baseball, World Series and all, is about thirty. When Lazio-Roma matches are on, the city practically closes down. Yes, there are still the pilgrims marching over to St. Peter’s Square in their yellow neckerchiefs, and the tourist cafés on the Piazza Navona are still brimming. But the locals retreat to either their homes or to the eighty-five- thousand-seat Stadio Olimpico, in the northern neighborhood of Montemario, to witness a battle that has raged since the 1920s. An eerie calm falls over the abandoned streets during gametime, broken only by announcers’ voices in passing taxis or the occasional roar from behind closed doors.
With the help of a friend, Corrado (a lifelong Roma fan), we’ve scored tickets for the first derby of the 2000–’01 season—they actually use the English word derby, for whatever reason, to describe the Roma-Lazio matches. On this particular Sunday, a cool December afternoon, Lazio is the home team, meaning that we are outnumbered by Lazio fans ten to one. Yet neither Corrado nor his friends seem very concerned as they strut into the stadium in their bright red-and-yellow Roma scarves.
Once inside and ensconced in the curva sud—the hardest-core fans for each side establish themselves at the curved ends of the stadium, with Roma always assigned the southern end (sud) and Lazio the northern—the mood grows more bloodthirsty. Banners and flags are unfurled at either end, and at one point a group of Lazio fans, all in bright white T-shirts, creates a huge formation that spells Roma merda! (Roma is shit!) across the whole of the curva nord. This prompts a predictably angry response from the sud crew, which counters with shouts of Mortacci tua! (Death to yours!) and other epithets.
Things are heating up.
“That’s just stupid,” Corrado says of the obscene formation. “The big thing when you sit in the curva is you try to make it more beautiful than the other side’s curva.” He explains how, when they aren’t spelling out nasty words, the fans hold up placards of different colors to compose giant Italian flags or other more palatable messages. But of course things can get ugly: At one point a banner is raised in the curva sud that translates to “We’re number one, you’re dopers!” (in reference both to Roma’s first-place position and to the recent suspension of a Lazio player for blood doping).
“Usually there’s not too much fighting or bad signs like that. But the Lazio fans definitely think they are superior,” Corrado continues. “Their team was founded first, in 1900. Roma was founded in ’24. Also, the Lazio team was founded by noble families in the northern part of Rome, whereas the Roma team was always more the team of the popolino. Roma’s team was founded in Testaccio, which is the more working-class, southern part of the city. So like everything else in Italy, the rivalry is politicized. Unfortunately, Lazio has been the better team lately, but this year …”
He interrupts himself to watch a Roma midfielder named Batistuta, known for having a cannon of a right leg, line up a free kick. The game has been an American’s nightmare up to this point, mostly played at midfield, with few scoring opportunities for either team. But as Batistuta approaches the ball, there’s a great surge of energy in the curva sud. Then an agonizing group roar shakes the bleachers as Batitistuta’s shot, a rocket from thirty yards out, is batted away by the Lazio goalkeeper.
Almost immediately afterward, the curva sud bursts into song: A good shot on goal, apparently, is as good a reason as any. In fact, if there’s one thing that unequivocally distinguishes an Italian soccer match from an American sporting event, it’s not the fanaticism and it’s not the sporadic violence—we’ve got plenty of both—it’s the singing. While Corrado and his friends are more subdued sorts, nearly everyone around us in the curva is a singing and dancing machine. They are perpetually hopping up and down, arm in arm, belting out their verses so that their crescendos drown out those of the curva nord at the other end. And where we Americans have “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the Italian fans have a songbook so extensive and poetic it’s like a mini-concerto.
Maybe, we volunteer to Corrado, there’s so much singing because the fans need something to do in the absence of any scoring. “Ah, typical American,” he says with a laugh. “Everything is scoring with you!”
We cross the seventy-minute mark in the game, still tied 0–0, and things are getting increasingly tense. The curva sud surges again as a Roma attacker makes a run and launches a high-arching cross. One of Roma’s players emerges from a cluster in the penalty box and gets off a header on goal, but Lazio’s goalie makes a great diving save. As the ball dribbles out in front of the goal mouth, one of Lazio’s stars, a midfielder named Alessandro Nesta, winds up to belt the ball out of trouble, only to hit one of his teammates in the back with it and have it bounce back into the Lazio goal. The curva sud erupts in wild celebration as those smug Lazio fans (hey, we’re Roma guys now) cope not only with the prospect of losing but with the particular humiliation of an “own goal.”
And despite some furious attacks at both ends of the field, that’s how it ends, with the Roma supporters singing all the way out the stadium doors. With Corrado’s help, we join in on the main chorus:
Roma Roma Roma, t’ho dipinta io
(Roma, Roma, Roma, I have drawn you)
gialla come il sole e rossa come il core mio!
(yellow as the sun and red as my heart!)
Can you imagine a Yankee fan singing that?
Although the name of the team is Lazio, it is really Rome that its players represent, albeit a particular part of Rome. Lazio the region remains a somewhat indefinable entity. Even those who have visited Rome don’t always know that Lazio is the region in which Rome sits. And as many writers and historians have noted, Lazio’s borders are geographically and historically arbitrary. Its northern reaches were originally Etruscan territory, and even later, when the region came under the sway of the Pope, it has traditionally been thought of as a place whose pieces don’t fit together.
Rome’s size and political importance make it an entity unto itself, to the point where Rome and Lazio feel like distinct places. Whereas Florence manages to nestle seamlessly into the cypress-studded hills of Tuscany, Rome at times feels like an island on land—that much more urban, that much bigger, and ringed by an outer beltway that cuts it off, like a moat, from the verdant hills just fifteen minutes outside of town. It is striking to look out over Rome from the vineyards of the nearby Castelli Romani and feel at once very close to and very far from the city. This is a handicap for the beautiful but lightly regarded wine towns of Frascati, Marino, and the rest of the Castelli Romani villages, because they ultimately feel more like suburbia than the ancient land of wine. The shadow of the city looms large.
Rome has been both a blessing and a curse to Lazio winemaking. On the one hand, the city’s tourists drink everything the wineries produce, and the wineries produce a lot—Lazio is the sixth most productive wine region in Italy. On the other hand, those Roman legions usually don’t think too much about what they’re drinking, and don’t remember it afterward. This has led to a wine culture in which 85 percent of total production is white, and most of that is very light and nearly clear, to be sipped by the carafe in Roman osterie.
There are twenty-six DOC zones in Lazio, and yet there are very few distinctions to be made among them. Aside from the easy-to-pronounce Frascati and the creatively titled Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone, the DOCs of Lazio are all but interchangeable, some might say arbitrary. There’s no single grape variety on the rise, no one zone with a cadre of up-and-coming producers, no unifying force whatsoever on the Lazio wine scene. That leaves consumers with nothing to go on but trial and error, and leaves wine writers with little to do but wax rhapsodic about Rome and handpick the best of a scattered lot.
It’s such a defining moment to sit in the open air on some narrow lane in Trastevere, twirl some spaghetti alla carbonara on your fork, and sip from a dewy caraffa of vino bianco while soaking up the sun, that it seems pretty silly to critique said vino bianco. But then again, this is a wine book.
In Lazio, the white-wine landscape is neatly summarized: Of the twenty-six DOC zones in the region, twenty-one include provisions for the production of white wine—and all of those call for the use of trebbiano and/or malvasia in some percentage. There are numerous officially documented clones of both grapes, with no fewer than three trebbianos in widespread use: trebbiano giallo, thought to be related to greco; trebbiano verde, thought to be of Umbrian origin; and trebbiano toscano, the best known and most widely planted. Yet regardless of which clones are used, the wines made from them tend to suffer from an age-old Italian problem: neutrality.
Although the whites of the Frascati DOC, in the northern reaches of the Alban Hills south of Rome, have had international success, it has been at the low end of the market. Unlike the wines of, say, Soave in Veneto or Chianti in Tuscany, Frascati hasn’t made its triumphant return to fashionability. It remains mostly in those dewy carafes, anonymous, since most Frascati producers are content to keep it that way.
What a lot of wine experts bemoan is how much more could be done in Lazio, particularly in the Alban Hills. These hills were once a summer refuge for Roman nobles, who built their villas, or castelli, in their heights to escape the heat of Rome. Towns such as Frascati, Montecompatri, Marino, and Velletri sit at a range of altitudes (two hundred to a thousand feet) on well drained, well ventilated volcanic soils, flanking the crater lakes of Albano and Nemi. These former volcanic masses are ideal soils for winemaking, porous and rich in potassium, particularly in more northern reaches such as Frascati, where the Mediterranean influence isn’t felt as acutely as in Marino or Velletri. In all there are nine DOC zones clustered in the Alban Hills, forming a sort of half-moon around the crater lakes. Yet while they are geographically distinct, their blending formulas—and wines—are quite similar.
At their highest levels, the wines of Frascati and, say, Marino are in fact distinguishable—the Frascati will likely be more high-toned and fragrant, the Marino a little fleshier, since the latter is grown at slightly lower altitudes in a slightly warmer microclimate. But most of the wine of the Alban Hills is part of an amorphous, industrial-scale mass. Taken as a whole, the nine Castelli Romani DOCs (Colli Albani, Colli Lanuvini, Cori, Frascati, Marino, Montecompatri, Velletri, Zagarolo, and the all-encompassing Castelli Romani) account for more than 80 percent of all DOC-classified wine in Lazio.
“The biggest problem with Frascati is Rome,” says Fabrizio Santarelli of Castel de Paolis. Santarelli’s newish winery in Grottaferrata breaks the established Frascati mold, not just by extracting more flavor from the traditional malvasia and trebbiano but by throwing in “foreign” grapes as far-flung as viognier. “When you have a market twenty minutes away that will swallow up everything you make regardless of its quality, what path are you going to choose? Everyone here grows as much as they can and produces as much as they can.”
Of course, it’s not fair to dismiss the whites of Castelli Romani out of hand. Although trebbiano is a very mild grape even in the best of circumstances, malvasia can have a floral aroma, often reminiscent of orange blossoms, and a distinctive, tropical-fruit character that many producers are showcasing. The well-known Fontana Candida winery, in addition to making some of the more flavorful Frascatis available, makes a Malvasia del Lazio that highlights the full-bodied fruitiness of the grape. So does the Conte Zandotti winery, whose Malvasia del Lazio “Rumon” is honeyed and rich on the palate yet has plenty of acidity to balance it. And in Frascati wines such as Castel de Paolis’s “Vigna Adriana,” Villa Simone’s “Vigna Filonardi,” and Fontana Candida’s “Santa Teresa,” the fuller flavors of malvasia are on display.
Under the Frascati production discipline, it is possible for a producer to use as much as 100 percent malvasia in a wine, or 100 percent trebbiano. Additionally, as much as 10 percent of the wine can be of “other” white varieties (read: chardonnay, sauvignon, viognier). This makes for wide variations in style. For example, Villa Simone’s Frascatis tend to be finer, firmer, and more perfumed, while the wines of Castel de Paolis tack on a little more fruity extract, approaching California whites in style. Which is the “true” Frascati?
“There is no such thing anymore,” says Santarelli of Castel de Paolis. “What we need to do is make good wine and not worry about ‘typicity.’ Because what is typical, at least recently, is not very good.”
Outside of the Frascati DOC, the Castelli Romani is not producing much wine for export. In Marino, Paola DiMauro and her son, Armando, are making very crisp, aromatic whites from their tiny Colle Picchioni Estate, most notably the Marino Bianco “Selezione Oro,” a blend incorporating malvasia and trebbiano with a splash each of sémillon and vermentino. It is the kind of clean, citrusy, full-flavored white that would be widely praised if it were made in Friuli, but it remains overlooked by wine drinkers with bad memories of insipid Roman wines. It is a great value, a well-balanced wine with personality. Should Lazio whites ever come back into fashion, Colle Picchioni will be hailed as one of the pioneers.
Maybe—and it’s a big maybe—the same will be said of northern Lazio’s Falesco winery, and its down-but-not-out DOC, Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone. Based more on trebbiano (a minimum of 65 percent) than the Castelli Romani whites, Est! Est!! Est!!! is one of those wines—like Vernaccia di San Gimignano in Tuscany—whose history is more compelling than what’s currently in the glass. Its name is believed to have been invented when a twelfth-century German bishop, on his way to the Vatican, sent a scout ahead of him to find inns that served especially good wine (the bishop was quite the gastronome). When the scout found a good place he wrote Est (“It is” in Latin) on the door. Apparently, after tasting the wines at one osteria in Montefiascone, a village on the southern shores of Lake Bolsena, the scout scrawled Est! Est!! Est!!! on the door in a fit of exuberance. These days, the Est! Est!! Est!!! DOC is dominated by the Falesco estate, owned by the well-known winemaking consultant Riccardo Cotarella. But even he doesn’t go for anything mythical in his versions of the wine: Falesco’s Est! Est!! Est!!! is appley, brightly acidic, and delicately aromatic, as trebbiano usually is. It makes a good accompaniment to Roman specialties such as fritto misto (a mixed fry of meats and vegetables) or carciofi alla giudea (deep-fried artichokes). The Est! Est!! Est!!! wines of Italo Mazziotti are similarly delicate and aromatic, and are considered, along with Falesco’s whites, to be the best in the region.
Outside the realm of DOC, another Lazio white worth mentioning is a sauvignon-sémillon blend called “Somigliò,” made by Giovanni Palombo at his winery in Atina, not far from the border with Campania. Creamy and rich on the palate thanks to the sémillon, with citrusy fruit and bright acidity from the sauvignon, it has drawn renewed attention to the overlooked winemaking territory around Frosinone, where the milder climates, higher altitudes, and calcareous soils allow for a longer, more balanced growing season. Although the Frosinone area has traditionally been known for reds (such as the traditional Cesanese del Piglio—see below), Palombo’s wines illustrate what’s possible with whites as well.
Although the overwhelming majority of Lazio wine is still white, many of the region’s winemakers believe that the region’s true talent is for reds. Yet other than the indigenous cesanese grape, which is still found in a few DOC wines in the hills between Rome and Frosinone, Lazio has no red varieties to call its own.
The best-known and best-regarded red wines from Lazio these days are the merlots and cabernets made by Riccardo Cotarella at Falesco, on the volcanic slopes of Lake Bolsena. As in parts of the Castelli Romani, the tufa underneath the topsoil is rock-hard, forcing the vines to work harder to put down roots; it is porous at the same time, keeping the vines water-stressed so that they don’t overproduce. Using superconcentrated grapes and a healthy dose of barrel aging, Cotarella’s “Montiano” (his top wine, made from merlot) and “Vitiano” (made mostly from cabernet and aged in oak for less time) are plump and deeply colorful reds, almost chocolatey with extract and oak. They are criticized by some Italian wine purists as being blatantly “international” wines, but in a region with so little red-wine tradition, it is really difficult to level such a criticism.
There are still some good cesanese wines to be found—namely Cesanese del Piglio. Traditionally, most cesanese wines were made in a frizzante style, reminiscent of Lambrusco, but lately a number of producers have tamed the fierce acidity of the grape and showcased it in still wines, be they varietal Cesanese del Piglio (a tangy and quite substantial version is made by Massimi Berucchi) or blends that combine the deep spice of cesanese with other grapes (check out Villa Simone’s excellent “Ferro e Seta,” a cesanese-syrah blend, or either of the two cesanese-based blends made by the ever-improving L’Olivella estate in Frascati).
But Lazio’s vineyards are increasingly populated with red varieties that are more readily associated with other regions: Tuscany’s sangiovese, Abruzzo’s montepulciano, Campania’s aglianico, and the world’s cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Yet given all the physical similarities that Lazio shares with its neighbors (especially Campania, also known for volcanic terrain), why not showcase these grapes?
“The cabernets in particular do very well here,” says Paola DiMauro of Colle Picchioni, whose “Vigna del Vassallo” (a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot) is a savory, cedary, tobacco-scented red that has been compared to Bordeaux. DiMauro says the layer of tufa under the thin topsoil of Marino is so hard it is impossible for her to excavate a proper wine cellar. It is quite similar, in fact, to the soil of the Loire Valley in France. And there are indeed comparisons to be made between the Colle Picchioni reds and the deep, spicy, cabernet franc–based wines of Chinon in the Loire (perhaps more so than Bordeaux).
Giovanni Palombo in Atina is also making notable wines from the cabernets and merlot, including “Colle della Torre” (merlot–cabernet sauvignon) and “Rosso delle Chiaie” (all cabernet sauvignon). As with the Colle Picchioni reds, the Palombo reds are not just plump and fruity but have structure—enough that you might consider aging them for a few years to see how they develop.
More experimental is Castel de Paolis in Frascati, and the giant Casale del Giglio estate in Borgo Montello, the latter set on reclaimed marshland known as the Pontine lowlands. At Castel de Paolis, Fabrizio Santarelli uses not just cabernet and merlot but touches of syrah and petit verdot in a plush red blend called “I Quattro Mori,” a wine that rivals the luxuriousness of Falesco’s Montiano. At Casale del Giglio, the soils of the Pontine flats are a heavier, more fertile mixture of sand and clay mixed with volcanic residue, so winemaker Antonio Santarelli (no relation to Fabrizio) has turned to syrah. He says that syrah, a vine which not only weathers intense heat but doesn’t overproduce in more fertile soils, is the grape of the future along the southern Lazio coast.
“Particularly here south of Rome, there is really no red-wine tradition at all. No wine tradition, period,” Santarelli says. “I don’t look at that as a bad thing. This area has a very ‘New World’ feel: hot climate, fertile soils, plenty of water. An early-ripening variety like merlot matures too fast here, but cabernet? Syrah? Petit verdot? They are perfect. We are in a position to compete with Chilean wines, American wines, and that’s what we want to do.”
For all of the white-wine grapes in Lazio, there are really no sparkling wines to speak of in the region, save for frizzante (slightly fizzy) versions of some wines. Although a handful of the region’s DOC disciplines include provisions for spumante, it doesn’t seem to be of much interest to producers, who’ve been successful enough with simpler dry wines.
Sweet wines, too, are fairly scarce in the zone. Along with the occasional spumante, there are some amabile (semisweet) or dolce (sweet) versions of certain DOC whites—although they too are rare. Most notable is the Frascati Cannellino of Villa Simone, a late-harvest wine touched with the smoky, glycerine richness of botrytis bunch rot.
The sweet red Aleatico di Gradoli, made from the aleatico grape in a small zone on the northern shores of Lake Bolsena, has all but faded from existence, not unlike the aleatico wines of Puglia. Only a tiny patch of aleatico vineyards is still registered under the Gradoli DOC, and only one producer—a cooperative known as Cantine Sociale di Gradoli—makes any significant quantity of the wine. For the most part, it’s an oddity that might turn up in a wine bar in Rome, but it is worth trying if the opportunity arises.
PROVINCES: Frosinone (FR), Latina (LT), Rieti (RI), Roma (RM)
CAPITAL: Roma
KEY WINE TOWNS: Frascati, Montefiascone, Marino, Roma
TOTAL VINEYARD AREA*: 28,971 hectares, or 71,587 acres. Rank: 9th
TOTAL WINE PRODUCTION*: 3,733,000 hectoliters, or 98,625,860 gallons (5th); 84% white, 16% red
DOC WINE PRODUCED*: 16.4% (13th)
SPECIALTY FOODS: artichokes; asparagus; peas; pecorino (sharp, hard sheep’s-milk cheese); Caciocavallo (hard cow’s-milk cheese).
*2000 figures. Rankings out of twenty regions total (Trentino–Alto Adige counted as one). Source: Istituto Statistica Mercati Agro-Alimentari (ISMEA), Rome.
MALVASIA: Several different subvarieties exist, including malvasia bianca di candia and malvasia del lazio. Though the malvasia family is typically associated with sweet wines, it makes dry, citrusy whites in Lazio.
TREBBIANO: Widely planted, delicately flavored white, also with a number of subvarieties, including trebbiano giallo (yellow, thought to be related to greco), trebbiano verde (green), and trebbiano toscano. Used with malvasia in all of the region’s whites.
OTHERS: SAUVIGNON BLANC; CHARDONNAY; VIOGNIER.
CABERNET SAUVIGNON/FRANC: Many Lazio producers have had success with these varieties, which have taken well to the region’s predominantly volcanic terrain.
MERLOT: A highly adaptable variety given its own measure of Lazio celebrity thanks to Falesco’s “Montiano.”
CESANESE: Known in the past to make plump, deeply fruity reds in hill zones between Rome and Frosinone, it’s a variety on the wane.
OTHERS: SYRAH; PETIT VERDOT; SANGIOVESE; MONTEPULCIANO.
As with most Italian whites, the white wines of Lazio are predominantly made in a light, fresh style and are intended to be drunk young. Wines such as Frascati, Marino Bianco, and Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone are best consumed the summer (or, given the time they take to cross the Atlantic, fall) following the vintage. Red wines, meanwhile—or at least ageworthy red wines—have a relatively short history in the region, but there have been a few noteworthy recent vintages from which some interesting Lazio reds will still be available. Look for reds from ’95, ’97, ’98, ’99 and 2000.
On the one hand, the Castelli Romani zone south of Rome is an ideal destination for the wine wanderer, because of its close proximity to the city. On the other hand, there aren’t many wineries in the zone equipped to receive visitors. Of course the sights of the Castelli Romani are interesting in themselves—the Pope’s summer palace at Castelgandolfo, the crater lakes of Albano and Nemi—and the views of Rome are incredible from the heights of wine towns like Frascati or Grottaferrata.
Rome is a great wine town, and is loaded with enoteche (wine bars/shops) in which to sample different wines—although they’re likely to have more wines from other regions than from Lazio. Some good enoteche to try include Il Goccetto (Via dei Banchi Vecchi 14; 06-686-42-68) and L’Angolo Divino (Via dei Balestrari, 12; 06-686-44-13), the latter right off the Campo dei Fiori market. A restaurant that shouldn’t be missed is Checchino (Via Monte Testaccio 30; 06-574-63-18), particularly if you have a taste for old-school Roman dishes such as pajata (slow-cooked lamb’s intestine, usually served in a tomato sauce over rigatoni) and coda alla vaccinara (oxtail stew).
Villa Simone Frascati Superiore “Vigneto Filonardi,” $
Fontana Candida Frascati Superiore “Santa Teresa,” $
Castel de Paolis Frascati Superiore “Vigna Adriana,” $
Like many of the tastings in this book, this flight is arranged in ascending order based on body. While all three are examples of fuller and more-flavorful-than-average Frascatis, the Castel de Paolis wine is probably the plumpest and most tropically fruity of the three, thanks to a dollop of viognier in the blend. Both the Villa Simone and Fontana Candida wines showcase the bright, floral, slightly citrusy aromatics typical of good Frascati, as well as the refreshing acidity. Any of the three will shine alongside a good carbonara or cacio e pepe preparation (see recipes), where their lively acidity will be put to good use in cutting through the fat of butter and cheese.
Colle Picchioni “Vigna del Vassallo,” $$
Giovanni Palombo “Rosso delle Chiaie,” $$
Falesco “Montiano,” $$$
The first two wines, based on cabernet sauvignon, share a decided tarry, cigar-box character, a trait also found in many Bordeaux and Loire cabernets. They are the kinds of full-bodied, savory reds that will complement a hearty Roman dish such as coda alla vaccinara. In the Montiano, a varietal merlot, there’s a plumper, rounder, slightly sweeter personality, and a toastiness that comes from aging in small oak barrels. It is probably the most luxurious, extracted wine of the three, and has attracted a cult following in the United States as a result. (Also worth a look is Palombo’s higher-end “Duca Cantelmi” cabernet sauvignon, although both it and the “Rosso delle Chiaie” are the hardest to find of the above group.)
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