Rome Drinks (Local) Wine
Romans have been drinking wine for millennia, and yet the local vino from Lazio has never gotten the respect it deserves. In antiquity, when Rome was the center of an empire and its emperors drank deeply from goblets of local wine, the most sought-after bottles came from Campania. These days, Tuscany to the north remains a marketing juggernaut that outshines Lazio’s sensational wines. But things are changing slowly and deliciously. A quiet revolution is fermenting in the hills, cellars, and trattoria wine lists of the capital, one that’s challenging old assumptions and reshaping Lazio’s place on Italy’s wine map. The shift has been decades in the making, fueled by a handful of visionary producers who have rejected Lazio’s bulk-wine reputation and embraced organic viticulture, native grapes, and low-intervention cellar practices. For curious drinkers, the city’s wine bars have become portals to Lazio’s rediscovering its soul, one bottle at a time.
The best place to start is the Castelli Romani, the hill towns southeast of Rome—Frascati, Monte Porzio Catone, Grottaferrata, Genzano di Roma—where wines have flowed since the Republic. This is Cesanese and Trebbiano territory, grapes that too often have been treated like workhorses, vinified into watery whites that were cheap, forgettable, and ubiquitous in Roman trattorias. But producers like Ribela and Icaro are flipping the script, bottling structured, mineral-forward whites, reds, and rosati on native grapes and volcanic soils, and are some of the most exciting things happening in Castelli right now.
Head southeast to Olevano Romano. This is Cesanese country, home to a peppery, herbaceous red with just enough wildness to remind you you’re in the Italian countryside. For years, Cesanese was sidelined as rustic fare, poured in carafes at countryside sagre, or seasonal festivals. But producers like Damiano Ciolli and Riccardi Reale are rewriting its story. Ciolli’s wines lean toward elegance and freshness, while Riccardi e Reale, an energetic natural wine project, embraces Cesanese’s full untamed soul.
Further southeast in the Ciociaria, a sub-region bordering Abruzzo and Molise, the wines reflect the rugged terrain and deep agricultural traditions of this underexplored area. A growing number of natural winemakers like Palazzo Tronconi, Il Vecchio Poggio, and I Ciacca are reclaiming forgotten vineyards and indigenous grapes such as Maturano, Lecinaro, and Pampanaro, working with minimal intervention to produce expressive, soulful wines. Carlo Noro and La Visciola craft exceptional Cesanese-based vino. These places are alive with the energy of sandstone soils and mountain air, often unfiltered and full of character.
Up in northern Lazio, near Bracciano and Viterbo, the wine scene is getting a jolt from a new generation of winemakers working in tune with nature. La Villana, run by American Joy Kull, is a standout. Her wines, made from Procanico (aka Trebbiano Toscano), Malvasia, and other native grapes, are unfiltered, unpretentious, and fun to drink. They reflect the volcanic soils and untamed beauty of the landscape. And around here, there’s also Aleatico, a fragrant red grape with a rose-and-berry perfume that gets a bad rap for being too sweet or old-fashioned. In the hands of Andrea Occhipinti, it’s anything but. His dry versions are luminous, balanced, and full of personality, a perfect pairing for sunset over the lake.
Along the coast, in the ancient Etruscan heartlands of Cerveteri and Tarquinia, vines have been cultivated since long before Rome was even a village. Whites from those zones are typically built on Trebbiano with Malvasia playing a key supporting role; in Tarquinia, Giallo also enters the picture, adding citrusy lift. Reds are anchored by Sangiovese and Montepulciano, occasionally softened with a splash of Merlot or lifted with a bit of Cesanese. These coastal wines rarely get much airtime, but the potential is there, especially as more growers embrace low-intervention farming and focus on quality over quantity.
No conversation about Lazio wine would be complete without mentioning Fiorano, the estate that launched a thousand myths. Prince Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi’s vineyard near Ciampino, 10 miles from central Rome, became a legend in the twentieth century—less for its accessibility (the wine was barely distributed) and more for the prince’s eccentric commitment to organic farming and long aging. His Semillon and Malvasia bottlings were years, sometimes decades, in the making, and the wines (when you could get them) were like time capsules. Fiorano’s legacy remains a symbol of what Lazio can achieve when vision meets patience.
Of course, Lazio still faces challenges. Its name doesn’t carry the same weight in Italy nor abroad as Tuscany or Piedmont. The market is crowded. And the shadow of past mediocrity lingers. But there’s real momentum here, powered by producers who believe in their land, their grapes, and the stories they tell in every glass.
Bacchus: Rome’s God of Vines and Vice
Bacchus is one of those gods who’s so deeply embedded in Roman culture it’s easy to forget he wasn’t Roman to begin with. As with so many other things—architecture, olive trees, organized chaos—the Romans borrowed him from the Greeks, who called him Dionysus, then made him their own. In typical Roman fashion, they didn’t simply adopt him, they absorbed him, rebranded him, and built him into their mythology, religion, art, and even city planning. Bacchus shows up everywhere: in crumbling temple ruins, in marble reliefs of boozy banquets, in frescoes of dining rooms where Roman elites reclined and drank under his vine-draped gaze.
The Greeks had already imagined Dionysus as a god of contradictions: He’s the ruler of wine and ecstasy, yes, but also of disorder, boundary-blurring, and wildness. When his cult traveled west, hitching a ride through Etruria and Magna Graecia, regions with long-standing Greek ties, Rome wasn’t quite ready for the vibe shift. By the time the Romans got their hands on Bacchus, his image was loaded with even more meaning. He wasn’t just the god of getting drunk. He embodied transformation, liberation, and everything that scared the pants off the Roman elite.
In 186 BCE, Bacchus’s followers, who were into secret, all-night rites called Bacchanalia, set off one of the biggest religious freak-outs in Roman history. The Senate panicked and issued the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus , an official decree aimed at tamping down the madness. The powers that be were terrified by what Bacchic gatherings represented: people of different classes and genders mixing freely, dancing and drinking and worshipping outside the control of the state. In a society obsessed with hierarchy and public order, that was radical and dangerous.
But Bacchus worship didn’t disappear; it just evolved. The wildest parts of the rites were toned down (at least officially), and his public image shifted to emphasize agricultural abundance and seasonal renewal. He became less of a rule-breaker and more of a divine drinking buddy, still powerful, still unpredictable, but a little more socially acceptable. In art, he shows up in multiple guises: sometimes a soft, youthful figure wreathed in vine leaves, other times a heavy-lidded reveler surrounded by satyrs, maenads, and a whole entourage of grape-related accessories.
His presence saturated daily life in Rome. You’d find his image on drinking vessels, carved into furniture, painted onto walls. The triclinium (dining room) of the Roman houses on the Celio portray Bacchic rites as pudgy Cupids harvest grapes. His mythology straddled the line between sacred and profane, pleasure and power.
Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, Bacchus stuck around. Early Christians tried to scrub pagan gods from the public imagination, but Bacchus was slippery. His association with wine, rebirth, and transcendence made him surprisingly hard to kill off. Some of his symbols and energy echoed in early Christian imagery. And one could argue that Bacchus’s spirit lingers in modern rituals like ottobrate romane, informal wine festivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where revelers overindulged just as they did in the past.
#Parlapicks: Lazio Producers to Seek Out and Visit
Castelli Romani and Roman Suburbs
Southern Lazio (Cori and Surroundings)
Ciociaria
Bracciano, Viterbo, and Northern Lazio
The Disappearing Enoteche of Rome
Rome’s old-school enoteche are extinct. Wander through the centro storico today and you’ll see plenty of places calling themselves enoteche—wine bars with minimalist lighting, curated selections of vino, and cold cuts plated artfully. But the modern enoteca bears little resemblance to its predecessor. Wine was a daily staple, and enoteche were neighborhood fixtures where you’d get your vino frequently, casually, and in volume.
Up until the 1990s, places in central Rome like Il Vinaietto and L’Angolo Divino near Campo de’ Fiori, Il Goccetto on Via dei Banchi Vecchi, and Il Piccolo in the shadow of Piazza Navona functioned as bulk wine shops. You’d show up with your own bottle and get it filled straight from the cask, shell out a few lire, and be on your way. No pretense, no wine flights, no sommelier hovering nearby to talk about maceration.
These spots were part of a larger system, one rooted in a centuries-old Roman wine culture shaped by state regulation and practicality. For generations, wine and olive oil were sold sfuso (in bulk, by volume) and prices were regulated by municipal authorities to ensure affordability. Romans treated wine as fuel: something that accompanied every meal, not a luxury. In the city, the enoteca was the go-to for topping off your household’s supply. Out in the Castelli Romani, the countryside just southeast of the capital, the fraschette served the same function, pouring young local wines from Marino or Frascati to thirsty city dwellers who’d bring their own food to pair with it.
The wines weren’t meant to be profound. They were usually local: light Lazio whites or off-dry reds, often rustic and unstable, and frequently oxidized by the time they hit the glass. Sold by volume, the wine was measured out in government-issued glass vessels, each marked with a metal stamp to certify its authenticity.
But in the 1990s, things started to change. Rome’s historic center was gentrified. Italy’s wine industry underwent a quiet revolution with a greater focus on quality, less on quantity. Winemakers started bottling instead of selling in bulk. Rome’s food scene became more international, tourism exploded, and suddenly, the humble neighborhood enoteca had no choice but to evolve. Slowly, shelves filled with labeled bottles from Lazio and beyond. Il Vinaietto is one that remained closest to the spirit of its original incarnation. Though they don’t pour vino sfuso these days, they do serve hard-boiled eggs, once an enoteca staple, from a tower on the counter.
There’s nothing wrong with this evolution. In fact, it’s led to a wine renaissance in Rome, better wine, and new businesses. Today, it’s possible to be in some of Rome’s most popular areas and drink small-batch, low-intervention wines from across Italy, poured by people who know what they’re talking about, and, in the case of Rocco Caroselli at Il Vinaietto, actually make them (he’s part of the quartet behind Icaro). That’s a good thing. But something was lost in the transition. The enoteca used to be for everyone. Now, many are a destination, a curated experience.
That said, vino sfuso hasn’t disappeared entirely. You’ll still find it flowing from the taps in neighborhood markets in Testaccio and Trionfale, among other places, where it’s sold by the litre to loyal locals, often older Romans who bring their own bottles. In these corners of Rome, wine remains a humble staple; elsewhere, it’s a lifestyle signifier.
This shift in Rome’s enoteca culture reflects more than just changing tastes. It mirrors the city’s broader transformation in the face of gentrification and globalization. As in so many capitals, wine has become an identity marker, shaped by global influences and guided by new standards of taste and presentation. The same forces reshaping Rome’s drinking scene are part of a wider move away from quantity to quality. That’s not necessarily a loss, but it is a realignment.