Gillian Knows Best guide to wine in Rome

🍷 10+ addresses for a glass of Cesanese, a bottle of pecorino and the best snacks

When I first moved to Rome I knew zero things about Italian wine. Mark and I had spent the previous 8 years visiting vineyards on the windswept western cape and at the foothills of the Franschhoek mountains in South Africa. I brought bottles of Pinotage and Methode Cap Classique with me to Rome. I just unpacked the last of those bottles, now important vintages, that we bought decades ago with the intention being to open them on big occasions. They have not been well stored over the years, not to mention their most recent year+ in a warehouse near the Rome airport. Maybe I can make some amazing vinegar? Before my time in Southern Africa I drank Saint-Émilion that I bought at the Score grocery store in Niamey, Niger. Why I was drinking red wine gown in Bordeaux in a country where the temperatures averaged between 87F and 105F (31C and 41C) I have no idea. I was 23. I probably liked the label.

Over the years in Italy I have learned a lot. I studied Super Tuscans in a classroom underneath the Spanish Steps and spent afternoons in Umbria and Tuscany tasting Chianti and Sangiovese. I have had rough house wine in simple trattorias deep in the Lazio countryside. In Verona I discovered that Lambrusco is delicious. It was the staff at Trattoria Penestri and Marigold who introduced me to natural wines that didn’t taste of sulfur. Once I helped with the Vendemmia of rare biancolella grapes on a cliff with a view of Palmarola. Last month I got to see one of the smallest vineyards in Venice.

These are the places I go to in Rome to drink a glass of Cesanese (my favorite red with amatriciana) and share a bottle of pecorino (the perfect white for a beachy summer lunch.) These are the places I buy wine to bring to dinner parties and to stock my own shelves.