Five Wines from Across Italy, Not Just the Lazio Hills

A wine tasting in Rome usually means the Castelli Romani: Frascati, the local whites, whatever the house has on tap. This one goes wider. Five wines from vineyards in different parts of the country, which is the only way to get a sense of how much the same grape changes when you move it four hundred kilometres. Each is poured with food chosen against it. Pecorino Romano, sharp and salty. Cheese matured in Barolo. Balsamic vinegar aged thirty years, which is thick enough to coat a spoon and tastes almost nothing like the bottle in a supermarket. Truffle. More besides. The guide gives the background on each wine and how it is made, then puts you to work: identifying what you are smelling, which is harder and more interesting than it sounds, and which is the part people remember. It takes place inside a restaurant that Romans use, in Trastevere. Meeting point: inside the Essenza wine bar, Via della Scala 27a. The five are named before you book, which is more than most tastings will tell you: Barolo, Frascati Superiore, Cesanese, Cacchione and a prosecco. Two come from the north, the Barolo from Piedmont and the prosecco from the north-east. The other three are Lazio, and that is the useful shape of the flight rather than a shortfall in it. Frascati, Cesanese and Cacchione set against a Barolo tells you far more about the ground under Rome than five bottles pulled from five unrelated regions would. Cesanese is the red Lazio is actually known for, grown in the hills east of the city around Piglio and Olevano. Cacchione is the name used on the coast south of Rome for Bellone, a white grape that barely leaves the region and that most visitors will never see again. Barolo is Nebbiolo, and it is on the table as the benchmark the others are read against. The food is named too, which makes the pairings checkable rather than a promise. Pecorino Romano is sheep's milk, heavily salted and aged hard, and despite the name most of it has been made in Sardinia for generations. The Filettuccio is a cheese matured in Barolo, which is why it sits next to the wine it was buried in. The balsamic has spent thirty years passing through a battery of barrels of different woods, which is what leaves it closer to syrup than to vinegar. There is truffle, and there is fried salt cod, which in Rome is fry-shop food rather than a delicacy. Two hours, and the room takes twelve. The session is run in English. Every surface in it can be reached by wheelchair, which in this corner of Trastevere is not the default. It is not recommended for pregnant travellers, for the obvious reason, and nobody collects you from a hotel. If you take one thing home, make it the smelling. Naming what is in a glass is a skill that improves inside the session itself, and the fourth wine is noticeably easier than the first.