The Wines of Lazio: There’s Potential Gold in Those Hills

BY IAN D’AGATA I AUGUST 22, 2017

There is no Italian wine region that frustrates me more than Lazio (Latium in Latin), an area I know especially well, as it’s where I have spent the majority of my adult life. I say it’s frustrating because, hard as it may be to believe, there is perhaps no other lesser-known wine region in Italy that has more potential for fine winemaking than does Lazio and yet so much of that potential remains unrealized. Lazio is uniquely suited to viticulture because of its mild climate, rich and varied geological mix of soils (among which volcanic soils are prominent), marine breezes, adequate rainfall, pronounced day-night temperature variation and a plethora of rare, high-quality native grape varieties.

These extraordinary gifts should allow the region to make wines that can easily play on the world stage. And yet, for most of the 20th century, the region remained in the doldrums. One need look no farther than the Frascati denomination, a once-proud name, that is now in shambles. The good news is that, like elsewhere in Italy, the new generation that is in the process of assuming the helm of family estates throughout the region appears to be finally moving in the right direction.

The rugged beauty of the Piglio DOCG area

History Repeating, at Long Last

Two millennia of quality viticulture and a history of much sought-after wines (at least throughout antiquity and medieval times) attest to the level of quality of wines that was once the norm in Lazio. In ancient Rome, dozens of different wines were sold (many made in the immediate surroundings of Rome), wine bars were popular, and wine tasters – the haustores – were held in great esteem. Horace, Martial, Petronius and other famous authors wrote and argued about wines, much as is the case today, and Pliny, the consummate cataloguer, even ranked what he thought were the best.

Lazio’s wines generated great enthusiasm in later centuries as well: in the 1500s Pope Paul III had his own personal sommelier (bottigliere, as the position was called) and a very well stocked cellar, one in which the wines of Lazio were strongly represented (it appears that the Pope most appreciated the white and red wines of the Colli Albani, as well as those of Castelgandolfo). Later on, Queen Victoria was known to be a big fan of Frascati and asked for it to be served at court.

But early success eventually hurt quality wine production. Producers began thinking in terms of quantity rather than quality, and advances in modern viticultural and winemaking techniques – reduction of yields, better clonal and massale selections, organic farming, controlled fermentation, more hygienic cellars, and the use of new and better wood, among other measures – that were implemented all over Italy in the latter decades of the 20th century passed Lazio by. This state of affairs became unsustainable when quality wine production became the standard everywhere in the 1970s; the market dried up for Lazio’s many insipid white wines that oxidized soon after bottling, as well as for its rustic reds.

While viticulture and winemaking were greatly improved in the 1980s and ‘90s, many of the same mistakes were made as in other parts of Italy where quality wine production was starting up again. For example, while Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were long grown in Lazio (at least since the mid-18th century: Pasquale Visocchi was the first to plant such vines in southern Lazio, and the Cabernet wines of Atina quickly became famous), other varieties like Syrah, Chardonnay, Petit Verdot and Sauvignon Blanc have no such historical pedigree in Lazio and were planted only in recent times by people easily swayed by internationally minded consultants looking for a quick fix. The result was that precious time was lost on making, for example, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc wines of absolutely no interest whatsoever (especially when compared to much better and often less expensive wines made elsewhere in the world with the same varieties) when instead that time and energy could have been used to study the local native grapes, some of which are of extremely high quality. If only a little more care and attention had been paid to varieties such as Bellone and the Cesanese cultivars, Lazio wouldn’t find itself so far behind today.

But today the scenario is no longer so bleak. In fact, some of Lazio’s wines already rank among Italy’s least-known but best examples. You might say that we now find ourselves on the brink of rediscovering the true greatness of wines that were once much sought after by the denizens of ancient Rome and throughout the Roman Empire.