Splendid sips from south of Rome
This month, we’re in Lazio, the region that’s home to Rome, situated between Tuscany and Campania on the shin of Italy’s boot. If you recall the area’s coastal-kissed wines as light and fresh but not particularly memorable, it is high time to revisit the category. A growing number of artisan winemakers, located south of the Eternal City, are demonstrating that trebbiano and malvasia can be more than just workhorse grapes, pushed to over-cropped limits. They can, in fact, be transformed into lively, nuanced pours, imbued with the personalities of their makers.
Antonio and Fausto Cosmi, the brothers behind Casale Certosa, describe themselves as “simple farmers on loan to the world of wine.” The siblings cultivate 20 acres of family land, located a 45-minute drive south of Rome, planted with fruit trees and vegetables as well as vines. They have been working the volcanic soil for years, farming alongside their father, who grew grapes for cooperatives in the 1960s. After assuming the reins of the operation in 2000, the brothers renovated the home stead and the monastery next door, and launched their cantina. Working with varieties like Malvasia Puntinata and Trebbiano Giallo — harvested from biodynamically grown vines — they vinify soulful, mostly single variety pours that show off what these grapes can achieve.
When you learn that the Cosmi brothers use only indigenous yeast and apply just a little sulfur to keep things clean, you might label them as natural winemakers. But they eschew the moniker, preferring to describe their mindful approach as coherent with their values, crafting wines “without shortcuts or mischief.”
Of course, a little mischief — the kind that upsets the apple cart of conventional, bulk-oriented winemaking — can be a good thing. Longtime friends Fabio Gentile, Rocco Caroselli, Gianmarco Diorio, and Luca Di Marzio all worked in Italy’s burgeoning natural wine scene before joining forces in 2019. That year, they established I CA RO, a wine project that manifests their vision of new-age Roman wine.
The project’s name is an acronym for i Castelli Romani, a collection of villa-dotted hill towns southeast of Rome. The team’s winery, in Genzano di Roma, overlooks Lago di Nemi, a volcanic crater lake. To craft I CA RO’s Bianco Vulcanico, Trebbiano Toscano (known as Ugni Blanc in France) and Malvasia di Candia — sourced from a vineyard owned by friends in nearby Velletri — are pressed together, and a portion macerates on the grape skins for a night. The juice completes spontaneous fermentation in fiberglass, and is bottled unfiltered with just a scant amount of sulfur. The blend, called “Nemico,” riffs on the crater lake’s name and translates as “enemy.” Tongue-in-cheek as ever, the I CA RO crew is fond of saying that the wine “is the enemy only of bad people.”
It goes to show that you can love your enemy — especially one this delicious.
I CAR O“Ne mi co” Bianco Vulcanico 2022 This puckish pour is pure joy. Gauzy and gently cloudy, this 50-50 blend of Malvasia di Candia and Trebbiano Toscano offers minerally scents of sea spray, stone fruit, and apples. Lemon-juicy tartness and saline combine with crunchy nectarine and a whisper of texture from skin contact. 11 percent ABV. Distributed by Olmstead Wine Co. Low-to mid-$30s. Retailers include: Social Wines, Cambridge; American Provisions, South Boston.
Casale Certosa, Convenio Trebbiano 2020 Lovely and lively, this day-bright, platinum-hued pour is 100-percent Trebbiano Giallo. It offers sea breeziness and stone fruit on the nose, leading to a polished palate full of saltiness, lemon zest, and citrus pith. Stone fruit flavors bloom over time. 12.5 percent ABV. Distributed by Mucci Imports. Around $18. Retailers include: Inman Square Wine & Spirits, Cambridge; Helen’s Bottle Shop, Manchester-by-the-Sea.