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Cesanese: The winemakers restoring Lazio’s noblest grape

Once favoured by the Popes and epicures of ancient Rome, Cesanese is the noble Italian grape you’ve never heard of. Now winemakers in its historic home of Castelli Romani are rising to the challenge of working with this difficult variety to restore its unique appeal.

It was in 2019, while eating at the great Roman trattoria Cesare al Casaletto, that murmurs of Cesanese’s renaissance became palpable.

It was a long Sunday lunch, and amid the cacophony and the blue-rinse set, a group of sommeliers and food journalists sat nearby. Eschewing international varieties for the indigenous, or autochthones in Italian parlance, the table ordered bottle after bottle of Cesanese, a grape that is said to have been a particular favourite of 13th-century popes Innocent III and Boniface VIII.

Pushing the tome of a wine list aside, it made sense for me to do the same – after all, it seemed absurd that a curious drinker would opt for anything but something local, given that Italy boasts the world’s greatest bounty of indigenous varieties used for wine.


Scroll down to see notes and scores for six characterful Cesanese wines



The taste of Lazio: Six Cesanese wines


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