Tuesday 10 March 2015

Lazio Spring

This was our first al fresco lunch of the year outside at Checchino Dal 1887, a restaurant set into the amphora-made hillside of Testaccio in Rome. It was the old slaughterhouse district and the main gate was opposite us as we tucked into various carnivorous dishes.

Normally you would go for red with meat but although this wine is from a Roscetto grape which has a tint of pink when grown, it is a golden, straw colour in the March sunshine. 

It is a fabulous wine made outside Rome in Lazio. It is crisp and mineral but without the body of a burgundy or the sharpness of a Chablis. But with a much better finish than a Frascati, for example. It is difficult to get outside Italy, although it's not expensive.