Cesanese del Piglio / Piglio DOCG

The only red DOCG of Lazio. Cesanese is a difficult, late-ripening variety with a long association with the papal court; local tradition also places a villa of the emperor Nerva nearby, though that rests on custom rather than record. For years it was treated as a bulk wine for Roman trattorias, but it is currently undergoing a renaissance led by producers who treat it like Pinot Noir.

The Terroir High altitude vineyards (up to 900m) in the Ciociaria hills south of Rome. The red volcanic soil gives the wine a feral, spicy, balsamic character.

The Critical Take Cesanese di Affile is the superior sub-variety compared to the larger-berried Cesanese Comune. The best wines are spicy, floral (red rose), and medium-bodied, avoiding the over-extraction of the past.

Three Cesanese Denominations The confusion around this grape is administrative. Lazio protects it three times over — Cesanese del Piglio, promoted to DOCG in 2008, alongside the DOCs of Cesanese di Olevano Romano and Cesanese di Affile — and all three are tiny, adjacent, and describe much the same wine on much the same hills. Piglio is the largest and the only DOCG, which is why it carries the regional argument, but a good bottle from any of the three is the same proposition.

Two Grapes, One Name The distinction the label will not give you is which Cesanese is in the bottle. Cesanese di Affile has small berries, thicker skins and far more concentration; Cesanese Comune crops heavily and gives something thinner. The renaissance of the last twenty years is largely a story of growers replanting the first and pulling out the second, and a producer who specifies Affile on the back label is telling you something worth knowing.

Rome’s House Red For most of the twentieth century this was the wine of the capital’s trattorias, carted down the Via Casilina in bulk and sold by the litre. That history explains both the grape’s survival and its reputation: nobody thought to bottle it seriously until the 1990s, and the market still prices it like a carafe wine. It is currently among the best-value serious reds in central Italy.

At the Table The Roman table it was made for: coda alla vaccinara, abbacchio scottadito, pasta alla gricia and amatriciana, and aged pecorino romano. The acidity and the medium weight are exactly right against cured pork fat. Serve at 15–16°C, cooler in summer.

Benchmark Producers Casale della Ioria (Paolo Perinelli is a key figure), Coletti Conti (Antonello Coletti Conti is the “aristocratic” rebel of the region), Damiano Ciolli.