Marino DOC

One of the historic Castelli Romani whites, made on the north-western rim of the Alban volcano in Marino and Ciampino with parts of Rome and Castel Gandolfo. Marino is the Castelli name that reached furthest, and it has the same problem all of them have.

The Terroir The registered file describes an orography placed on the north-western slopes of the Lazio Volcano, with exposures to west, south-west and south, giving an airy and luminous environment on volcanic soil that drains naturally. This is the outer wall of the same collapsed complex that holds Lake Albano; the ground is tufo, pozzolana and lapilli, and the vineyards sit between roughly 150 and 400 metres with Rome visible below them.

The History The file traces a millenary history referring to the land of ancient “Ferentum”, attested by numerous documents, which through the centuries kept the vine as the principal crop. The identification is the file’s own and sits oddly — the Roman settlement on this site is usually given as Castrimoenium — but the underlying point, that this hillside has been supplying Rome with white wine for two thousand years, is not in dispute.

Grape Varieties The Castelli cast, with a longer tail than most: Malvasia del Lazio and Malvasia di Candia lead, with Trebbiano, Bellone, Bombino Bianco, Greco and even Verdicchio permitted. The wine is made dry through to sweet, still, frizzante and sparkling, with a superiore and a classico.

Wine From the Fountain Marino’s Sagra dell’Uva, first held in 1925, is the best-known wine festival in Lazio for one reason: on the first Sunday of October the fountain of the Four Moors in the main square is plumbed to run with wine instead of water. It is a piece of municipal theatre that has outlived the reputation of the wine itself, and it draws crowds who would not otherwise be able to name a Castelli producer.

The Critical Take Marino was industrialised early and hard: proximity to Rome meant guaranteed demand, demand meant volume, and volume meant the high-cropping Candia at high yields. The recovery follows the same path as Frascati’s and depends on the same decision — whether the Malvasia in the bottle is del Lazio, which has structure and apricot, or di Candia, which has neither. A handful of estates have made that choice and their wines are genuinely good. Most of the denomination has not.

At the Table Castelli cooking: porchetta, fried artichokes, cacio e pepe, coda alla vaccinara, and young pecorino romano. Serve at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Colle Picchioni, whose Vigna del Vassallo made the case for the zone, and Cantine San Marco.