Tour Details
- Duration
- 2.5 hours
- Product Type
- Tour
- Venues
- Local Winery
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Tour Description
Wine is an integral part of Italian culture. To understand wine is to understand a part of the Italian soul, linking people to their land and its gastronomic traditions. This Rome wine tasting experience, led by a trained sommelier and taking place in Context's favorite Rome enoteca, provides a comprehensive, illuminating, and enjoyable tutorial on this integral element of Italian life. We'll get an in-depth tutorial on production methods and regional differences before our tasting, allowing us to sniff out the differences between varietals and hone our palates for future imbibing.
Rome Italian Wine Tour and Tasting
The enoteca visited during our Rome wine tour is located in the hip neighborhood of Monti, an oasis of winding cobblestone streets that in recent years has become home to a thriving dining scene. Within this context, we will begin our discussion of wine production and its importance in Italian life. Your guide will build on the group's familiarity with wine by going over some basic precepts of production and history before moving on to the tastings.
Wining and Dining
During our Rome wine tasting, the guide will help you navigate the wine lists and explain the characteristics of each region's varietals and the importance of food pairing. In pairing a selection of wines with appetizers, the group will have the opportunity to explore the local region around Rome or, instead, go farther afield to sample wines from Tuscany, Sicily, or Le Marche. Typically, we'll begin at the first stop by comparing the different fermentation methods of sparkling wine. We may then try an orange wine—made with white wine grapes, but in which the skins are left on during some portion of the aging process—or perhaps compare oak versus steel tank aged whites. We'll also turn our attention to reds. We'll almost certainly try a beloved Tuscan wine, learning about DOC and DOCG designations, and what these mean for producers and aficionados. We'll also likely try a red from somewhere further afield—perhaps an organic Sicilian varietal, or a robust grape from Piedmont, in the northwest of the country. These comparisons help us come away with a greater understanding of the ways that soil, tradition, and the hand of the producer can make a profound difference in the style of wine, while at the same time learning about the different regions of Italy and wine and food pairing techniques. (Hungry? Take a look at our Rome food tour.)
Take Aways
This Rome wine tour and tasting, in addition to serving as a leisurely evening of snacking and imbibing, helps to provide visitors with the tools to not only better understand the nuanced differences between the different terroirs and flavor profiles that distinguish Italian wines but to also help endow novices and oenophiles alike with the tools necessary to more effectively taste and appreciate wines from around the world.
Experts
Where You'll Start
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24 Reviews
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Chiara is the quintessential wine expert--knowledgeable, effusive, and so willing to share her knowledge. It was a delightful evening, part wine tasting, part Italian terrain and history, and wholly a pleasure.
Janet
Sep. 30, 2024
wonderful wine tasting. lots of information about how wines are made and differences between regional wines in Italy. Strongly recommend Chiara!!
Patricia
Sep. 26, 2024
We loved this tasting! The presentation Chiara shared was so helpful as we learned about different wines and wine regions. She had such a cool background as well, and we loved talking with her. We discovered several new favorite wines thanks to Chiara and this experience. The pours were very generous, the wine was top quality, and it even came with food. At the end of the tasting, we were able to sit at the wine bar to finish our wines (and try some others). Chiara even brought us one more fantastic dessert wine to try after the experience had ended! My husband usually likes sweet wines and I like dry, which can be tricky to find something we both like, but we both LOVED the wines in this selection. Thank you Chiara!
Kristin
May. 30, 2024