A great wine bar can present the solutions to many very important questions. 

As an example, after my spouse, Cecily, and I dropped off our daughter, Marie, at her dorm in Rome in the summertime of 2022, as a result of she had determined that going to varsity within the Everlasting Metropolis appeared extra interesting than doing the identical in Newark, Delaware — go determine — we wandered aimlessly within the August warmth for a span of time, then discovered ourselves sitting, considerably emotionally unmoored, at a tiny wine bar close to the Piazza Navona. Having your solely baby depart house is a bizarre expertise. “What will we do now?” my spouse requested me. The query pertained just about to our whole lives, however all I might consider to say was, “Have a glass of wine, I suppose?”

Enoteca Il Piccolo, occurred upon in that odd second, has turn into one in every of my favourite Roman wine bars. I’ve since found that it’s a favourite of many buddies within the wine enterprise as effectively, each for its choice of primarily (however not solely) pure wines from small producers and for its unreconstructed, untouristy, deeply Roman vibe. The within is tiny, darkish, and comfy; outdoor there are mismatched tables the place, if the temperature just isn’t 9 million levels because it was once we went again this previous summer time, you’ll be able to sit amid a mixture of company, half of whom appear to have come out of a Fifties black-and-white Italian movie and half of whom are decidedly youthful. Have some bruschetta, some mortadella, some olives. Choose a glass from the brief record, or a bottle from the wall inside (the stock is wide-ranging, each Italian and worldwide). Work out your life.

The reality is that in Rome, wine bars — or enoteche — will be virtually something: old-school locations like Il Piccolo, with its easy menu of salumi, bruschetta, and panini; locations which can be extra restaurant-y but nonetheless conventional; and locations that amp up the ambition of the meals considerably whereas nonetheless serving small plates designed to go along with wine. My cookbook-writer good friend Katie Parla, who has lived in Rome for years, described the latter pattern: “The enoteca was the place you had a glass of wine or possibly a grappa, and possibly a chew with your pals, and that was it. Now, increasingly, you see these enoteche run by teams of younger individuals who’ve both skilled overseas or have a sort of consciousness that you would be able to have actual delicacies at a wine bar.”

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For me, the exemplar of this motion is RetroBottega, one of many hottest spots in Rome. A ten-minute stroll or so from Il Piccolo, it’s a completely completely different expertise — and but, additionally not. Regardless of its setting in a Sixteenth-century city home, the design is distinctly fashionable: black barstools, blond wooden, moody lighting. The ever-changing menu from chef-owners Giuseppe Lo Iudice and Alessandro Miocchi is hyper-seasonal — on Mondays, when the place is closed, the employees typically takes foraging journeys to Lazio or Abruzzo.

Once I was there final, I used to be blown away by their spaghetti verde, aglio, pecorino e peperoncino. It’s a plate of sensible inexperienced pasta (wild spinach and inexperienced garlic shoots are used within the dough) adorned merely with skinny slices of vivid crimson peperoncino and liberal quantities of grated pecorino. A glass of Greco di Tufo from the cult Campanian producer Quintodecimo was a stellar accompaniment. However any variety of wines from the in depth record would have labored simply as effectively. As Livia Alyson Careaga, a Rome resident who handles the Italian portfolio of an American wine importer, stated, “The group cherishes the concept that you’re there to attempt one thing new, to attempt a particular glass, even when the event is just to satisfy up with buddies and have an exquisite wine collectively.”

If you happen to’re a natural-wine aficionado, head throughout the river to Trastevere. Skip the coed bars, that are jammed with revelers, and make a beeline as a substitute to Latteria Trastevere. I’ll quote Katie Parla once more on this one, because it’s the place we met for a drink the final time I noticed her. “I largely hate ingesting in Trastevere,” she informed me, “however Latteria has one of many best wine lists within the metropolis, and it’s sitting there in plain sight amongst a bunch of vacationer traps.” 

One of the best factor to do is snag a wood desk outdoors, order one thing refreshing — I had a glass of Grillo from the Sicilian natural producer Masseria del Feudo — and accompany it with among the cheeses that proprietor Antonio Cossu brings in from Sardinia, the place he grew up. Add some beef tartare and (miracle of miracles, as a result of they’re bizarrely uncommon in Italy) a contemporary inexperienced salad, and you’ll obtain happiness. Parla stated, “You possibly can come right here for a fast aperitivo, and earlier than you understand it you’ve hunkered down and are spending the entire night time.” I can attest that that is true.

Again close to Campo de’ Fiori, L’Angolo Divino is one other do-not-miss. Proprietor Massimo Crippa’s encyclopedic data of wine is manifested in his bar’s equally encyclopedic record, which ranges from obscure low-intervention bottlings to classics and sought-after rarities. Inside, the previous wooden-beam ceiling and brick partitions make it really feel like a historic wine cellar, and in some methods it’s. Crippa’s grandfather based the enterprise in 1946 as a traditional vino e oli — a spot you’d go to fill jugs with olive oil and wine for the week. “These had been very Roman locations, a really previous custom,” Crippa stated.

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The final time I used to be at L’Angolo Divino, Crippa poured me three completely different orange wines — my favourite was a Barraco Altomore Grillo from Sicily — which I drank with a bowl of olives, some mortadella, and a few contemporary farmer’s cheese. I requested Crippa concerning the bar’s identify. “Properly, it’s often because we’re positioned on a nook, at an angle of the streets,” he stated. “However I additionally just like the phrase divine, as a result of wine is cultural, it’s non secular, and it goes again to the time of Jesus Christ. I wish to suppose folks come right here and really feel somewhat of that. Alternatively, lots of people simply suppose my identify should be Angolo.”

Once I requested my good friend Federico de Cesare Viola, the editor of the Italian version of Meals & Wine, how one can outline a Roman wine bar, he laughed. “In a approach, there isn’t a definition — for Rome, virtually wherever generally is a wine bar when you resolve it’s.” This appears to me a distinctly Italian approach of defining one thing: driving in Italy, as an illustration, is just utilizing a automobile to get from level A to level B; whether or not streets or legal guidelines or velocity limits are concerned is solely a private selection. 

In that spirit, I’ve so as to add Salumeria Roscioli to my favorites record. Amongst different issues, it has the excellence of being the one place that’s been beneficial to me by each wine professionals and poets (I can’t depend the variety of sommeliers I do know who rave about it, truthfully; the poet, although, was the late Mark Strand, who acquired there lengthy earlier than any of the wine specialists). 

Salumeria Roscioli exists in a nebulous realm someplace between a store full of fantastic artisanal salumi and cheeses, a wine bar, and a full-on restaurant. (In recent times it’s additionally been found by many, many individuals, so undoubtedly make a reservation effectively prematurely.) The meals is elegant, significantly the pastas: the oxtail ravioli and the cacio e pepe aren’t to be missed, however first get an order of the house-made salame rosa, an old-school model of mortadella, with pickled greens to snack on when you peruse wine director Maurizio Paparello’s huge, two-volume wine record. There are lots of of selections, but when it’s in inventory, snag a bottle of Stella di Campalto’s ethereal Rosso di Montalcino (or her much more alluring Brunello, if cash isn’t any object).

Needless to say there may be additionally Rimessa Roscioli, just a few blocks away (very wine-centric as effectively), the superb (and endlessly Instagrammable) maritozzi pastries on the next-door Roscioli Caffè, and the household’s unique bakery (supply level for all this) proper across the nook. Oh, and the newly opened Roscioli R-House, in Trastevere, which is actually a one-room resort, or a short-stay condo, or, as that is Italy, no matter you resolve to name it. Both approach, it’s a completely charming non-hotel resort choice for these needing a spot to sleep.

Don’t low cost resort bars whereas in Rome, both. First — I’ll admit it — generally the will for a fantastic cocktail wins out over the necessity for wine. In these cases, you’d be remiss not heading to the pretty fabulous Stravinskij Bar, within the oasis-like courtyard of the Hotel de Russie, a Rocco Forte Hotel. The resort is simply off the Piazza del Popolo, which usually means mobs of tourists; at Stravinskij, although, you might be serenely unaware of the madding crowds, a sensation not within the least lessened by the bar’s Roman G&T, accented with celery shrub, sage, and black pepper.

However for wine, and among the most beautiful sundown views within the metropolis, head to the Mater Terrae Bistrot Bar on prime of the Bio Hotel Raphaël, a Relais & Châteaux property within the historic heart the place my spouse and I took our daughter for a drink, a yr after dropping her off at college that first summer time. She was about to start out her sophomore yr, sharing an condo with buddies and embracing life as a pupil in Rome. 

Because the identify suggests, Bio Resort Raphaël is concentrated on natural cultivation, from its vine-covered façade to the vegetarian and vegan menus and the choice of natural and biodynamic wines within the restaurant and bar. Anna Spanu, the younger sommelier who runs this system, is a wonderful information. At her suggestion, we had a bottle of Sergio Mottura’s pretty Poggio della Costa white from Umbria. That was adopted with a glass of an much more elusive dessert wine: Buca delle Canne, from the pure wine producer La Stoppa. With its amber sweetness, it was a superb factor to sip whereas searching over the Roman rooftops.

Twelve months had handed since that second when, out of the blue conscious that our solely baby had left residence, my spouse and I sat at Il Piccolo questioning what on earth to do with ourselves. The whole lot was completely different now; and but right here we had been, a household collectively, simply the identical. 

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2023/January 2024 situation of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “In Vino Veritas.”