Food & Wine Pairing of Lazio: Saltimboca alla Romana w/Casale del Giglio Petit Verdot

Welcome to our 9^th Italian Food, Wine & Travel (#ItalianFWT) event where we feature the food, wine and travel of a different region every month. This month our group focuses on the Lazio region located in central Italy. Earlier this week I shared some highlights and a preview of Lazio.

Map of Lazio ~ Copyright of Federdoc

I always love to explore the wine and cuisine of each region and tie in my travels if I can. Mostly all my explorations of the Lazio region have been multiple times to Rome so I figured I have so much more to offer on the cuisine and wine of Lazio with my featured pairing: Chicken Saltimbocca alla Romana with a 2009 Casale del Giglio Petit Verdot.

Trevi Fountain ~ Rome

Wine Pairing - Casale del Giglio Petit Verdot

The founding father of Casale delGiglio, Berardino, was a wine merchant. The three sons (Antonio, Isidoro and Emidio) began their partnership Berardino Santerelli & Figli in 1914. The business grew to include 11 wine and olive stores, “vini + olii”. In 1955 Emidio's son, Dino, founded Santarelli S.P.A where they sold wines of Lazio. In 1967 is when Casale del Giglio was established at Le Fernere, a hamlet in the provicne of Latina which is about 30 miles south of Rome located in the Agro Pontino Valley. Talking about generation after generation keeping it within the family, in the early 90's Dino's son, Antonio, then took over and with winemaker, Paolo Tiefenthale, from Trentino began producing wines under the Casale del Giglio brand.

The area where Casale del Giglio resides has much unchartered land where there weren't generations or years of what works and what doesn't when it comes to winemaking. In 1985 Casale del Giglio began a project where they partnered with other researchers and professors experimenting to figure out what would grow the best. They worked with 60 different vines and today the winery consists of about 160 hectacres where they mostly work with Bordeaux grapes.

The 2009 Casale del Giglio petit verdot is purely made from petit verdot where part of the fermentation is in stainless and wood. It's aged 8-12 months in barrique with an additional 6 months in the bottle.  It's a full bodied wine with intense red berries and cherry.  Silky tannins with a little bit of pepper.

Food Pairing - Chicken Saltimbocca alla Romana
I paired up this month with a fellow columnist in the Boston Italian magazine that we write for called the Bostoniano. Francesca Bruzzese is a fellow american from Rhode Island whom is living in Rome and writes a food blog, Pancakes and Biscotti. Francesca and I discussed the best potential pairing with her expertise on Roman cuisine and came up with her Saltimbocca alla Romana recipe to be paired with my selection of the Casale del Giglio petit verdot pairing. I imitated her saltimbocca recipe, but made some substitutions. I'm not a huge fan of veal so I actually substituted her choice of veal with chicken. I also am a big fan of mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes so I added that to the sauce I made along with some garlic scapes from the local farmshare that I joined this year.

The petit verdot was a nice pairing with this particular dish and complemented the flavors well.  Casale del Giglio also recommends another typical Roman dish known as costolette di abbacchio al forno, which is an oven-roasted lamb cutlet.  

Wait......there's more! Join my fellow bloggers with their feature on Lazio:

Italophilia – Visit Ariccia with Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell

Orna O'Reilly – A Foodie Easter in Rome

Cooking Chat - Orzo, Salmon and Pesto Paired with a Frascati
Food Wine Click - They'll Drink Anything in Rome
Rockin Red Blog - Live Like Caesar
Enofylz Wine Blog - A Taste of Lazio
Christy's Palate - Living La Vita Lazio
The Palladian Traveler - Civita di Bagnoregio: The Dying Town
Adventures of a Carry On - When in Rome Eat Like a Roman: Bucatini all'Amatriciana
Girls Gotta Drink - Eat Like a Roman (With a Roman): Unusual Things to do in Rome

If you're seeing this early enough make sure to join us live on twitter at 11am EST at #ItalianFWT. Tell us your food, wine or travel stories of Lazio. We look forward to chatting with you then. Next month on Saturday August 1^st we'll feature the island of Sardegna in Italy. Feel free to reach out to me and join us! Ciao ciao!

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Preview of our Italian Food, Wine & Travel to Lazio

Entering into our 9^th Italian Food, Wine & Travel (#ItalianFWT) event where we feature the food, wine and travel of a different region every month. This month we focus on the Lazio region in Italy located in central Italy, also known as Latium in Latin. Surrounded by the regions of Tuscany, Umbria and Marche to the north as well Abruzzo and Molise to the east, Lazio borders the Tyrhennian Sea.

Colosseum ~ Rome, Italy

When everyone thinks of Lazio they immediately think of the capital of not only Rome, but Italy itself. Of course within Rome itself you have the Colosseum, Vatican City with St. Peters Basilica and the Vatican Museum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Although no one can take away the rich history of Rome and the Romans, with every region though, if you break outside the typical norm of tourist attractions each region has much more to offer if you let yourself immerse within the region of Italy that you're in.

Bucatini all'Amatriciana by Stu_Spivack

The Lazio region may not be one of the top regions in Italy when it comes to wine except for some of its well known whites including frascati and Est! Est! Est!, but its archeaological treasures and the Roman cuisine are what attract folks from around the world to this region. The landscape of Lazio is full of flatland and hills with lakes and ancient thermal spas still in use today, one of the most popular being Tivoli that also contains two UNESCO World Heritage sites, Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana.

Don't forget the Lazio soccer team for all you sports fanatics!

Villa d'Este in Tivoli by M. Maselli

Here is a preview of what is to come for our Italian Food, Wine & Travel of Lazio Saturday:

Vino Travels – Food & Wine Pairing of Lazio: Saltimboca alla Romana with Casale del Giglio Petit Verdot

Italophilia – Visit Ariccia with Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell

Orna O'Reilly – A Foodie Easter in Rome
Cooking Chat - Orzo, Salmon and Pesto Paired with a Frascati
Food Wine Click - They'll Drink Anything in Rome
Rockin Red Blog - Live Like Caesar
Enofylz Wine Blog - A Taste of Lazio
Christy's Palate - Living La Vita Lazio
The Palladian Traveler - Civita di Bagnoregio: The Dying Town
Adventures of a Carry On - When in Rome Eat Like a Roman: Bucatini all'Amatriciana
Girls Gotta Drink - Eat Like a Roman (With a Roman): Unusual Things to do in Rome

We will be featuring all of our Lazio articles on the food, wine and travel to this region on Saturday July 4th so make sure to check back here. Also, join us live on Twitter at 11am EST Saturday July 4^th at #ItalianFWT and share your experiences and knowledge on Lazio, Italy. There is still time to join us as well and we always love new perspectives and expertise. Email me at vinotravels at hotmail dot com. Ciao ciao for now!

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Wines of the Lazio wine region

Since I have covered many Italian wine regions throughout my Italian wine blog journey I don't want to forget about some of the others we haven't discussed yet, even though some of them aren't that well known for producing high quality wines. Just like the United States has every state producing wine, so does Italy with wine regions. Today we're going to cover the Lazio wine region, also known as Latium. Without knowing it most of you will be familiar with it or have even been to it as it houses the capital of Italy, Rome.

The white wines of Lazio
A lot of the wine in the Lazio region is white and is made mostly from the trebbiano or malvasia grapes. There are 25 DOC wine regions within Lazio. One of the DOC regions you may have heard of or have tried yourself is Frascati, but not many of the wines from this region will pop into your mind firsthand when you think of Italian wines. Most of the wines in this region can be found around the Alban Hills, which are located south of Rome. According to Vino Italiano, 80% of all the wine in the DOC wine regions of Lazio are produced here. The elevations are higher and the volcanic soil is well drained.

One of the most interesting names for a DOC wine region resides in Lazio named Est! Est! Est! Di Montefiascone, or also just known as Est! Est! Est! It translates in latin to “it is”. The story is that a German bishop was en route to watch the coronation of Henry V and sent his scout ahead of him to mark the places that had the best wine with est!. Upon his arrival in Montefiascone he was overly impressed so he marked the door with Est! Est! Est! The story may be more entertaining than the wine is known for though.

The red wines of Lazio
Although this area produces mostly whites it does have an indigenous red to the area known as cesanese, but outside of that you will find your international varieties like merlot and cabernet sauvignon and some of the other red grapes produced within Italy. There originally was 1 region that was granted the DOCG designation, Cesanese di Piglio, from the Piglio region.  In 2011 two more regions joined in, Frascati Superiore and Cannellino di Frascati.

Montefiascone by Superdealer100

Foods of Lazio
Traditional foods of the Lazio region that you will want to sample when tasting wines from this region include spaghetti alla carbonara, cacio e pepe “cheese and pepper” and bucatini all' amatriciana. If you want something on the lighter side there is fresh pecorino romano or fried artichokes.

Bucatini all' amatriciana by Stu_spivack

What have folks found for wines from this region in your country? Has anyone visited the wineries of this region? Share your stories with me!

When you head to Rome and Lazio don't forget this useful detailed map.
 

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