If what I hear from you customers means anything, just about everyone has been to Rome this year.  At least it seems that way.  It makes me insanely jealous to hear about all the great meals you’ve been enjoying there, if not the crowds you’ve found everywhere you went.  If you visited an authentic Roman trattoria, with your delicious local pasta Carbonara, Amatriciana, Cacio Pepe or alla Grecia, you probably also enjoyed some of the delicious local wines too:  The lovely Frascati, for example, a delicate, floral white that, frankly, is better off enjoyed in situ in a Roman café than 6000 miles away here in the Bay Area. But one particular wine from Lazio, though, is plenty sturdy enough for enjoying here as well as there, and that’s the delightful, character-filled, very red Cesanese d’Afille.  Ché-za-neh-ze is native to the hills just southeast of Rome where it thrives in the red volcanic soils and higher altitudes that give it a sort of rustic Burgundy or Cotes du Rhone kind of character- like a wine from, say, Fixin, Marsannay or Gigondas only grown in southern Italy.  While we have several favorites- the Cincinnato, for example, was one of Chef Peter’s very favorites back in the PRIMA Ristorante days, we’ve recently discovered a Cesanese that has really turned out heads- that of Alberto Giacobbe. His 2022 from Olevano Romano, the best appellation for the grape, is dark with dusky plums and pungent hints of mulberry, flinty mineral, white pepper and a bit of soy.  Middle-weight, savory, aromatic and perfectly balanced, it will really make your Carbonara stand up and take notice:  Even better, though, with lamb, roasted beef tenderloin or a deeply flavored braised pork shoulder.  Alberto Giacobbe, by the way, is a third generation farmer, but the first to farm his family’s vineyards organically and the first to actually bottle his production.  He’s quickly become the go-to Cesanese producer on all of Rome’s top wine lists. And it’s now on ours and think it should be on yours too!  A lovely discovery.