Bar Hopping, the Roman Way

The wine menu plopped down on our table with the thud of a falling world atlas. It listed nearly 1,500 bottlings, coming from eight countries and 33 regions in Italy. Puglia. Romagna. Montepulciano. The wine list from Venezia alone was three pages.

Last month my girlfriend, Nancy, and I were on a tour of the newly popular world of Rome wine bars. What cafes are to Paris and pubs are to London, wine bars have become to Rome. They have been around for decades, but only recently have they become hot nightspots for trendy Romans.

Wine bars originally served only cheese and prosciutto. That’s still true of some, but others have expanded into full-scale restaurants. From antipasto to tiramisu and all the tortellini and rigatoni in between, the fare is fresh, light and usually inexpensive.

Mapping our route revealed a connect-the-dot pattern of more than 20 wine bars across the city: from the partying hordes of Campo de’ Fiori to a quiet neighborhood on the banks of the Tiber, from the university area north of Termini train station to the small cobblestone arteries that branch off Piazza Navona.

One of our favorites was an establishment called Cul de Sac, located on a quiet cobblestone street a romantic stroll from the throngs of Piazza Navona. Two rows of tables fill a cozy room, narrow like a small hallway, with classical music playing in the background. On the white stone walls, above prints depicting ancient Rome, shelves are packed to the ceiling with wine bottles. Casually dressed waiters carrying long poles with wire snares pluck down selections with the dexterity of butterfly collectors.

I looked at the waiter assigned to interpret the wine menu and saw a skinny kid with long, wavy black hair wearing a black T-shirt and three earrings. He looked 15. (Imagine a young but hip Donnie Osmond.) This kid was going to recommend a wine?

Daniele Martini, a Rome native, turned out to be 23. He has worked in the wine bar for three years and counts himself among the locals caught up in the craze. He recommended a Barolo. This Nebbiolo from the Piedmont region of northwest Italy is among the most prestigious wines of the country, prized for its complex flavors and long aging potential. My ’95 Pimone Pro Cesare, from a good but not terrific vintage, cost about $5 for a glass. At that price it wasn’t the best, but it was a fine introduction to the allure of Barolo and the Nebbiolo grape.

Martini has been to two of the growing number of wine schools that have popped up across Italy. He acknowledged he’s no expert. (“That requires 10 years of heavy drinking,” he said with a smile.) But he made it clear Romans are becoming increasingly interested in wines not just from the Castelli Romani, the hill towns surrounding the city, but also the wines from other regions.

Knowing something about wine has cachet at places like this, but that’s not to say all customers can distinguish a pricey Frescobaldi Brunello di Montalcino from an inexpensive Santa Sofia Bardolino(the difference: $195.75 a bottle).

Italy’s white wines haven’t reached the caliber of those in France and California, but it’s well known that Italian Chiantis and Barolos are world class and compare well with French reds.

Places like Cul de Sac are made for a relaxing Roman holiday, one in which our tour of wine bars became more consuming than our tour of ancient ruins.

The best part? You’ll have plenty of money left over for a dolce. The wine bars can be cheap. In visiting six places in 10 days, Nancy and I spent all of $73 for 21 glasses of excellent wine. We’ve spent more on Friday night pub crawls back home.

The wine bars are takeoffs on enoteche, wine shops whose owners fed the deliverymen stocking their shelves. As Italy became more upscale, wine bars replaced enoteche. Saltimbocca replaced salami. Barolo replaced Spumante.

Customers cover the spectrum of Roman society: brooding intellectuals reading La Repubblica over a glass of Chianti, businessmen in Armani suits sipping Pinot Gris, laborers with torn work pants swirling a glass of Cabernet in long-stemmed crystal glasses.

We saw no snobs talking with a clenched lower jaw. No one wore an ascot. We felt very much at home. It helps that there’s a wine bar in Rome for every style or mood. Here’s a look at the six places (listed in no particular order) we tried based on my previous visit to Rome, guidebook recommendations and the grapevine.

Cul de Sac

Political upheaval spilled over from nearby Piazza Navona into Cul de Sac when it opened as Rome’s first wine bar a few decades ago, but it has calmed into one of the city’s most romantic nightspots, with tables on the cobblestone square making fantastic people-watching posts.

Cul de Sac also has one of the best wine selections in the city. Most of the 1,450 wines are available by the bottle (many in the $7 to $18 range) or by the glass for $2 to $10.

There is a full dinner menu. Winter specialties included creamed dried cod (baccala) for $6.50 and an excellent onion soup for $5.50.

Il Piccolo

Up the road from Cul de Sac, Il Piccolo serves wine and appetizers at eight tables surrounded by shelves of bottles. When those tables fill up, patrons can sit outside. It’s a fashionable late-night hangout, frequented by young lovers out for nightcaps.

The wine menu is in bas-relief leather-bound covers. Painted scenes of Italian villages cover the stone ceiling. I felt as if I were in a wine cellar-until “YMCA” replaced the classical music over the loudspeaker.

Enoteca Buccone

In a tony neighborhood south of Piazza del Popolo, not far from the Tiber, lies this 18th century building, which used to be a noble family’s house. It’s now a Roman historical site (the still-working clock and cash register date to 1898), though it has been a wine store for 30 years.

Under high ceilings, 10 shelves of wine encircle the room. Besides a range of Italian wines, choices include wines from outside Italy, including the Americas, New Zealand and Israel. Prices range from $1.75 to $6 a glass. If you have a bigger budget, you can grab an 1889 French cognac for $3,000.

Dinner is served in a cozy back room Thursdays through Saturdays. (The smoked Norwegian salmon is only $8.) Other nights, locals drink at a small bar cluttered with sweets.

Il Goccetto

This place is a real locals’ hangout on a narrow side street in a quiet neighborhood south of Campo de’ Fiori. When Nancy and I walked in, we could barely see the wooden crates of wine through the thick haze of cigarette smoke.

But no wine bar in Rome is more homey. It’s a tiny room with five tables in the back and three smaller cocktail tables in front, packed with an eclectic mix of businessmen, student types and fashion plates.

No meals are served, but the cheese and bread were nice accompaniments to a fine Merlot. (Most of the bottles here fall in the $10 to $20 range.)

Vineria

I was inspired to bring Nancy to Rome after coming to Vineria alone two years ago and wistfully watching Romans wildly necking at the bar.

Located on Campo de’ Fiori between two tacky American pubs, Vineria is packed nightly with hip patrons mostly in their 20s and 30s. As European rock plays over the loudspeaker, singles flirt and exchange addresses inside a small, narrow room or sit at tables on the piazza. (If you want to blend in with the young locals, wear black, preferably leather.)

Wine is served only by the glass, ranging from $1 for Regaleali, a red from Sicily, to $10 for Sassicaia, one of the great SuperTuscans. Bottles are sold for takeout, from $4.25 for Cupertino to $200 for a Tignanello.

Trimani Wine Bar

This low-key spot, its walls the color of nearby ruins, is within walking distance of the Termini train station. Wines by the glass range from $2 to $8.

We had an antipasto dish of mixed Italian cheeses and bread with orange and banana salsa (yes, the Romans have discovered fusion), followed by entrees of cumulo di patate con Roquefort (a cold potato dish with a subtle dressing) and trofie con broccoletti e ricotta (pasta with broccoli and ricotta). The food was delicious-light and flavorful. The chocolate mousse was first rate.

With bottled water and five glasses of superb wine, the total cost was $35. (Nancy and I never spent more than $40 for a meal during this trip, no doubt in part due to the good exchange rate.)

Trimani’s wait staff is trained in the wines through a rigorous series of tastings. And three times a year, wine courses are held at the bar, co-owned by Carla Trimani, whose family has been in the wine business since 1821.

Nancy and I went around the corner to the wine store, opened by Carla Trimani’s great-grandfather in 1878 and still among the best in Rome. The small warehouse is packed with wines for every budget and taste. (I walked out with a ’94 Barolo and a couple of Chianti Classicos.)”Rome has many bars and pubs,” Trimani said, sitting in her wine bar decorated with stained oak and glass cases of bottles. “But the real places are like this.”

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Guidebook: The Roman Grapevine

* Getting there: From LAX to Rome, connecting service (change of planes) is offered by Air Canada, Air France, Alitalia, American, British, Continental, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, Northwest and US Airways. Restricted round-trip fares start at $836 for late spring.

* Where to drink: I visited the six wine bars listed below (in alphabetical order). Wine prices are for a glass. Local phone numbers are given for each; use prefixes 011-39 and the city code 06 if dialing from the United States. Cul de Sac, Piazza Pasquino 73; local telephone 6880-1094. Wine $2-$10; entrees $5-$12. Open 6:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Mondays, 12:30-3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Tuesdays-Sundays. Enoteca Buccone, Via di Ripetta 19-20; tel./fax 361-2154. Wine $1.75-$6; entrees $5-$11. Lunch daily, dinner Thursdays-Saturdays. Open 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Sundays, 9 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. Il Goccetto, Viadei Banchi Vecchi 14; tel. 686-4268. Wine $1.50-$7.50. Only antipasto served. Open 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. Il Piccolo, Via del Governo Vecchio 74-75; tel. 6880-1746. Wine $3-$7. Lunch $3-$6.50; only appetizers served at night. Open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5 p.m.-1:30 a.m. daily. Trimani Wine Bar, Via Cernaia 37-b; tel. 446-9630. Wine $2-$8; antipasto $5. Open 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 4-7:30 p.m. Sundays, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Mondays-Fridays, and 8:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 5:30-8 p.m. Saturdays. Vineria, Campo de’ Fiori 15; tel./fax 6880-3268. Wine $1-$10. Antipasto served. Open 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Mondays-Saturdays.

* For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025; tel. (310) 820-1898, fax (310) 820-6357, https://www.italiantourism.com.