Roman Pastas and Wine Pairings: Lazio in the Glass

Four iconic pastas define Roman cooking: Cacio e Pepe, Gricia, Amatriciana, and Carbonara, each built from a handful of ingredients, each complete in its expression. In this follow-up chapter, we tested the wines of Lazio and its neighboring hills as pairings for these dishes.

“What grows together, goes together.” The culinary adage repeated by chefs, wine drinkers, and everyday epicureans isn’t just a modern restaurant concept. In Lazio, it starts with working-class cooking, born of shepherds and farmers who rely on a pantry of necessity: dried pasta, aged cheese, cured pork, and black pepper carried along ancient trade routes.

What we found in the wine-and-pasta pairings went beyond geography. These pairings revealed how texture, salt, fat, and time shape not only the dish, but the way wine moves alongside it.

Let’s dig in.

Cacio e Pepe

The most elemental of the four dishes. Pasta, Pecorino Romano, black pepper. Nothing extra, nothing to hide. It is a study in balance, fat and salt lifted by spice. The pasta matters here: tonnarelli, with its square edges, grips the emulsion, holding the sauce in place.

We began with the simple question: red or white wine? We went traditional and only paired white wines.

Colli di Catone: Frascati (Trebbiano, Malvasia)

Colli di Catone is rooted in the volcanic hills of Frascati, just outside Rome, where winemaking dates back to ancient Roman times. The estate has long championed traditional white blends from the Castelli Romani region, helping preserve Frascati’s identity as a fresh, everyday wine of the Roman table.

Trebbiano brings lift, acidity, and a clean citrus backbone, while Malvasia adds softness, aromatics, and a subtle floral roundness. Together, they form the classic Frascati profile, light, refreshing, and quietly expressive of Lazio’s volcanic soils.

A seamless pairing. The wine refreshed the palate while allowing the pecorino and pepper to remain the focus.

Casale del Giglio: Bellone

Casale del Giglio is a modern pioneer in Lazio, founded in the 1960s with a spirit of experimentation in the Agro Pontino, south of Rome. While the estate explores international varieties, they’ve played a key role in reviving native grapes like Bellone, giving them renewed relevance on the global stage.

Bellone is an ancient Roman variety once prized in Imperial times. It produces wines with a waxy texture, golden fruit, and a savory, almost saline edge, structured enough to stand up to Pecorino and pepper, yet distinctly Mediterranean in character.

Richer, more textured. Floral on the nose, with enough weight and salinity to cut through the pepper and carry the dish. Here, the wine started to speak as much as the dish.

Marco Carpineti: Bellone

Marco Carpineti is a champion of organic farming in the Lepini Mountains, working with native varieties on the hillside vineyards that reflect Lazio’s rural interior. The family wines are deeply tied to place, emphasizing biodiversity, tradition, and low-intervention practices.

Slightly reductive at first, but resolved with time in the glass. A well-made wine that ultimately worked, but not as seamlessly as the Frascati.

Gricia

Often called the ancestor of Amatriciana, Gricia builds on Cacio e Pepe with the addition of guanciale. Guanciale, salt-cured pork cheek, introduces richness, depth, and a savory intensity that lingers. The dish remains focused on fat, salt, and spice, amplified.

Antinori: Orvieto (Grechetto, Trebbiano, Viognier, Pinot Bianco)

Antinori, one of Italy’s most historic wine families (I think we have all stopped counting how many generations), has extended its vision into central Italy with wines like Orvieto that balance tradition and accessibility. Their work with Orvieto reflects this modern refinement of a historic central-Italian white wine, bringing clarity and precision to a once-rustic appellation.

Grechetto, an Italian white wine grape with Greek origins, forms the backbone with structure and a subtle almond-like depth, while Trebbiano adds freshness and lift. Viognier and Pinot Bianco contribute aromatic nuance and texture. The result is a layered white wine capable of cutting through guanciale’s richness and mirroring its savory weight.

Easy. Worked right away. Fruit-forward, with enough weight to cut through both the pepper and the fat of the guanciale.

Tenuta di Fiorano: Fioranello Bianco (Grechetto, Viognier)

Tenuta di Fiorano is one of Lazio’s most iconic estates, shaped by Prince Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, whose wines achieved near-mythical status for their longevity and individuality. Today, the Fioranello label continues that legacy with a focus on organic farming and a deep respect for the land just outside Rome.

Grechetto again provides structure and a grounded, earthy core, while Viognier layers in aromatic richness and a gentle, rounded texture. Together, they create a wine that feels both rustic and refined, well-suited to the simplicity and depth of Gricia.

Initially marked by a musty, cellar note, but air revealed texture and depth that paired well with the dish.

Monastero Suore Cistercensi: Coenobium Bianco (Trebbiano, Verdicchio, Malvasia)

Produced by the Cistercian nuns of Vitorchiano, Coenobium is one of Italy’s most quietly revered wines. Their monastic discipline extends into the vineyard and cellar, guided by patience and a deep connection to the land. With the help of Giampiero Bea, the wines reflect a philosophy of restraint, purity, and time, standing apart from modern winemaking trends.

Trebbiano provides linear acidity, Verdicchio contributes structure and phenolic grip, and Malvasia brings aromatic lift. Together, they form a wine that is both contemplative and textural, layered, savory, and built for the table.

Very dry white wine. Built for food. Lees-driven texture that aligned beautifully with the weight and salt of the dish.

Monastero Suore Cistercensi: Coenobium Ruscum Bianco (Trebbiano, Verdicchio, Malvasia, Grechetto)

A deeper, more structured expression of Coenobium. This bottling often draws from older vines and is given extended aging.

The addition of Grechetto brings weight, structure, and a slightly nutty, earthy tone to the blend.

An orange wine that captivated the table. Everyone liked the wine. Not everyone liked it with the dish.

Red Wine (Cesanese)

Before we finished the dish, we splashed Cesanese around the table, as the spice of the black pepper lingered in our mouths, we noticed immediately that the right red wine can soften the spice of the dish almost immediately. But whether it was the best pairing remained open.

Amatriciana

Here, tomato enters the conversation. The brightness of the sauce reframes everything, cutting through fat, sharpening flavors, and adding acidity and sweetness. Bucatini, with its hollow center, channels the sauce, making each bite more dynamic, more complete.

Damiano Ciolli: Silene (Cesanese)

Damiano Ciolli is one of the leading voices in the revival of Cesanese, working in the hills of Olevano Romano just east of Rome. With a focus on old vines, organic farming, and minimal intervention, Ciolli has helped elevate what was once a rustic local grape into one of Lazio’s most compelling red wines.

Cesanese shows bright red cherry, spice, and often carries a savory, almost feral edge. In Silene, it shows both freshness and structure, making it a natural partner for Amatriciana, where tomato, guanciale, and red pepper demand a wine that can match both acidity and intensity.

Clean, dry, and red-fruited. Fresh, structured, and in line with the dish. One of the strongest pairings. Also worked with the Gricia, as noted above, resetting the palate and handling the pepper.

Tenimenti Leone: Terra de Leone (Cesanese)

Tenimenti Leone represents a modern voice in Lazio, blending modern winemaking with a focus on native varieties and the volcanic soils west of Rome. Their wines aim to present Cesanese in a polished, approachable style without losing its regional identity.

Cesanese here shows a softer, more rounded profile, ripe red berries, gentle spice, and supple tannins. With this approachability style, you would think that the wine would complement Amatriciana without overpowering the dish, aligning more with its warmth than its edge. It didn’t. The modern style, with noticeable oak, made the pairing feel less aligned with the rustic character of the dish.

Too polished. Too much oak. Didn’t work.

Cincinnato: Argeo (Cesanese)

Cincinnato, a cooperative founded in the 1940s, has been instrumental in preserving Lazio’s viticultural heritage, particularly in the Cori area. Their work champions local growers and traditional varieties, giving Cesanese a strong cultural and agricultural foundation.

Argeo leans away from Cesanese’s rustic charm, bright cherry fruit, and earthy undertones; its oak influence and a hint of sweetness disrupted the balance of the pairing.

Same issue. Oak got in the way. Didn’t work.

Marco Carpineti: Capolemole Rosso (Cesanese)

In Capolemole Rosso, Cesanese is vibrant and lifted, with fresh red fruit, floral notes, and fine, integrated tannins. There’s a clarity and energy here that brings a lighter, more elegant counterpoint to the rusticity of the Amatriciana.

Not perfect, but it worked. Fresh, red-fruited, with a drying finish. The structure ultimately worked with the acidity of the tomato.

Carbonara

Terre Porziane: Colle Gaio (Malvasia)

Carbonara is the most deceptive of the four pasta sauces: no tomato, no overt acidity, just fat, salt, egg, and pecorino. It is richness without relief, texture without contrast. Rigatoni becomes the ideal vessel, capturing and carrying the weight of the sauce.

Rather than reaching for something safe, we went the opposite direction: aged Malvasia.

Terre Porziane operates quietly on the borderlands of Lazio and Umbria, farming organically and practicing low-intervention winemaking that favors patience over polish. Their wines, especially Colle Gaio, are built not for immediacy, but for evolution, capturing and expressing time more so than place.

Malvasia, often thought of as soft with heady aromatics in its youth, becomes something entirely different with age. It deepens into honeyed, nutty, oxidative layers of dried citrus, chamomile, almond, and saline depth. Across vintages (2007, 1998, and 1994), the wines moved from freshness to tertiary complexity, gaining weight and texture while maintaining a thread of acidity.

Why we thought it might work:

Carbonara is about emulsion and fat, not acid. These wines meet it on that level:

• The texture of aged Malvasia mirrors the silkiness of egg and cheese

• The oxidative, nutty notes echo guanciale and pecorino

• The salinity and subtle bitterness reset the palate without cutting it apart

Overall, the wines were admired, especially for their freshness and vitality across vintages, but their pairing with Carbonara challenged expectations. Part of the tension may lie in the wines themselves: their history, their reputation, and the difficulty of separating perception from experience.

And the real magic: by pouring multiple vintages, we turned this plate of Carbonara into a study of time. The dish stays the same, but the wines evolve, showing how age transforms not just flavor but also how a wine sits with food.

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What began as an exploration of four Roman pastas became something less certain and more interesting. Some wines cut cleanly through the dish, others mirrored its weight, and some simply didn’t belong.

The idea that what grows together goes together held true until it didn’t. And that tension is where the conversation lives. Pairing isn’t about perfection; it’s about perspective: how a wine can sharpen, soften, or shift a dish in ways both expected and surprising.

The simplest wines often worked best. Frascati with Cacio e Pepe. Clean, bright, direct.

With Gricia, texture mattered more than color. White wines carried the dish. A light red could change it, but not always for the better.

Amatriciana showed the range of Cesanese. Some wines felt right, fresh, structured, grounded. Others, with too much oak or polish, missed the point.

Carbonara was the outlier. The aged Malvasia was compelling, layered, and alive, but whether it worked with the dish depended on who you asked.

There wasn’t one answer. But there was a pattern. When the wine stayed honest, fresh, and structured, it worked. When it tried to do more, it didn’t.

In the end, nothing was resolved completely. And that was the point. The dishes remained themselves, the wines revealed their intentions, and the table moved forward, course by course, question by question.

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Pasta drawings by our dear friend, Amber Vittoria.