Imperatori Cesanese, Lazio IGP 2023 75cl

So Lazio isn’t the classical winemaking mecca that springs to mind when thinking of Italy. There’s no stories of chainsaw-ing your dad’s barrels, or old tales of chickens demarking county lines, like the more famous regions up North. But who needs those when you’ve got a killer winemaker, gorgeous, sympathetically grown native varieties and smoky volcanic soils just half an hour’s drive from Rome? They’ve been making wine here for 2000yrs after all.

What a find this is, the indigenous Cesanese somehow manages to take only the best characteristics of Pinot Noir and Grenache and leave the difficult traits behind.