Marco Falcone - Giarrocco, Diogene

There is an easy way to determine which wine is your favorite - it’s the one you choose when any are open and you notice that you go back to it over and over. Giarrocco Diogene was this wine for me. On this private labeled wine, you’ll see the face of Gaetano Saccoccio, who first discovered this winemaker who was only making 700 cases of Cesanese wine, and the only one in Piglio who was, as his colleagues say, crazy enough to believe in the idea of amphora for vinifying the wine. Marco experimented with various shapes of amphora and kept some above ground and had another buried in the ground Georgian (kvevri) style. Upon tasting the one below ground, we were shocked and in total awe at how elegant (and almost Burgundian) this Cesanese was. We immediately jumped on the opportunity to buy the entire amphora and seeing how successful the wine sold off our shelves, Marco bought 4 more amphorae to bury and increase his production. All we can say is this has been one of the most mutually beneficial collaborations which produced a beautiful wine you won’t want to miss. If you are making any of the traditional Roman pastas, this is the perfect Lazio wine.

A delicately spicy and elegant red wine made from Cesanese grapes which was fermented in amphora (qvevri style, buried underground).