Rocca wine festival, Capena, Rome
It all started on a whim. I spotted an Instagram post advertising the 2023 Capena Wine festival and got a sudden urge to go back to Capena, houseless and fancy-free.
I put the word out and soon had a posse of would-be winos: Jack from Seville, Bella from Cardiff and new friends Cheryl & Meg from Tavira.
Planning the trip
I bought an Interrail ticket and separate Eurostar tickets before realising that the Eurostar is now included. Double duh! Never mind, I’ll know next time.
We managed to rustle up some accommodation on Airbnb. It was a bittersweet pleasure for Jack and me to stay in Stefania’s house.
She used to rent her home to me for a month every summer when Jack and Leon were small. Now she has Alzheimer’s and is sadly too ill to live alone so her son rents it on Airbnb.
It was hard to stay there and not think of happier times when Stefania was her old, feisty self – perennially serving up amazing meals when she wasn’t busy shouting at Italian politicians on the TV.
The winos assemble
Jack and Bella arrived in Capena two days before the festival and bonded over a few spritzes while waiting for the rest of us to arrive.
Meg joined them later the same day, allowing a sensible amount of time to settle in.
A whole day later, Cheryl and I met in Rome and got to Capena by the skin of our teeth in an improvised muddle of metro, train and taxi: we hadn’t bargained for Friday night chaos and an all-day transport strike in Rome.
Luckily, it’s hardly ever too late to eat at Da Edo e Lori (the trattoria formerly known as Felllicino’s – with three Ls), so we all hiked up the hill and had a great meal.
Wonderful Capena
Those of us who’d never been to Capena before loved the little town. Bella couldn’t get enough of the cats but wasn’t too keen on the mosquitos. The Capena pics are by Bella.
The festival – day 1
The following day, Saturday, we conserved our energy in the daytime before heading out at around 8 pm to buy our wine passes. This year it was €20 for eight “punches” (they use a hole punch to cancel squares on the card).
There’s been some inflation since the last wine festival I attended because some of the wines cost as much as four punches, though you could usually find ones for one or two.
Bands were set up all around the Rocca, playing until late at night.
We bought some cute pottery from Nina Kullmann’s stall.
There was plenty of street food too.
The festival – day 2
On Sunday, Bella and Jack were whisked off to the airport by Mirko the taxi driver. Meg developed a nasty cold and retired to bed. That left Cheryl and me to gather up everyone’s left-over wine credits and spend them with gay abandon. Cheryl even managed to sweet-talk one sommelier into giving us two glasses for one punch.
Sunday was more low-key than Saturday and we spent a magical hour or two watching the sun set over the valley to the west of the Rocca and listening to a small swing band.
I felt very happy to be able to enjoy the best of Capena without the need to own a part of it – and Cheryl was overjoyed to have a glimpse of real Italy.
The following day the remaining three of us had an uneventful trip to Stazione Termini by public transport and went our separate ways: Cheryl to La Spezia and the Cinque Terra, Meg to Lucca and me for a flying visit to Lecce in Puglia.
