Of the many annual feasts or sagre in Lazio, the ‘Sagra dell’uva’ or grape festival most clearly evokes the ancient earthy bacchanalia, but is actually a modern celebration of past glories that also harkens back to millennial-old agricultural traditions. The region’s most famous sagra in Marino (Friday, 29 September to Monday, 2 October) was created as late as 1925 by local poet and drammatist Leone Ciprelli. The feast has its historical antecedents in the return of Marino’s favorite son Marcantonio Colonna (whose family held feudal sway over much of the Castelli Romani for several centuries) from the Adriatic after defeating the Ottoman Turks in the name of the Pope at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Beginning in 1573, a religious feast was held in Marino to commemorate the event, but by the 20th century, the Marinese chose a more profane way to commemorate the event, echoing back to pagan rites.
Instead of procession of the rosary, the present incarnation of the sagra celebrates the grape, or more precisely, the boisterous local wine, accompanied by traditional foods that function seemingly to accelerate the consumption of alcohol. Like the pre-Christian Bacchanalia, the sagra provides rare opportunity to spot normally ultra-image conscious Italians letting loose and staggering through the streets; but don’t worry, unlike Italian football games, the revelry is of a good-humored sort. On Sunday night, the exuberance hits a crescendo not to be missed as the town fountain begins to spout wine freely for anyone with a plastic cup and a strong stomach.
While Marino’s festival still retains a local flavour, it has become a bit too-well known among tourists to be truly authentic. Other towns in the Castelli offer grape festivals as well, and for a more heady taste of local flavour, it’s worth heading up to Zagarolo, where you will immediately get the feeling everybody knows everyone else except you. Zagarolo’s sagra (Saturday, 31 September to Sunday 8 October) is truly step back in time. Although 2006 marks only the 63rd annual event, the Zagarolese will readily remind you that the festival really celebrates (and helps to preserve) Zagarolo’s, long-established but quickly vanishing gastronomic traditions and the faded legends of the contadini who worked the fields around this picturesque hill town with their hands, returning with the fruits of their hard labour, which were soon brought to the paese’s tables in the form of divine food and drink.
Now most town residents work in Rome, queuing for hours each day on the antiquated roads or taking the 40 minute train ride on click-clack trains. The pensioners here are now about the only ones who lived the old farming traditions at a time when Rome seemed to be in another world and paesi such as this had to sustain themselves. The young Zagarolese seem to appreciate the old timers’ stories and take an active role in the annual festivities, giving public musical performances and running food stalls that offer cheap local wine and foodstuffs like grilled pancetta and tordo matto: Made of fresh horsemeat rolled with prosciutto fat, local herbs and hot red pepper, and grilled, tordo matto is the quintessential Zagarolese dish.
Other stands run by farm cooperatives and cultural associations offer local farm products and baked goods, and of course one can always find the ubiquitous range of Chinese-made chachkas at the far end of town. Although the entire main drag is decked out in garlands and leaves (and this year even boasts its own wine-fountain to rival Marino’s – a striking cascade of rosé right down the steps of the church), the place to be is piazzetta della Fontana Nuova, where the young and old mingle to the sounds of rock bands and a huge food stand grills up the local delights that just perfectly complement glasses and glasses of the local white..
Although not quite bacchanalia harvest frenzies, these celebrations feel a little bit more pagan than the usual saints’ processions. In any case, the sagre a memorable way to pass a starlit October evening in the Castelli Romani while taking in the diverse sights, sounds and tastes that represent some of Europe’s longest and richest agricultural and food traditions. Although towns like Zagarolo and Marino are looking less and less like the quaint paesi they once were and more like part of Rome’s post-modern suburban sprawl, it’s good to know that it is still possible truly celebrate the diverse bounty of this land, and to support local food traditions so that they are not lost forever.
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