Bellone

The Story

Bellone is an ancient white grape from Lazio that has been growing in the volcanic and sandy soils south of Rome since at least the era of Pliny the Elder, who praised its ancestor in his first-century AD Naturalis Historia as uva pantastica — "the all-wonderful grape" — also calling it pane d'uva, the grape as good as bread. Known locally as Cacchione, a name referencing its large berry size, Bellone survived the 19th-century phylloxera epidemic because its stronghold on the sandy coastal soils around Anzio and Nettuno made the louse's root attacks impossible. To this day, some plots near the Pontine coast produce wine from ungrafted vines planted on their original pre-phylloxera rootstocks — a vanishingly rare distinction in European viticulture. For much of the 20th century Bellone was used mainly as anonymous blending material in the vast Frascati DOC, its identity obscured within the region's white wine flood. The modern rediscovery began in earnest with the Cincinnato cooperative in Cori — a hilltown 60 km south of Rome — which has spent over 25 years promoting Bellone as a solo variety, releasing six distinct expressions from still to pét-nat to metodo classico. Casale del Giglio, growing on the coastal plain near Anzio, followed suit with its Anthium bottling, made from ungrafted coastal vines and fermented with indigenous yeasts; in 2022 Gambero Rosso awarded it the coveted Tre Bicchieri. The ultimate symbolic homecoming came when Cincinnato partnered with the Parco Archeologico del Colosseo to plant 360 Bellone vines at Vigna Barberini on the Palatine Hill — exactly where Roman emperors once cultivated their vineyards. After 2,500 years, Rome's own grape is growing inside the ancient city again.

Insider Story

Bellone spent most of the 20th century as a ghost grape: blended into Frascati, Velletri, Castelli Romani, and half a dozen other Lazio DOCs without ever appearing on a label. The disciplinary for Frascati DOC allows up to 30% Bellone in blend, but producers rarely declared it because Trebbiano and Malvasia were considered more commercially recognizable names. The rediscovery movement was driven not by négociants or global investors but by a farmers' cooperative — Cincinnato — whose 130 growers collectively decided to rescue the variety that had defined their landscape for millennia. The most remarkable insider fact: Casale del Giglio's coastal Bellone vines are ungrafted, planted on original pre-phylloxera rootstock, making them among only a handful of such plots anywhere in mainland Europe. The Vigna Barberini project at the Colosseum, initiated around 2022, caused a minor sensation in Italian cultural circles — archaeologists, sommeliers, and classicists all arguing over whether the replanted variety was truly the ancient pantastica. Cincinnato confirmed DNA traceability back to the historical descriptions.

Technical Deep Dive

Bellone is a vigorous, late-ripening white variety well adapted to both volcanic (tufo) soils in the Castelli Romani hills and sandy coastal soils near Anzio and Nettuno. Its thick skin is rich in pectin and polyphenols, requiring slow, soft pressing to avoid astringency and oxidation — a technically demanding step that distinguishes serious producers from bulk operations. The high pectin content means Bellone must be pressed gently and the must clarified carefully before fermentation. Acidity is naturally high, a characteristic that gives the wine genuine aging potential; Bellone retains freshness even in warm, sun-drenched coastal vintages. Standard vinification is in stainless steel at 18–20°C with indigenous yeasts and 10–12 days maceration on skins to extract aromatics. Cincinnato exploits the grape's natural affinity for bubbles: its Kori Pas Dosé undergoes classic-method second fermentation in bottle, then minimum 18 months on the lees (sometimes 24–30 months depending on vintage), producing a structured sparkling wine with notable autolytic complexity. Casale del Giglio's Anthium adds a skin-contact element before spontaneous fermentation, giving textural weight unusual for this variety. Alcohol is typically moderate (12–13%), body medium, and the pronounced minerality — saline on coastal wines, stony volcanic on hillside wines — is the signature terroir expression that sets Bellone apart from the more generic whites that dominated Lazio's past.

Industry Secrets

The wine trade has been slow to notice Bellone because Lazio as a region has no high-prestige benchmark producer (no equivalent of Sassicaia or Barolo to drag the whole region upmarket). Savvy Italian buyers in Rome's restaurant scene have known about Cincinnato and Casale del Giglio for years, keeping prices very low relative to quality. The Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri for Anthium 2022 was the first major signal to the export market. At under €15 a bottle retail in Italy for most Bellone IGT wines, this represents one of the best quality-to-price ratios in Italian white wine. The grape's natural high acidity and moderate alcohol (rarely above 13%) also make it highly food-flexible and age-worthy in a way that traditional Frascati never was. Sommeliers building by-the-glass programs are quietly adding Bellone as an alternative to Soave and Verdicchio — it is currently underpriced relative to those better-known varieties.

More white grapes

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• Bical
• Blanc de Valdigne
• Blanc du Bois
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