An ancient vine on the Palatine Hill: the Colosseum Park has started cultivating “Pantastic” grapes

The Colosseum Archaeological Park has planted the shoots of the Bellone grape variety, at the foot of one of the “7 Wonders of the World”, thus starting the cultivation of “Pantastic” grapes, as the historian Pliny the Elder called the very ancient native vine. The grape vine is still cultivated today in the territories around Rome. The Cincinnato cooperative will be managing planting the Bellone grape variety. Cincinnato is one of the leading wine cooperatives in the Lazio Region, covering a small vineyard in the area of ​​Vigna Barberini, on the Palatine Hill in the center of Rome. It was named after the historic and prestigious Roman family that owned the property in the seventeenth century. This is one of the most important “wine-archeology” projects in Italy, and it is part of the “PArCo Green” program, which includes various initiatives to enhance the exceptional monumental and landscape environment of the PArCo.
“Our cooperative is over 70 years old, which is a long time in this sector. But, it is the blink of an eye in the face of the millennial history of the Palatine Hill in the Colosseum Archaeological Park, to which we have offered our experience of the vine, in the earth where it has its roots and our cultivation techniques handed down by our ancestors”, the Cincinnato cooperative explained, which still produces Bellone wine from organic farming in the Cori territory, on the Lepini Mountains, “it is a duty to revive a small vineyard in the heart of Rome in view of what Italy represents in the wine world.
Cultivating the Bellone grape on the Palatine Hill means contributing to producing not only wine, to the best of our ability, but more importantly, culture. The significance of the vine in Italian history dates back to Roman times, and today history is becoming reality in a unique context of unrivaled beauty, where you can see and touch the golden buds and clusters firsthand. We believe that through a small vineyard, millions of visitors will take, all over the world, the image of Italy’s intimate and millennial relationship producing wine”.
Technically, the choice to produce Bellone has been confirmed throughout history. Pliny spoke of it in the 1st century AD, and still today it is the vine that identifies white grapes in the territory of Cori, on the Lepini Mountains. In the Barberini vineyard, we are proceeding with exclusively manual methods to create the least impact. The support poles are made from chestnut wood and production will be organic, without an irrigation system. The system leads back to that of the early twentieth century, designed above all to pass on and educate to the “culture of wine”. And then, the first real harvest will be in 2023.