Wine Tours Rome - Red Wine for the Festive Season

During our Rome Wine Tours, many of our recent guests have been asking about the ideal wine for the festive season. In my opinion, it should be oak-aged red wine with at least 14% alcohol content and dark ruby in colour. To me, this describes 'Morrone'. This wine is made of 100% Syrah and is produced in small quantities here in the Sabine Hills near Rome by the boutique vineyard we visit during our Rome winery tour. 
Morrone is red wine with strong personality, extremely aromatic and quite spicy, with notes of berries, chocolate and a little vanilla. In order to be called Morrone, this very traditional Central Italian wine has to be aged for 18 months in small oak barrels, then at least 6 months in the bottle. So, it will have to be Morrone...
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Rome cooking classes outdoors: woodfired sourdough bread

Sourdough is the ancient technique to make bread. At Convivio Rome Cooking Classes we use sourdough culture that's 30 years old and special stone-ground flour from a 300 year old local mill to make beautiful bread. Yesterday afternoon, we went to a friend's place in the countryside to experiment with their outdoor wood-fired oven and baked 4 delicious loaves of walnut bread!

Melanzane (aubergines or eggplants) are now in season. As the weather changes from Autumn into Winter, one of my favourite dishes to make for family and friends is Melanzane alla Parmigiana

All prepared and ready to put in the oven

Melanzane alla Parmigiana  - Serves 6.

1 or 2 aubergines (eggplants), 1 large mozzarella, basil leaves, tomato 'passata', extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, parmigiano cheese. 

Cut aubergines (eggplants) into thin slices, add olive oil and salt  and grill them on a grill pan, hot pan or barbecue. Slice mozzarella. Start layering aubergine, mozzarella, tomato passata, parmigiano cheese. finishing off with tomato passata. Bake in a medium oven ( 170 degrees c. ) until cheese is melted. 
If you wish you can decorate this dish, once out of the oven, with thinly sliced eggplant skin that has been quickly fried in extra virgin olive oil.

Hot out of the oven and ready to eat. Buon appetito.

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Sabina DOP Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the Sabine Hills, near Rome in Italy.
Lauren Mouat, from 'Romeing.it' shares her experience of her Half Day Rome Olive Oil Tour, with Convivo Rome

Romeing article on Olive Oil Tour with Convivio Rome

Sabine Hills. a perfect day trip from Rome

Convivio Rome Cooking Classes has written an article on the beautiful Sabine Hills and why this unspoilt agricultural area makes a perfect day trip from Rome. Italy Travel site on About.com has published this article in their most recent newsletter and can be found here:

Discover what to see, where to go and how to get here!

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Local organic flour for our cooking classes near Rome

The flour we use for our cooking classes near Rome is supplied by a local water mill built in the 18th century, the 'Molino del Cantaro'. This is one of the few mills left in Italy to have the original timber mechanism and grinding stone from 300 years ago, still perfectly working. The flour from this 'mulino' retains all the wheat germ (something industrial flour doesn't have anymore) and comes from organic wheat which is grown by the mill's owner in a nearby field. Even the type of wheat is selected from a range of ancient Italian varieties. Anything that's made with this high quality organic flour, such as fresh pasta, bread, biscotti or cakes, has a lot more flavour and a great texture, just different from anything else.

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Pizza dough 'little roses'.

Presentation of food has always been part of our Rome Cooking Classes and Italian Cooking Holidays. This is a simple technique to create little 'roses' made of pastry or pizza dough, filled with anything you like (It could be ricotta and spinach, mozzarella cheese and tomato or anything you usually fancy on a pizza, just finely chopped).

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What's in Season?

During our Rome Cooking Classes we only ose local organic vegetables that are in season. 'Let's follow the Rhythm of the Seasons', a new chart for knowing what vegetables are in season (in Italian).

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