Frascati Noble Villas Wine Day: Aldobrandini & Falconieri
Frascati, in the Roman imagination, is a white wine and a roadside trattoria. It is also — for those who can reach them — a small ring of the most extraordinary patrician summer villas of the seventeenth century, built by the Barberini, Aldobrandini, Borghese and Pamphili popes within sight of one another along a single ridge above the Castelli Romani. The villas were country retreats for the great Roman ecclesiastical families — places of summer hospitality, formal gardens, fresco-painted galleries, and family wine cantinas. Five of them survive substantially intact. Two — the Villa Aldobrandini and the Villa Falconieri — open by private arrangement. A Roman wine day that combines the two, with a family lunch at a Frascati cantina between them, is among the most refined Roman day-trips of the year.
Villa Aldobrandini — the supreme baroque garden
The Villa Aldobrandini, commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini (nephew of Clement VIII) and designed by Giacomo Della Porta and Carlo Maderno between 1598 and 1604, is the supreme garden architecture object of the Castelli Romani. The central axis of the garden rises through three terraces to the celebrated «Theatre of Waters» — a rusticated fountain in the form of a stage backdrop, with Atlas, Polyphemus and a cascade descending the slope. The Theatre of Waters was painted by Domenichino around 1620. The garden is privately owned by the Aldobrandini family and is open to the public only by appointment, in groups of no more than fifteen. We hold a recurring monthly appointment.
Villa Falconieri — the Borrominian poetic surprise
The Villa Falconieri, on the other side of the Frascati ridge, is the poetic surprise of the day. Designed by Borromini between 1648 and 1650 for the Falconieri family, the villa is the smaller of the two but architecturally the more refined: a perfect Borrominian elliptical cortile, a long avenue of cypresses (the «Italian cypresses» celebrated by D’Annunzio in his poems), a small frescoed loggia by Carlo Maratta. The villa is now state-owned (it houses an Italian government school) and is opened to private visitors only on Saturdays. The cypress avenue, photographed at any hour, is among the half-dozen great image-makers of the Roman countryside.
The cantina lunch between the two villas
The lunch is the centrepiece of the day. Frascati has perhaps two dozen small cantinas — family-run wine establishments, usually with their own vineyard and a country kitchen — of which we work with three. Our preferred lunch is at the Cantina Comandini, in business in the same family since 1932, where the family Frascati Superiore is poured by the bottle from the owner’s table, and the menu is a fixed Roman country one: handmade fettuccine with chicken liver, abbacchio (Roman lamb), a sheep’s cheese, and the family’s own fennel sausage. The lunch lasts two hours; the carafe of Frascati is the slow centrepiece.
The wine — Frascati Superiore DOCG and the noble varieties
Frascati’s appellation has been recognised since 1933, and the DOCG (the highest Italian designation) since 2011. The grape blend is dominated by Malvasia del Lazio and Trebbiano, with smaller proportions of Greco and Bombino. The «Superiore» designation requires a minimum alcohol of 12% and a longer barrel ageing. The noble villas often retain their own vineyards; the Aldobrandini still produce a small estate Frascati that is poured at private tastings at the villa. The Falconieri’s cellar — closed to the public — holds a vertical of family Frascatis going back to 1949.
How a private day arranges itself
The day begins at 09:30 from Rome (chauffeured car, forty-five minutes through the Castelli). The Villa Aldobrandini is the morning visit (90 minutes, with the Theatre of Waters in the late-morning sun); the cantina lunch (two hours); the Villa Falconieri in the afternoon (90 minutes); a final coffee in the historic centre of Frascati; return to Rome at 17:30. Guests who would prefer to combine the day with another Castelli element should see our Castel Gandolfo day or our Tuscany Brunello day.
A note on inheritance and access
The villas of the Castelli are still mostly in their original families. The privilege of being shown into them by family arrangement — rather than as part of a state tour — is the small qualitative difference that makes this day what it is. The Aldobrandini gardener, the Falconieri caretaker, the Comandini family — all are people we have worked with for years; the warmth they extend to our guests is the warmth of an old village. It is, in our experience, the most «lived» Roman day-trip of the year.
To plan a private day at the Frascati noble villas, contact Olga via Telegram.
