When you’re in the midst of the chaos of an urban city center like Rome, it’s difficult to imagine that just a few kilometers out of town you’ll find a rural idyll with green hills, rolling green pastures, olive trees, grapevines, sheep and horses. Yet just 40 minutes by train north of Rome is a beautiful area called Sabina that easily rivals Tuscany and Umbria for its green and natural beauty.
I used to take horseback riding lessons in the Sabina area, but when I was pregnant with our third child, I was told very sternly by my midwife that horseback riding and pregnancy do not mix. Unfortunately, I never did go back to my lessons, but recently, thanks to our friends at Convivio Rome, I have been spending time in the area again.
Convivio Rome is small tour company run by Sally Ransom and Guido Santi, an Australian-Italian couple who offer cooking tours out of their home in the small medieval town of Toffia as well as wine and olive oil tours of the surrounding Sabine countryside. They were kind enough to invite me first on an olive oil tour last year and then a wine tour a year later this past April.
The only way to see this area is by car and Sally and Guido meet and pick you up in their own vehicle at the Fara Sabina-Montelibretti train station located 40 minutes from Rome’s Tiburtina station. The countryside here like many parts of Italy is agricultural and there are orchards and vineyards a plenty.
The area of Sabina has been cultivating olives and making olive oil for thousands of years. In fact one of the oldest and largest olive trees in Europe, “l’Olivone” is located in this area and has been dated as being over 2,000 years old!
The olive oil from the Sabina are is one of the few olive oils to earn the DOP label (protected designation of origin) and many consider the olive oil here to be some of the finest in Italy.
Wine is equally important to the area and its cultivation started with the Etruscans in the area back in 800BC. We visited the Tenuta of Santa Lucia owned by the Colantuono family who have been wine producers in the Abruzzo region for 50 years and who bought the current vineyard in the Sabina area 10 years ago.
They are small producers, but their wine is exported as far away as the US and Japan. The grapes they grow are Malvasia, Falanghina, Pecorino, Syrah, Merlot, Montepulciano and Sauvignon.
We spent the day following the wine-making process with Massimo, a young oenologist, who explained in depth the scientific and technical aspects of wine production. Then we had a few tastings – a white and a red, along with some bruschetta and local oil.
Sally and Guido then took us to the nearby tiny borgo of Farfa, home of the Abbazia di Farfa (Farfa Abbey) and to Benedictine monks since the 600s. The borgo is small and seemingly perfect with an eclectic mix of people – I’ve seen tai chi practitioners to yogis to teenagers playing football in the local park in town.
There are only a handful of shops and places to eat including a place called i 4 Monaci where Sally & Guido took us for a light snack lunch and more local wine. This eclectic shop specializes in funky artisan products as well as many organic Italian skin care products and they sell an incredible homemade dark chocolate with hazelnut and pistachio.
A 3 hour tour turned into 4, but Sally and Guido were very patient and drove us to the train station afterward. Personally it was very gratifying to see visitors to Italy getting off the tourist path and I had a wonderful time with a diverse group of people who by the end had developed a camaraderie after a fun day together.
If you have some time while in Rome, but don’t have a car, just contact Convivio Rome. Their tours are very reasonably priced and getting out to the Sabina countryside is easy and hassle-free. Wine and olive oil are inherent parts of Italian culture and are revered worldwide – it’s worthwhile taking the time to learn more about them while you’re here.
Olive oil tours: https://www.conviviorome.com/olive-tour.html
Wine tours: https://www.winetoursrome.com/
Thanks Linda, for the wonderful description of your experience on our Rome Olive Oil Tour and our Rome Wine Tour. It was a joy having you and Steve on these tours and hope we can meet up again soon. Sabina is certainly a hidden treasure of the Roman countryside and one that needs to be explored. If your readers are interested in our Rome Wine Tour, the website for this is http://www.winetoursrome.com. All the details for our Half Day Rome Olive Oil Tour can be found on http://www.conviviorome.com.
Thanks again, Linda,
all the best, from Sally and Guido at Convivio Rome
Ciao Linda! Thanks for the great suggestion! We went on Sally and Guido’s tour last month and loved it! While staying in Rome we decided to take another wine and olive oil day trip to Frascati and absolutely loved it as well! If you haven’t been yet, we definitely recommend visiting and maybe joining one of the The Old Frascati Wine Tour tours which is fun and laid back like Sally and Giudo’s tour. The website is http://www.oldfrascati.com
Definitely worth checking out! Grazie!
Hi Dominique! I’m so glad you enjoyed the tour with Sally and Guido! Thanks for the information about old Frascati wine tours. I will definitely check them out.