Sampling Umbria’s many gastronomic delights
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Like most regions of Italy, Umbria draws visitors with its food and wine.
With a reputation for rustic fare, the local Umbrian cuisine includes plenty of hearty dishes made with fresh local produce and seasonal ingredients.
The ancient Etruscans are credited with bringing the hallmarks of Mediterranean agriculture to the region: the grape, the olive and wheat. Once they conquered the Western area of what is today Umbria they started to reclaim land from the swamps of the Tiber valley. They also began to plant wheat in the plains, and vineyards and olive trees on the hills.
The people who lived in this region before the Etruscans arrived were known for making a type of bread that today is called “torta al testo.” In modern times, the bread is served with prosciutto or grilled sausage.
Cured meats have also been made in Umbria throughout the ages. For example, the town of Norcia, in the southeastern portion of the region, is famous not only for its pork butchery but also its norcineria, a variety of locally-produced cured meat.
Umbrian food also relies on seasonal produce and regional treasures, such as the local truffles. From the area around Gubbio come the delicious white truffle. Grated white or black truffles are an important ingredient in many Umbrian dishes, including appetizers, pastas and risottos.
The region’s wines are also renowned among diners the world over. Although Umbrian winemakers produces only one-third as much wine as their counterparts in Tuscany, they have nevertheless managed to build a solid reputation within the international wine scene. The peachy white wine known as Orvieto — which is produced in a town with the same name — is perhaps the best-known of the four major Umbrian wines. Meanwhile, the hills surrounding Perugia are known for producing some of the region’s best reds, most of them made with Sangiovese grapes.
The Lungarotti Winery is among Umbria’s top wine producers. I recently had the pleasure of meeting the CEO of Lungarotti Group, Chiara Lungarotti, and sampling some local Umbrian fare paired with the winery’s famous Rubesco wine.
During our encounter at Le Tre Vaselle Resort — which the Lungarotti family owns — in Torgiano, Chiara’s eyes sparkled as she talked about her late father Giorgio Lungarotti, a man whom many credit with bringing Umbrian wine on the world’s attention.
“After World War II, my father decided to turn his family estate into a wine estate, and replaced the old vineyards with modern ones. He also had the idea of giving a proprietary name to its first wine. In 1962, the Rubesco was born. The name derives from the Latin word ‘rubescere,’ which means ‘to blush.’” Chiara explained this as we sampled the Rubesco Riserva Vigna Monticchio 2008, the group’s flagship wine.
The full-bodied Rubesco has been named one of Italy’s 10 best red wines. Along with the Montefalco Sagrantino, it is also one of the region’s two signature reds.
“Rubesco has brought a blush to 120 million wine lovers all over the world, twice the population of Italy and 20,000 times that of Torgiano, its birthplace, located in the province of Perugia.”
The Lungarotti Group produces about 2.4 million bottles of wine each year, and exports to 50 countries. Its vineyards cover 250 hectares of land between Torgiano and Montefalco. It also produces an average of 500,000 bottles of Rubesco each year.
In 1974, the Lungarotti family opened a wine museum, which has been described by the New York Times as one of the best in the world. The family’s five-star Le Tre Vaselle resort was opened in 1978. The resort includes a gourmet restaurant and a wine spa. According to Chiara, the family wanted to enhance their company with world-class facilities that celebrate the culture of wine.
After lunch, I followed Chiara to the Lungarotti’s wine museum, which was only a short walk from the resort. The museum is housed in the imposing Palazzo Graziani-Baglioni, a 17th century summer palace.
With archeological artifacts, ceramics collection, glasswares, engravings and ethnographic pieces, the museum takes visitors on a trip through 5,000 years of wine history. Wine and Bacchus (the Roman god of agriculture and wine) run throughout the different collections on display in 20 different rooms.
Another notable family in the region are the Farchionis, who are the biggest producers of olive oil in Umbria. They also set up the Terre de la Custodia Winery in the Montefalco area. Following the artisanal beer trend, the Frachioni family established the Mastri Birrai Umbri brewery in 2010. The brewery produces about 2.5 million bottles of beer annually and is one of the best-selling artisan beer in Italy.
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