The Enoteca

I am fortunate enough to live in an area of the city that is quietly, authentically Roman. There is the bar with its heartily good coffee, the street market that only the locals know about. These I have addressed in previous entries. What I have not yet addressed is the wine bar, known in Italy as the Enoteca.

There is something about the right kind of Enoteca that is just good for the soul. As I write, I am sitting at a charactered wooden table, eating sharp, salty cheese, homemade chips, and sipping on a fabulous, dry and high-tannined glass of red wine. In the table over are three American writers, cultured and pretentious, eating good food and sampling wine that I could only dream of affording. The atmosphere is dark, but not too dark, and the ambiance is lightly seasoned with a hint of American jazz. The proprietor is a large, gruff man, who knows his wine. It is certainly a hidden gem, one that I suspect is known to a hidden number of the “artistic types.” Providential, then, that I live only fine minutes away.

There is a version of this culture that exists in the States. But – with very few exceptions – it is only a very poor imitation. It is one of my favorite cultures, for it is an “ambito” of both healthy intellectualism and the most entertaining pretentiousness. While I was pursuing my undergrad, I worked at a Virginia winery, and had the opportunity to witness first-hand at least an element of this culture (largely based on the fact that the son of my boss was the most pretentious of them all, going so far – in recent years – to gain fame for being one half of the couple to gate-crash a White House dinner).

But when all is said and done, there is something melancholic about the pretention of places that draws these kinds of people – academics, artists, writers, free-thinkers. One has the sense of an emptiness of spirit, one that these patrons seek to fill with cultured living. The culture that fears poverty, humility, and risking one’s own good for the sake of another, is the culture that is the most lonely, closed up with the food, wine, and music that their peers tell them that they should be enjoying if they are to live a happy life.