{"id":449,"date":"2010-12-14T04:43:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T09:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2010-12-15T04:51:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T09:51:21","slug":"a-golf-bacchanalia-roman-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/personalities\/449\/a-golf-bacchanalia-roman-style","title":{"rendered":"A Golf Bacchanalia, Roman Style"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Saturday at Parco di Roma<\/p><\/div>\n

Guiseppe Mili\u00e9, known to all as \u201cPino,\u201d is an Italian architect who is also the Managing Director of Parco di Roma Golf Club, one of the last new courses built in Italy in the 20th<\/sup> century. \u00a0Designed by the American, P. B. Dye, Parco di Roma is only about eight kilometers as the crow flies from the Vatican.\u00a0 You can see the dome of St. Peter\u2019s from the 15th<\/sup> tee.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The course is routed at the base of a hill on the top of which sits a Norman castle, recently restored by its current owner, the Principessa Sofia Borghese.\u00a0 Part private residence, part elegant banquet hall, Castello Torcrescenza has been the setting over the last several years for celebrity weddings and splendid state receptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last summer Silvio Berlusconi, who has reportedly been trying to buy the castle for years from Dona Sofia and her husband, the Marchese Fabrizio Ferarri, finally convinced Dona Sofia\u2014who was described in a recent newspaper article as \u201ca descendent of Pope Paul V,\u201d under whose papacy the Basilica of St. Peter\u2019s was completed\u2014to rent it to him so he could avoid the paparazzi.\u00a0 It’s a very private setting.\u00a0\u00a0 A single gated road provides access to the castle, whose hilltop site was selected for its defensible terrain seven centuries ago.\u00a0 I was at Parco di Roma right before Berlusconi moved into the castle, and watched teams of burly guys walking around the golf course talking into their shoulders and looking for weaknesses in the security perimeter.<\/p>\n

Pino works hard to keep his avid membership at Parco di\u00a0Roma\u00a0happy.\u00a0\u00a0 The club has 1,400 members, including the bambani,\u00a0but “no one wants to book a tee time,\u201d Pino says.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThey just want to show up and play.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

One solution Pino invented takes advantage of the members’ gregarious approach to golf.\u00a0 Romans love a party, and they\u2019re equally enthusiastic about competitions.\u00a0\u00a0 Pino recruited a friend who runs a famous winery to sponsor a competition that combines wine-tasting (or guzzling, depending on your preference) \u00a0with Stapleford scoring.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOn the first tee,\u201d Pino explained, \u201cbefore you hit your drive you drink three glasses of wine.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Why three glasses?\u00a0 \u201cSo they have the possibility of drinking 18 glasses before they finish.\u00a0 I will explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0As an American, my thoughts turned immediately to lawsuits.\u00a0 As I try to imagine introducing this scheme into the US, all I can see is the image of a clutch of lawyers dancing across a well-manicured lawn tossing handfuls of subpoenas in the air like daisies.\u00a0 Releases to sign on the first tee.\u00a0 Designated drivers, and I am not talking about Big Berthas.\u00a0 Addiction counselors at the turn.\u00a0 Ah, but this is Rome, which has a couple of millenia of experience with banquets, feasts and\u00a0Bacchanalia.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you play three holes,\u201d Pino continued.\u00a0 \u201cOn the 4th<\/sup> tee we have another wine table set up. \u00a0The glasses are not so big.\u00a0 You have the possibility now to drink three more glasses.\u00a0 So let\u2019s say you make 6 on the first hole.\u00a0 You drink one glass of wine, you now can say you made 5.\u00a0 \u00a0Like a Mulligan, only you take it afterwards.\u00a0 Or say you made bogey on two\u2014you drink one more glass.\u00a0 Now you made par.\u00a0 And so on.\u00a0 With each glass you drink, up to three, you can take off one stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competitive objective now is figuring out how to balance the desire to improve your previous scores against the effects of the alcohol on your swing.\u00a0 Drinking six glasses of wine in forty minutes will have some impact on even the most well conditioned alcoholic\u2026I mean, \u201cgolfer.\u201d\u00a0 After each three hole cluster, players have the chance to drink up to three glasses again, with the same scoring options.\u00a0 So the sequence is: play three holes, go to the next tee and decide how many strokes you can handle.\u00a0 Wine awaits on the 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, and 15th tees, with the final slurps available in the clubhouse, at the combination scoring table\/tasting room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verification of scores was potentially an issue, but as\u00a0it turns out, Pino says,\u00a0nobody focuses\u00a0very much on the results.\u00a0 Everyone was eager, however, to get to the buffet, so the kitchen had to be on its game.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The winery sponsoring the first event was Biondi-Santi.\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s what the Italian wine merchants’ webpage says about Biondi-Santi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cEstablished in 1880, Biondi-Santi was a winery destined for greatness. But it wasn’t until the late-19th century that the estate at “Greppo” made its mark in viticulture history. It was then, in the renowned hills of Montalcino that Ferruccio Biondi-Sante took a clone of the Sangiovese grape, known as Sangiovese Grosso, and produced the first ever Brunello. \u00a0Ferruccio’s son Tancredi made the wine famous, officially classifying it as Brunello. Within a decade Biondi-Santi was receiving praise from wine-lovers everywhere. This new classifcation of Tuscan wine forever changed the Italian role in the industry. Today, it is Tancredi’s son Franco Biondi-Santi who runs the estate, producing nearly 70,000 bottles a year. These remarkable Brunellos are best-known for their incredible ability to age. Even 100-year-old Brunello from Biondi-Santi shows remarkably well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

With proprietor Daniele Tagliaferri at Enoteca Achille: the Biondi-Santi 1891 is on the shelf over my shoulder.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0That last claim is not hyperbolic.\u00a0 Pino, who knows everyone in Italy, introduced me his friend, Daniele Tagliaferri, who runs a famous Roman wine shop called Enoteco Achille, on Via Parlemento, named for its proximity to the Italian House of Parliament.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a picture I took recently<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
“Do you sell by the case?”<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

of a Biondi-Santi from the 1891 vintage.\u00a0 The price is \u20ac33,000\u2014or $41,177.\u00a0\u00a0 Next to it is a 1925–a mere \u20ac10,000, or $13,387.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When I reminded him of the prices on the great vintage\u00a0wines we saw at Enoteca Achille,\u00a0Pino laughed. \u00a0\u201cWe don’t serve Brunello,” he said.\u00a0\u00a0 “We serve a nice rosato\u201d\u2014an Italian ros\u00e9.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe about \u20ac48 a bottle.\u00a0\u00a0 Light wine compared to the great Brunellos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The prize for winning?\u00a0 What else, but wine from Biondi-Santi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great competition,\u201d Pino says.\u00a0 \u201cEven the losers don\u2019t seem too unhappy.\u00a0 And then afterwards we have a party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guiseppe Mili\u00e9, known to all as \u201cPino,\u201d is an Italian architect who is also the Managing Director of Parco di… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,176,18,17,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-business-travel","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/12\/Parco-di-Roma-001.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}