Marino Wine Festival

If you know me at all, you know that I've become the type that enjoys day drinking over going out at night, the type that prefers wine over liquor, and the type that prefers attending events where I can bring my dog over, well, anything else. So when my friend casually mentioned that she's going to a wine festival just outside Rome, I not-so-casually invited myself along. As if a day of strolling around a small town, drinking local wine and watching all sorts of street performances wasn't good enough, the promise of seeing water turned into wine sure was. And let me say, I was not disappointed.

The festival was started in 1925 and is dedicated to the grapes and wines produced in the region. I heard that it attracts an average of 100,000 people, most of whom were surprisingly not tourists. The place was wild; the streets and alleyways of this little town were packed with people, a variety of performers - from bands to baton twirlers - marched down the streets, the pavement was essentially covered in grapes, and most importantly, the fountains spewed wine instead of water!

This was by no means a calm afternoon of wine tasting. Watching groups of people signing, dancing, and getting rowdy was all part of the fun. The fountain wine was being distributed freely to all festival-goers, so it was no surprise that people were quite drunk. Just imagine the excitement of a crowd getting free wine from the town's fountain. Of course, we missed the actual moment of the fountain's water turning into wine because we were staring at the wrong fountain (yeah, we probably should have been tipped off by the fact that we were at a horse fountain, not a fountain of "Four Moors"), but eventually we made our way to the right one and got our water bottles filled with delicious wine.

Although Wauwa did not get any wine (though he was offered some by multiple people), he did get to enjoy the scraps of food the drunken festival folk had dropped. There were lots of food stalls with various local snacks so he had quite the feast. Taking the train with him was a breeze, as usual. Although this time I was told to buy him a ticket... But as I'm learning the Italian way of life, I didn't do as I was told, and the train conductor didn't ask for the ticket either. The trip home was a bit of a struggle, though, as there were thousands of people trying to get on the same, one and only, train back to Termini station (so I would suggest organizing a ride home for anyone who attends this festival in the future). Sagra dell'Uva was a fun surprise of authentic Italian festivity and if I were here next October, I would definitely go again!

#marinowinefestival #sargadelluva #italy #travelingwithpets