A Lesson in Taste

A Chinese proverb says that wine should be taken in small doses, knowledge in large ones. Rome's International Wine Academy, overlooking the Spanish Steps, affords an opportunity for both. Italian winemaking has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, and the academy reveals its secrets to students. Comprehensive courses on wines from around the world and food-wine pairing are among the events and seminars offered to people who live in Rome. For visitors, there are half-day intensive courses followed by lunch or dinner; one-day winery tours in Lazio, Umbria or Tuscany; and delightful guided wine tastings every weekday evening from 6 to 7 p.m. in the wine bar, in Italian and/or English, depending on who turns up. (The wine tasting is $24, courses from $155 to $840.)

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The academy is the brainchild of Roberto Wirth, a passionate wine buff and owner of the luxe Hassler Villa Medici Hotel above Piazza di Spagna. Over an appropriately bibulous lunch with two friends—the wine writer Hugh Johnson and Steven Spurrier, founder of the Académie du Vin in Paris (now closed) and Tokyo—Wirth realized "that there was nothing of this kind in Italy and it was the perfect moment and the perfect place to carry out such a project." He found the perfect property in the palazzetto, an abandoned four-story private mansion abutting the Spanish Steps with a second-floor garden and a rooftop terrace with a 360° view of Rome. In the wine bar, interior designer Astrid Wirth, Roberto's wife, created a clubby atmosphere with dark wood and plush red-and-cream velvet sofas and stools. The library, a bookcase-lined dining room, seats 20 and displays impressive bottles and wine literature. There's dining on the garden terrace, and a private party may be reserved in the well-stocked corner cantina. Three airy double rooms upstairs, fitted with every luxury found at the Hassler, are a bargain at $300-$420 per night. Just having the use of such an address as a meeting place is well worth the $24 annual membership fee. But even that is waived for now in a promotion to lure members, since a wine tasting is included free in the annual membership.

The Wine Academy is snobbery-free; Wirth believes that wine is a pleasure, and he wants to share the joy. A guided tasting with sommeliers Andrea Sturniolo or Ian Domenico D'Agata is vastly entertaining and full of great tips (Aglianico grapes make Italy's best affordable, high-quality reds; 1998 was a very good year for Chianti, but not for its pricey neighbor in Montalcino—for a Brunello, choose a '97 or a '99). Rather than intimidating neophytes, the academy's mission is to show people how to judge wine for themselves and feel at home with the rich culture and traditions of the grape.