Brylla Wine Bar in Rome, Italy

Posted by Rowena Dumlao Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 9/08/2017

Brylla Wine Bar in Rome, Italy

Un posto dove bere bene, avere un’ampia scelta e sentirsi a casa. Brylla è il posto dove vorrei stare, Marcella Capaldo.

A place to drink well, to have ample choices and to feel at home. Brylla is the place where I would like to stay, declares Marcella Capaldo, a passionate winelover, sommelier and proprietress of Brylla Wine Bar. After my first, second and ultimately, my third visit to Brylla, I agree with Marcella. When I want to try new wines without wasting too much money, the only place I can think of is Brylla. It's a paradise for every winelover like me. A place where you can try excellent wines or extremely expensive wines that you might never even dream of tasting at all.

After my introductory visit there last July with Laurenzi Consulting, the leading food designing company that designed and built Brylla, I knew that I found the perfect place that I had been looking for. I've been there three times already and if not for the almost hour long drive just to arrive there, I would be there more frequently. Being a winelover myself, I couldn't believe that I can actually taste all the wines in the wine list, all 200 plus of them. You can order them by the glass, in two quantity levels. One is the tasting quantity level which should be about 60 ml., give or take and the more ample one is the drinking quantity level, the amount we are more used to when we are drinking, which should be about 150 ml. It's also possible to have the wines in half bottles and full bottles of course.

With the use of the Coravin System, Brylla gains the possibility to serve its wines without opening the bottle at all and preventing oxidation which helps in the longevity of the wine. The Coravin System works with a hollow medical grade needle that is inserted through the cork of the wine and is pressurized with Argon gas. Once the needle goes out of the cork, being naturally elastic and porous, it bounces back to its original state, seals the minuscule hole that the needle made which leaves the wine unaffected. The only wines that the Coravin cannot function with are the sparkling wines.

Brylla opened in October 2016 in the Trieste area of Rome which is a bit out of the way from the center but if you can find your way there, I can assure you that it's a great place to discover hundreds of Italian and other European (French, Austrian, German and Spanish) wines with a more affordable approach.

If you have always been wondering how the Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1er Grand Cru Classè is like that usually sells for more than one thousand Euros, you can get yourself a tasting quantity at Brylla for €100. A lot of other expensive excellent wines are in the wine list like Gaja Barbaresco DOCG 2013 (€220 bottle / €22 tasting glass), Chateau Cheval Blanc 1er Grand Cru Classè 2007 (€600 bottle / €60 tasting glass), Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Bolgheri DOC Superiore Ornellaia 2013 (€220 bottle / €22 tasting glass), and Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC 2008 (€250 bottle / €25 tasting glass).

And there's more. You can also take your own bottle to Brylla and just pay for the service of the Coravin System. If you didn't finish the wine bottle that you ordered and would like to take it home with you, you can do so freely. The wine list is not categorized by wine region as it is usually done in other places rather, it is categorized into three groups.

Scacciapensieri: wines that are direct and simple which are ideal for relaxing and freeing the mind.

Comfort Wines: wines with more structure, luxurious, succulent and round.
Riflessivi (Reflexive): wines that are more complex, with great personalities and intriguing to drink when you want to experience a more challenging and fascinating experience.

The food selection is a unique gastronomical selection of dishes to go well with the wines in the list. The food entries are sometimes changed so that there can be more variety for the frequent-goers (like me). Take for instance their burger filled grilled octopus and avocado which is so good but was recently taken away from the menu to give way to newer ones, hoping that they would put it back soon. There's a dining area for lunch and dinner where you can book a table in advance, as well as an area for aperitif where the food menu comes in smaller quantities.

Wines come hand in hand with prosciutto and cheese and at Brylla, you can order the cheese boards with different varieties along with the sweet and piquant mostarda di frutta (candied fruit with mustard-flavored syrup). They also have foie gras patè with fig mostarda, mini tartare hamburger, vegetable tartare with burrata of Andria, scallops cooked in Sauternes, codfish with tomatoes, and a lot more.

They also have a line of seafood, meat and vegetable dishes grilled in the Josper oven which is an oven-type indoor charcoal grill. The food that comes out from it is smoky and tender and if you try their Punta di Maiale Iberico (Iberian Pork), you will get the best of the flavors and tenderness in one dish. They also have octopus, codfish, rice, chicken and cubes of Angus beef cooked in the Josper oven.

Brylla, a name that makes you think of brilla, the Italian word for shine. A star has brilliance like Sirius, the brightest star in the earth's night sky and the star that from the ancient times indicates the beginning of the grape harvest.