Testaccio in September: Grape Crush Season and the City's Best Supplì at Dusk

The grape must hits the cobblestones around the second week of September, and for a few days Testaccio smells like a winery floor. It's not a festival anyone markets to tourists — it's just what happens when the neighborhood's old-school wine bars start crushing table grapes the way they have since this was Rome's slaughterhouse district. I walked through on a Thursday evening last September, shoes sticky with juice, holding a supplì that burned the roof of my mouth, and thought: this is the version of Rome that people who only visit the centro storico never get.

Testaccio sits south of Aventine Hill, framed by the Tiber to the west and the old city walls to the south. The 20th rione. Flat enough that you can bike the whole neighborhood without shifting gears. In September, the light goes amber around 7 p.m. and the residential blocks exhale. Shutters open. Dinner starts.

1. The grape crush isn't on any calendar

There's no official date for the vendemmia informale in Testaccio. The bars and enoteche along Via Galvani and Via Marmorata start processing their grapes when the fruit arrives from Lazio vineyards — usually between September 8 and September 20. You'll know it's happening because the sidewalks in front of places like Vineria Ferrara get slippery and the air turns sweet-sour.

The best spot to watch the process is Enoteca Ferrara-style joints where the crushing still happens in open wooden crates out front, though the actual fermentation moves inside fast. Don't expect Napa Valley production tours. This is five guys in stained aprons working quickly while regulars drink last year's house red at €3 a glass.

Most of the action wraps up by early afternoon. Show up after 4 p.m. hoping to see grapes getting stomped and you'll find clean sidewalks and nothing to photograph.

2. Supplì al telefono at Supplizio, and why everyone else is wrong about the best one

The internet will tell you that Trapizzino on Via Giovanni Branca 88 makes the best supplì in Testaccio. I disagree. Trapizzino makes excellent pocket-shaped pizza — that's their thing — but their supplì is an afterthought on the menu, and it tastes like one.

Supplizio, at Via dei Banchi Vecchi 143, is technically in the centro storico, not Testaccio, but bear with me. Their classic supplì al telefono — the one where the mozzarella pulls into a long string when you break it open, like a telephone cord — costs €2.50 and arrives at the temperature of molten lava. They fry in small batches. The rice is properly al'onda, creamy, not the compressed hockey puck you get at tourist-adjacent places.

But if you want to stay in Testaccio proper, the supplì at 00100 Pizza on Via Giovanni Branca 98 is the move. €2. Perfectly salted. They close at 10 p.m. most nights.

Order at the counter, eat standing on the sidewalk at dusk.

3. The Testaccio Market is better than Campo de' Fiori in every way

Skip Campo de' Fiori entirely. It's a markup machine selling dried pasta at €12 a bag to people who just visited the Pantheon. The produce is middling. The energy is transactional.

Testaccio Market (Nuovo Mercato di Testaccio), at Via Beniamino Franklin, operates Tuesday through Saturday, roughly 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It moved into its current modernist box of a building in 2012, which means the stalls have refrigeration and the floors don't smell like the old covered market's drains. Box 47, Mordi e Vai, serves Rome's best bollito sandwich — boiled beef on a roll with salsa verde, €5. The line gets long after noon. Go at 11.

For produce, the fruit vendors along the market's east wall sell Lazio figs in September for about €3/kg — small, dark, almost jam-like inside. Across the aisle, you can get porchetta sliced to order at around €4 per etto. The cheese stalls carry pecorino romano that actually comes from Lazio, not the industrially produced Sardinian stuff most Roman restaurants quietly use.

4. Monte Testaccio and the caves underneath it

The hill itself — Monte Testaccio — is a 35-meter-tall artificial mound made entirely of broken amphorae from the Roman port that once operated here. Roughly 53 million olive oil vessels, shattered and stacked over three centuries. You can see the terracotta shards poking out of the grass on the slopes.

Access is restricted to guided tours, which run sporadically and require booking through the Sovrintendenza Capitolina. I've tried twice; the first time the tour was canceled, the second time it ran on schedule and lasted about 45 minutes. Check their site a few weeks ahead for September dates. Free but capped at around 25 people.

The nightclubs carved into the hill's base — Alibi, Goa Club, and others along Via di Monte Testaccio — use the caves formed between amphora walls as dance floors. In September the clubs are open Thursday through Saturday, doors around 11:30 p.m. Cover runs €10-15 with a drink included. The caves stay cool even when the dance floor doesn't.

5. Where to eat dinner without a reservation algorithm

Flavio al Velavevodetto, at Via di Monte Testaccio 97, is built into the amphora hill. Their cacio e pepe is loaded with black pepper to the point where some people find it aggressive. I find it correct. Mains run €10-14. They take reservations but walk-ins work on weekday evenings in September if you show up right at 7:30 p.m. opening.

Da Felice a Testaccio, Via Mastro Giorgio 29, is the old-guard choice. Their Thursday gnocchi and Friday baccalà follow Rome's traditional weekly menu rotation. Pasta courses €11-13. The room is loud and the waiters are blunt.

For something faster, Pizzeria Da Remo on Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice 44 does Roman-style thin-crust pizza — charred on the bottom, almost cracker-crisp — starting at €6. Cash only, or at least it was last September. The line forms by 8 p.m.; by 8:45 you're eating.

A plate of rigatoni alla pajata — pasta with milk-fed veal intestines in tomato sauce — is the dish that separates Testaccio lifers from everyone else. You either love the mineral, creamy funk or you don't. Flavio does a good version. Skip the pajata at places near Termini; it's usually reheated and tastes like it.

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6. The Protestant Cemetery is not depressing

Cimitero Acattolico di Roma, Via Caio Cestio 6. Open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Suggested donation €3. Keats is buried here. So is Shelley. The Pyramid of Cestius — a 36-meter-tall marble-clad tomb built around 12 BC — rises directly behind the cemetery wall.

I made the mistake of rushing through on my first visit, treating it like a checklist. The second time I sat on a bench near Keats's grave for twenty minutes and watched the cemetery cats sleep in the shade of umbrella pines. September afternoon light comes through the cypresses at a low angle that makes the white marble glow.

The colony of cats is managed by volunteers. Well-fed and unbothered.

7. Getting there, getting around, getting out

Metro B, Piramide station. That's your anchor. It drops you at the northeast corner of Testaccio, next to the Pyramid of Cestius and the Porta San Paolo. From there, the market is a 7-minute walk southwest. Monte Testaccio is 10 minutes south.

The 3 tram runs along Viale Aventino on the neighborhood's northern edge and connects to Trastevere in about 12 minutes. Bus 75 runs from Termini through Testaccio, though in September service can be irregular in the evenings — Roman public transit doesn't pretend to be Swiss.

The neighborhood is compact. From Piramide station to Da Remo is about 900 meters. You can walk the entire rione in 40 minutes without trying. Flat the whole way.

September evenings cool down to around 18-20°C after sunset. Light jacket territory. The cobblestones on Via Marmorata are uneven enough that heeled shoes become a liability after a glass of wine.

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