Thirty-Year Balsamic, and the Barolo Keeps Coming

Four hours and more than twenty tastings across five venues, and the first thing to say is where: not the centre, but Prati and the streets around Via Cipro, the residential quarter behind the Vatican where Romans actually shop. Fifteen people at most.

The opening venue lays out a table: buffalo mozzarella DOP, sun-dried tomatoes, bruschette with DOP olive oil and three pestos, poured with Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG prosecco that keeps coming. Then Parmigiano Reggiano aged thirty-six months under traditional balsamic from Reggio Emilia aged thirty years, which is a condiment made over three decades in a succession of shrinking barrels and costs accordingly. Prosciutto di Parma at twenty-four months, salami cured in Barolo, bruschetta with truffle cream, ricotta under white-truffle honey, caciotta with black truffle pâté, all against Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

The pizza stop is Gabriele Bonci's, the baker who turned pizza al taglio into something people queue for and who is called the Michelangelo of pizza more often than he probably enjoys.

The gourmet shop keeps more than four hundred cheeses and a hundred and fifty cured meats, and the family who run it present their own selection to you.

Then a sit-down Roman restaurant for handmade pasta with free-flowing DOCG Barolo, which is Nebbiolo from Piedmont aged at least three years and not the wine anyone expects on a food tour at this price. Artisanal gelato closes it.

Food and wine are unlimited throughout. The walk ends by Ottaviano metro, ten minutes from St Peter's Square.

Guided in English, wheelchair accessible. Substitutions for vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and lactose-intolerant guests if flagged at booking. The guide waits inside the café at the meeting point for the first hour, so a late arrival is not fatal.