Bormio is just south of the Swiss border and smack in the middle of the Italian Alps, just a few hours from Milan. The area’s natural hot springs have been in continuous use for thousands of years and are contained in a lovely resort called the Bagni di Bormio (the Baths of Bormio). Pliny the Elder was already raving about their beneficial properties back in the first century A.D. And throughout the ages, Leonardo Da Vinci, European royalty, and the like regularly flocked here to “take the waters.”The Hotel Bagni Vecchi (Older Bath Hotel) is a smaller, cozier, and more traditional Valtellina mountain-style hotel. At the same time, the Grand Hotel Bagni Nuovi (Grand New Baths Hotel), on the other hand, is a sumptuous mid-19th-century Victorian extravaganza, replete with grand dining and dancing halls and Murano glass chandeliers. Both hotels were built around the terme (natural hot springs), meticulously preserving the original Roman baths and enhancing them by adding an underground spa with modern cedar saunas and mineral water Jacuzzis. The trump card of the terme is an outdoor Roman thermal pool perched up against the mountain that looks out over the ski slopes and picturesque Alpine valley. Add to this the charming town of Bormio itself, and it comes as no surprise at all that the Bagni di Bormio has been popular for a very long time.Layne Randolph, The Italian Notebook
While living in Italy for nearly a decade, Layne was legal counsel for Fendi in Rome and, as a side gig, a freelance travel writer. After relocating to Sonoma County, California, she dusted off her journalism degree to craft stories full-time as Roma to Sonoma. She's led readers into the cellars and vineyards of hundreds of wine brands as a copywriter and contributor to publications such as Wine Enthusiast, AFAR, Napa Valley Life, Haute Living San Francisco, and Decanter. Layne is a certified Napa Valley Wine Specialist pursuing WSET's Level 3 certification, and in 2022 and 2023, the Napa Valley Vintners chose her to be a Fellow with the Wine Writers' Symposium. She focuses her prose on travel, wine, and wellness and dreams of places to add to the five continents and 51 countries she has explored.
Napa Valley Life Magazine
This is where ancient Roman nobility and popes sourced the most prized wine, and here, near the town of Velletri, the Ômina Romana (Roman Omens) winery and vineyards thrive. The vines—planted in volcanic soil, warmed by the Mediterranean sun, and cooled by sea breezes—grow in an optimal micro-climate that allows them to express their full potential. And it has—Ômina Romana used the fruit from these vines and state-of-the-art tools and scientific research to produce wine worthy of Italy’s highest rating: Tre Bicchieri.
Fabio Ciarla, Cincinnato Winery
An incredible path that binds Layne Randolph to Italy, if “the outward journey” saw fashion as the protagonist, “the return” is all oriented towards wine. After a few years of study and work in Turin and Rome, with prestigious assignments for fashion houses of the level of Fendi, Layne decided to return to the US to pursue other career paths, however choosing a landscape that was similar to the Italian hills. So here is Sonoma, and the beginning of an adventure in the world of wine that she explains to us in the first answer to our questions. We met her for an insight into the wines of Lazio and we are really happy to have had this opportunity, such high-level writing is what every territory wants to make itself known!
The Tormaresca estate is almost as remote as Tasca D’Almerita’s Regaleali in central Sicily, and both are well worth the trip. We parked in what we later found out was the back of the winery and searched on foot for five minutes to find the entrance.
