I stood across the island with a glass of wine, filled my own plate and ate standing up.
We opened another bottle of wine, filled a dish with some olives left over from the cauliflower salad, and crashed.
With this wealth they built a huge, frescoed palace in Naples and consolidated their influence in the region: Belmonte wine filled the cellars of Madrid when Carlo III of Naples became King of Spain.
At the expensive end of that appellation is the superb 1997 Clos des Truffiers, an immense wine filled with the scents of berries and spices, produced entirely from syrah from old vines.
At azulejo-tiled Taberna São Pedro in Vila Nova de Gaia, the nostalgic sounds of traditional fado music fill the air, fish is roasted on pavement grills, and the heady smell of vinho verde (young wine) fills the air (00 351 916 585 046; Rua Agostinho Al Bano 84; plates of sea bass £7).
Upstairs is altogether more Roman, with wines filling high wooden shelves and rickety wooden tables being congenially shoved back and forth by passing waiters as they struggle to hitch bottles down for clients; even better, a few outside tables give a front-row view of neighbourhood life on Testaccio's market square.
She selects wines, fills glasses, assembles plates of food and cleans up after the tastefully tousled young things who crowd the brightly lighted room every night.
In recent years, the area has emerged as a champion of the slow-food movement: organic local produce and wines fill menus at the local restaurants.
These were more substantial wines, filled with lush aromas, yet they retained their lively acidity and never tasted hot or alcoholic.
Counterfeiters started obtaining empty bottles of expensive wine and filling them with plonk, and even created ersatz wine by mixing sugar water with artificial color and flavor.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten braises carrots with cumin and orange juice and beef brisket smothered in onions, while Mario Batali braises beef cheeks in red wine before filling ravioli with them.
