Every year when Gambero Rosso announces the winners of the tre bicchieri (3 glasses) in their Vini d’Italia guide, I check if there are any wines that I would like to try. Only 400-500 wines win a tre bicchieri award per year, so it is quite prestigious. In the 2025 edition I noticed a winner from Lazio (the area around Rome) that I found particularly interesting, because it was a varietal wine of a grape variety that I had never tasted before: Bellone. It was the Anthium Bellone 2023 by Casale del Giglio. On their website, the winery suggests to pair this wine with a Minestra di Sgavajone, a typical soup of the fishermen of Anzio made with the broth of the local fish called Sgavajone, rarely found outside the family home. Anzio is a fishermen’s town that is less than 10 miles from the winery and about 1 hour South of Rome (as well as within the province of Rome). Sgavajone is the local name for tub gurnard, a fish that is usually known as gallinella di mare (hen of the sea) in Italy, because it has a wattle under its head, just like a chicken. The winery provides a recipe for this soup, which reminds me a lot of the classic recipe for bouillabaisse. It is a recipe to use up fish that are too small to sell, as the fish is boiled for 2 hours, and then passed through a sieve to remove the bones and create a soup that is thickened with pureed fish. This is a very laborious process and it would also be a waste of the very nice large tub gurnard that I had picked up from my fishmonger. I did a bit of googling and found this recipe for vermicelli al sugo di sgavajone, which is from the same town and uses the same ingredients as the minestra, but then to make a sugo to serve over pasta. Vermicelli is just another word for spaghetti (Italians love to use a different word for the same food if you move to another region — to prove my point, that recipe mentions that the same fish is also known as còccio in the local dialect). And so that is what I prepared to pair with the (very nice and affordable) wine. I made a few changes to the recipe to improve the flavor (I reduced the fish stock and used it in the sauce rather than boiling the spaghetti in diluted stock) and improve the texture of the fish (as boiling the fish will result in dried out fish — I allowed the fish to cook gently in the residual heat of the sauce).

An interesting point was that the recipe also included pecorino cheese (which is obviously pecorino romano as we are so close to Rome here). Italians usually frown upon serving cheese with any type of seafood, or even consider it sacrilege. But according to this recipe it is a local custom to serve it on this dish, so I did try it. I liked it, although it did overpower the subtle flavor of the fish (which is exactly the reason why Italians usually don’t serve cheese with seafood).

Ingredients

Serves 3-4

• 1 tub gurnard of about 800 grams (1.8 lbs), filleted, with head and bones reserved for the stock
• 300 grams (.66 lb) spaghetti
• 1 carrot, 1 celery stick, 1 onion, chopped
• 750 grams (1.7 lbs) fresh ripe plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 anchovy fillet, minced
• 80 ml (1/3 cup) dry white wine
• 1 Tbsp minced fresh flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• freshly grated pecorino romano cheese, optional

Instructions

Season the fish fillets with salt on both sides…

…and then slice the fish into bite size pieces. Refrigerate the fish to allow the salt to penetrate into the fish.

Use the fish head and bones, carrot, onion, and celery to make a fish stock, using the same method as in this recipe.

Sieve the resulting fish stock into a wide and shallow pan, then bring it to a boil…

…and then simmer the stock over medium heat until it has been reduced to about 125 ml (1/2 cup), and reserve.

While the stock is simmering, peel and seed the tomatoes as described in this recipe, and then puree them using a blender or food processor.

Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Add a minced clove of garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes, and stir over medium heat until the garlic just starts to color. Do not allow the garlic to turn brown, because that will make it bitter.

Add 80 ml of dry white wine.

Allow the wine to reduce by half to burn off the alcohol, then add the pureed tomatoes.

Bring to a boil…

…and then simmer the tomato sauce until it is no longer watery (which you can tell because it no longer ‘bleeds’ clear liquid when you use a spatula to clear part of the bottom of the pan, as shown in the photo).

Now add the reserved fish stock.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. When the water boils, add salt and the spaghetti. Boil the spaghetti for the time indicated on the package for al dente.

While you are waiting for the pasta water to come to a boil, bring the sauce to a boil…

…and simmer it again until it is no longer watery. Turn off the heat if this happens well before the pasta water boils.

Right after you add the spaghetti to the water, make sure the sauce is simmering, and then add the reserved fish…

…stir until it is completely covered with the sauce…

…and then cover the pan to allow the fish to cook in the sauce. The heat should be off or very very low. The sauce should definitely not boil, as that would dry out the fish.

Stir after 5 minutes or so, then cover the pan again.

The fish will cook in the heat of the sauce, but remain succulent.

When the spaghetti is al dente, drain it, and add it to the sauce, together with most of the parsley.

Stir to mix, then serve at once on preheated plates, sprinkled with the remaining parsley, and drizzled with the best extra virgin olive oil you can afford. Freshly grated pecorino romano is optional.

Wine pairing

It goes without saying that we paired this with the Anthium Bellone by Casale del Gigilio. Many other Italian whites would work as well, like a Vermentino from Sardinia or a Verdicchio from Jesi or Matelica.