Miserable Romans

The badly-oiled, leaking behemoth that is Combo Catering creaked into action last weekend. Big wedding at a local country house. Your correspondent was in charge of the drinks table at the pre-dinner aperitivi and then acted as wine waiter throughout the evening.
Pride of place pre-dinner was this very expensive bowl full of cheap, home-made, tooth enamel stripping sangria.
I made about ten litres and they necked virtually the lot, to wash down lots of tables of delicious nibbles, lovingly prepared by Mrs Combo.
However, it was an odd wedding, very low-key for Italian standards, a few desultory "eep, eep urraaaas"* and that was about it. Seemed more like a provincial Rotary Club lunch. I asked a local guest afterwards for a reason and he said "Most of them were up from Rome. Miserable bastards, Romans."

*It's what Italians shout at weddings as they toast the bride and groom. Lord knows where they got that from.