Why it matters
The producer
Antica Torino is a small Turin house making aromatized wines from historic Piedmontese recipes. Vittorio Zoppi and Filippo Antonelli founded it in 2016, not as a vineyard estate but as a production house for the category of drinks that Turin once made famous and then largely abandoned: vermouth, chinato, and wine-based aperitivi built from botanical macerations.
Zoppi spent twenty years managing sales networks in North America for wine and liqueur companies. Antonelli holds a degree in Agricultural Sciences from Perugia University and is the great-great-grandson of Giuseppe Giacosa, the librettist who collaborated with Puccini on La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. The two men arrived at the same project from different directions and with complementary knowledge of what it takes to make and sell a category product.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Turin sits at the southwestern edge of the Po Plain, with the Alps to the west and the Langhe hills to the south. The city gave its name to the Vermouth di Torino designation, which requires that the vermouth be produced within the Piedmont region and carry a minimum wormwood content traceable to local practice. The designation is a legal category as much as a geographical one: it marks a specific production tradition, not a vineyard address.
Antica Torino is a Turin producer in that legal sense. The base wines come from the Langhe, the hill country south of Alba where Nebbiolo and Moscato Secco grow. The botanicals travel further: chinotto, gentian, rhubarb, and rose are not Piedmontese crops, but their combination in a Nebbiolo or Moscato base is the regional act.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Production at Antica Torino follows botanical maceration rather than vinification. For the Vermouth di Torino Bianco, wormwood, marjoram, sage, coriander, iris, and liquorice macerate in 96-degree alcohol for thirty days. That high-proof alcohol extracts the aromatic compounds from the botanicals more completely than wine alone would. The botanical infusion is then blended with base wine and rests in steel tanks for forty-five to sixty days before filtration and bottling. The finished vermouth ages in bottle for a further thirty to forty-five days before release.
The Vino Chinato follows a similar sequence but with a more complex botanical bill and a Nebbiolo base that adds colour, tannin, and bitterness. Thirteen botanicals, including chinotto, wormwood, gentian, elderberry, rhubarb, laurel, chamomile, marjoram, cinnamon, vanilla, coriander, rose, and nutmeg, go into maceration. Gestation runs at least fifteen to thirty days. Vino Chinato has a bouquet of rose, nutmeg, and aromatic herbs, with bitter aromatic herbs shaping its backbone.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range runs to four products, each built on a different base wine and botanical combination.
Vermouth di Torino Bianco is the white vermouth. The botanicals, wormwood, marjoram, sage, coriander, iris, and liquorice, macerate in high-proof alcohol for thirty days before blending with base wine. The finished liquid sits in steel for up to sixty days, then rests in bottle before release. On the palate it is floral and lightly bitter, with liquorice running through a softly spiced, rounded finish. It drinks cool, straight or with a splash of water, and is the most aperitivo-forward product in the range.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Vino Chinato. It is the bottle that most fully explains what Antica Torino is doing and why: a named Nebbiolo from a specific Barbaresco grower, thirteen botanicals assembled from a historic recipe, and a production process that takes at least fifteen days of maceration before any blending begins. On the nose it opens with rose and nutmeg. In the mouth the bitterness of chinotto and gentian dominates, balanced by cinnamon and vanilla so that the finish is long and complex rather than simply austere. Serve it chilled and neat after a meal.