Barolo Chinato Cappellano

The origins

The story of the Cappellano vineyard begins with the great-great-grandfather, the notary Filippo Cappellano, a rich landowner with a passion for wine, who, at the age of 48, founded the company, bringing together 150 giornate piemontesi (corresponding to about 60 hectares) into one estate of farmland. When he died, his son Giovanni, an enologist, succeeded him in managing the company; he renovated the vineyard, and he built two hotels in Alba and in Serralunga, with all the best facilities available for the tourism of Liguria and Piemonte. He created the famous “grape cure” in Serralunga, establishing a transport service by horse and carriage from the train station of Alba.

The 1900s

In 1889, at the Paris Universal Exhibition, Giovanni Cappellano’s vineyard won a bronze medal. He probably went to France in order to corner its market, since French grapevines in those years had already been attacked by the terrible phylloxera. Giuseppe, Giovanni’s brother, instead graduated in pharmacy, choosing the industrial way of wine- pharmaceutical production. He created in that period concentrated musts, used for their healing effects, and the first grape jellies (winning a gold medal at the international exhibition of wine products). Furthermore he invented the famous Barolo Chinato. The industrial adventure of Giuseppe ended soon: in 1912 his brother Giovanni died from a tropical fever contracted in Tunisia, where he had gone in order to look for some species of vines resistant to phylloxera, so Giuseppe chose to take care of the family company.

Baldo’s age

Augusto’s grandfather Francesco Augusto Cappellano, an oenologist, followed his ancestors’ footsteps in passing on the baton to his son Teobaldo, Augusto’s father, at the end of the 1960s. After his childhood in Eritrea, Teobaldo took the helm of the company and changed it dramatically: much smaller in size and highest quality control, following very specific guidelines.

Barolo Chinato

It was the closing of 1870 when Giuseppe Cappellano, pharmacist of Serralunga d’Alba with a shop in Turin, perfected the original recipe of Barolo Chinato marketing as “medicinal and anti-malaric liniment” what would shortly after become one of the classics of Italian oenology. We talk of recipe and not of formula because this great aromatic wine for meditation is born out of artisanal wisdom, handed down in our family generation after generation, which has much in common with the knowledge of the land and countryside culture. The preparation is well-known ‒ the extract of china calissaia mixed with other aromatic herbs, sugar, and alcohol is added to the aged Barolo ‒ whereas the list of spices used for the aroma is secret. The equilibrium of contrasts, the gusto-olfactive complexity, and an endless persistence constitute the charm of a wine which is seductive as few others, capable of sustaining the nigh-impossible match with dark chocolate.

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