Born in an apothecary's bottega in 1786. Nearly forgotten a century later. Reborn, unhurriedly, in our own time.
For nearly two and a half centuries, a fortified wine infused with wormwood and a precise choreography of botanicals has defined the hours between work and dinner in Turin. At Casa Vermouth, we treat it as what it has always been: an invitation to slow down.
Two and a half centuries of Turin's aperitivo, in brief.
Antonio Benedetto Carpano, a young piemontese herbalist, opens a tiny bottega beside Palazzo Reale. He calls his creation vermouth, from the German Wermut — wormwood. Within weeks, the court of Vittorio Amedeo III is sending servants to queue for bottles. A new category is born, and it is born here, in Turin.
Read the full story →By the Belle Époque, vermouth is the social currency of Europe's capitals. Cinzano, Martini & Rossi, Gancia — Turin's great houses dress the tables of Paris, Vienna, Buenos Aires. The ritual of the aperitivo enters the daily grammar of the bourgeoisie. Vermouth is no longer a drink; it is a civilisation.
Read the full story →Then, silence. Industrial cocktails, global spirits, the changing rhythms of postwar leisure — vermouth slips into the dusty shelf behind the bar, remembered only as a quarter-ounce in a martini. For nearly four decades, the word itself becomes a kind of nostalgia.
Read the full story →A new generation of artisans — many of them piemontesi — begin to ask what vermouth would taste like if made with the same care as a grower champagne. Small producers emerge. In 2017, Vermouth di Torino earns its IGP, anchoring the category to its birthplace. Casa Vermouth is a product of this moment.
Read the full story →Five components calibrated to the gram — wine, fortifier, syrup, botanicals and a touch of caramel — then poured over ice and lifted with orange. As old as modern chemistry, as alive as a garden.
The house goblet — ice, a wedge of orange.
The Turinese serve. Pour the vermouth over ice, finish with a wedge of orange on the rim. Everything before the ice is measured to the gram; everything after is pleasure.
Five components, over thirty botanicals, calibrated to the gram. A composition regulated by Vermouth di Torino IGP since 2017.
The window is being dressed. A private bar of Vermouth di Torino — each bottle selected, not bought — to be unveiled with the Casa.
Essays, dispatches and investigations — written in-house, published unhurriedly.
A reconstruction of the small Turin shop where, in 1786, a 22-year-old herbalist named Antonio Benedetto Carpano poured the first glass of modern vermouth — and turned a quiet experiment into the city's most enduring ritual.
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Wormwood, gentian, chamomile, citrus peels — a reading of the small alphabet of herbs and spices that, for two and a half centuries, has composed the aroma of Vermouth di Torino.
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From the gilded mirrors of Baratti & Milano to the literary salon of the Circolo dei Lettori — a walking itinerary through seven historic addresses, with a map and what to order at each.
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