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Chazalettes & Co.

Turin vermouth house founded in 1876, revived from a century-old recipe book.

The producer

Chazalettes & Co. is a Vermouth di Torino producer, not a grape-growing estate. Its art is botanical: which herbs, which wine base, and in what proportion. Clemente Chazalettes founded the house in Turin in 1876 after years as technical production manager at Martini & Sola, one of the city's established vermouth makers. He opened on Via Sacchi near Porta Nuova station, earned royal recognition from Queen Margherita and Princess Laetitia Napoleon of Savoy, and by 1909 had built a 20,000-square-metre plant in Collegno beside the railway to France. Production stopped in the 1970s.

Giovanni Chazalettes, the founder's descendant, kept the original recipe book and the company archive through the long silence. The revival used the original recipes. The current range includes: Rosso della Regina on a red wine base with wormwood, savory and coriander; Bianco della Regina on white wine with cardamom, angelica and sweet citrus; and Extra Dry with citrus, Alpine herbs, juniper and other spices, bottled at 18% alcohol.

Known for

Vermouth di Torino made from historically grounded recipes, with citrus, Alpine herbs, juniper and other spices in the Extra Dry.

Notable facts

The story

The Coat of Arms

In 1907, Queen Margherita of Savoy and Princess Laetitia Napoleon arrived separately at the same conclusion: Chazalettes deserved to carry the Royal House coat of arms. The authorisation was personal, from two named women of the dynasty rather than any trade body or ministry. Clemente placed the emblem on the labels and on the company letterhead, and it stayed there. The house grew, stopped, and came back. When the bottles returned to the market, the coat of arms came with them. A royal authorisation granted to a vermouth maker in Turin in 1907 is now printed on a bottle you can buy today.

The Coat of Arms

In 1907, Queen Margherita of Savoy and Princess Laetitia Napoleon arrived separately at the same conclusion: Chazalettes deserved to carry the Royal House coat of arms. The authorisation was personal, from two named women of the dynasty rather than any trade body or ministry. Clemente placed the emblem on the labels and on the company letterhead, and it stayed there. The house grew, stopped, and came back. When the bottles returned to the market, the coat of arms came with them. A royal authorisation granted to a vermouth maker in Turin in 1907 is now printed on a bottle you can buy today.

From the atlas

Chazalettes & Co.

At A Glance

The Producer

Chazalettes & Co. is a Vermouth di Torino house producing aromatized wine from a base wine and natural botanical extracts, using historic recipes retained by Giovanni Chazalettes. It is not a grape-growing estate. There are no vineyards, no parcels, no soils to discuss. The maker's art here is botanical: which herbs, which wine base, and in what proportion.

Clemente Chazalettes was forty years old when he founded the house in Turin in 1876. He had spent the preceding years as technical production manager at Martini & Sola, then one of Turin's most established vermouth producers, and he left with the confidence to start his own business. The original premises were on Via Sacchi, close to the Porta Nuova railway station, a practical address for a producer whose bottles needed to travel. By 1909 the business had grown large enough to require a new plant in Collegno, west of Turin: 20,000 square metres, more than forty employees, positioned beside the railway connecting Turin to France and the rest of Europe.

Two members of the House of Savoy, Queen Margherita and Princess Laetitia Napoleon, authorised Chazalettes to place the Royal House coat of arms on its labels and letterhead. The emblem appeared on bottles from that point and a version of it still does.

Production stopped in the 1970s. Giovanni Chazalettes, the founder's descendant, held the original recipes and the archive through the long silence. The revival used the original recipes. The current range consists of Rosso della Regina, Bianco della Regina and Extra Dry.

Place

Vermouth di Torino is a regulated category, not a vineyard appellation. Turin is its home city, and Piedmont is the broader region the category is associated with. The name on the label means the aromatized wine meets a legal standard: wine base, natural botanical extracts, a defined alcohol range, and production in the Turin area. Chazalettes operates within that framework.

The category's flavour logic does not come from soil or elevation. It comes from the selection of botanicals and the character of the base wine. A Rosso and a Bianco from the same house can taste entirely different from each other because the botanical recipe, not the vineyard, is the primary variable.

Soil And Site

Chazalettes holds no vineyard land. The botanical extracts and wine bases that form its vermouths are sourced rather than grown. The physical anchors in this producer's story are urban: a premises near a railway station in central Turin in 1876, a 20,000-square-metre plant beside the freight line to France in 1909, and an archive that survived the decades in between. Those are the sites that shaped what Chazalettes made and how far it travelled.

Story

The Chazalettes family moved from Chambéry to Turin in 1860, the year Savoy was annexed by France and the House of Savoy's capital shifted in significance. Clemente found work at Martini & Sola and learned the craft before deciding he could run a house of his own. He was right. Within three decades of the 1876 founding, the house had royal approval and was building infrastructure at a scale that speaks to real commercial ambition: a plant with a forty-person workforce placed deliberately beside a rail line to European markets.

The interruption came in the 1970s. What changed after decades of growth is not documented in precise terms, but the category as a whole went through a long contraction and Chazalettes went with it. Giovanni Chazalettes did not discard the archive. He kept the recipes and waited. The revival used those original recipes.

Vineyards And Cellar

Chazalettes has no vineyards. The production work is botanical. Each expression starts with a wine base, red for the Rosso and white for the Bianco and Extra Dry. Natural herbal and spice extracts are added using the house recipe for each expression. The Extra Dry combines citrus peel freshness with Alpine herbs, juniper and other spices.

All extracts used by Chazalettes are natural. No artificial flavouring is documented.

Wines

The current range consists of Rosso della Regina, Bianco della Regina and Extra Dry.

Vermouth Rosso della Regina is built on a red wine base. The botanical list runs to wormwood, Piedmontese savory, marjoram, musk mallow and coriander. Wormwood gives the defining bitterness of the category. Savory and marjoram add dry herbal lift without sweetness. Musk mallow and coriander round the spice profile and soften the finish. The red base contributes body and depth of colour. This is the most bitter and herbal of the three.

Vermouth Bianco della Regina uses a white wine base and moves the register toward aromatic sweetness. The botanical character is led by sweet citrus, coriander, angelica and cardamom. Angelica brings a soft woody depth; cardamom adds spiced warmth. It is floral and fruited on the nose, with a rounded, sweetened mid-palate. This is the most aromatic expression.

Vermouth Extra Dry takes a drier approach. Its profile combines citrus peel freshness with Alpine herbs, juniper and other spices. The resulting profile emphasises citrus and herbal elements over sweetness. It is bottled at 18% alcohol in a 75-centilitre format.

In The Glass

The Rosso opens with a distinct bitterness from the wormwood, carrying a dry herbal edge from the Piedmontese savory and marjoram. In the mouth, the red wine base gives weight and breadth. The coriander and musk mallow move through the mid-palate as spice and a soft rounding note. The finish is bitter-herbal rather than sweet.

The Bianco is more approachable on first pour. The nose is floral, with the cardamom and angelica rising quickly over a background of sweet citrus. On the palate, the sweetness is genuine but not flat: the herbal depth from angelica keeps it moving. The finish is warm and spiced.

The Extra Dry is leaner and more aromatic. Citrus and herb come forward; sweetness drops back. Citrus peel freshness is balanced by Alpine herbs, with juniper and other spices. The 18% alcohol is felt as warmth rather than weight.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Extra Dry. The Extra Dry combines citrus peel freshness with Alpine herbs, juniper and other spices. The citrus is clean and identifiable. Juniper and other spices sit alongside the citrus and Alpine herbs. The dryness is not a reduction of sweetness but a deliberate flavour direction. At 18% alcohol, it works as an aperitif over ice, in a dry Martini, or alongside cold cured meats in the Piedmontese tradition. It is the expression that shows most clearly what a historically grounded botanical recipe, carefully executed, can do inside the Vermouth di Torino category.

Anecdote

In 1907, Queen Margherita of Savoy and Princess Laetitia Napoleon arrived separately at the same conclusion: Chazalettes deserved to carry the Royal House coat of arms. The authorisation was personal, coming from two named women of the dynasty rather than from any trade body or ministry. Clemente placed the emblem on the labels and on the company letterhead, and it stayed there. The house grew, stopped, and came back. When the bottles returned to the market, the coat of arms came with them. A royal authorisation granted to a vermouth maker in Turin in 1907 is now printed on a bottle you can buy today.

Final Word

Chazalettes & Co. is one of the older names in Vermouth di Torino, and it came back to the market carrying the same recipe book it left with. Clemente Chazalettes built the house on the knowledge he gained at Martini & Sola, earned a royal emblem within his first three decades, and expanded to a 20,000-square-metre plant before the category contracted. The revival used the original recipes. The current range consists of Rosso, Bianco and Extra Dry. Start with the Extra Dry and work backwards.

Sources

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