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Torini Distillati

Family-owned vermouth and aperitivo house in Moncalieri, south of Turin, producing the Hotel Starlino range from Marsala and Trebbiano wine bases aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels.

The producer

Torino Distillati operates from a facility in Moncalieri, a town immediately south of Turin in Piedmont, the region that gave Italian vermouth its name and its tradition. The company operates as Torino Distillati, with Hotel Starlino as its product line. Carlo Vergnano leads the operation with his wife Piera and daughter Rita, having bought the plant himself in a management buyout from the Canadian multinational Seagram, reviving a facility that a Piedmontese family first built in 1906.

The range is built on a Marsala and Trebbiano wine base, infused with botanicals including orange peel, vanilla, clove, and wormwood for thirty days, then aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels. No other Italian rosso vermouth uses this process. The bourbon wood contributes vanilla warmth and baking spice that sit outside the flavour range of traditional Piedmontese vermouth, giving Starlino Rosso a fuller, darker mid-palate alongside its bittersweet herbal finish. The Hotel Starlino aperitivo expressions, Arancione and Elderflower, follow a separate stainless steel maturation of six months, keeping the citrus and floral character bright and fresh.

Known for

Rosso vermouth aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels; aromatised wine on Marsala and Trebbiano base.

Notable facts

The story

The Buyback

Carlo Vergnano was the technical director of the Moncalieri plant, a facility that had been running since 1906, first under the Fratelli Ferrero di Riccardo family and then, from the 1960s onward, under the Canadian multinational Seagram. When Seagram decided to dispose of the site, Vergnano did not look for another employer. He bought the plant himself in a management buyout and registered a new company: Torino Distillati. The facility that a Piedmontese family had built at the turn of the century, that a North American spirits corporation had operated for three decades, went back to being a family house. Vergnano's wife Piera joined the operation from the start. His daughter Rita came in later. All three of them run it today, from the same plant on Via Montegrappa in Moncalieri.

The Buyback

Carlo Vergnano was the technical director of the Moncalieri plant, a facility that had been running since 1906, first under the Fratelli Ferrero di Riccardo family and then, from the 1960s onward, under the Canadian multinational Seagram. When Seagram decided to dispose of the site, Vergnano did not look for another employer. He bought the plant himself in a management buyout and registered a new company: Torino Distillati. The facility that a Piedmontese family had built at the turn of the century, that a North American spirits corporation had operated for three decades, went back to being a family house. Vergnano's wife Piera joined the operation from the start. His daughter Rita came in later. All three of them run it today, from the same plant on Via Montegrappa in Moncalieri.

From the atlas

Torino Distillati

At A Glance

The Producer

Torino Distillati operates a vermouth and aperitivo facility in Moncalieri, a town immediately south of Turin in Piedmont, the region that gave Italian vermouth its name and its tradition. The production entity is Torino Distillati, and the product line is Hotel Starlino. Carlo Vergnano runs the company with his wife Piera and daughter Rita.

The range is built on a Marsala and Trebbiano wine base rather than neutral spirit, which places the products in the aromatised wine category under European law and connects them directly to Italian wine tradition. What distinguishes the house is what happens after the botanical infusion: Starlino Rosso is aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels, a step with no precedent in traditional Italian rosso vermouth production. Starlino Rosso carries vanilla warmth and spice depth that most Italian vermouths do not have.

Place

Moncalieri sits at the southern edge of Turin's urban sprawl where the Po valley opens out toward the Langhe hills. The town is unremarkable on the surface, but it has been part of the vermouth trade since the industry formed in Piedmont in the late eighteenth century. Vermouth di Torino, the protected geographical designation covering sweet and dry vermouths produced in the greater Turin area, draws on Piedmont's position at the intersection of Alpine botanicals and wine-producing countryside. Marsala arrives from Sicily; Trebbiano comes from across central and northern Italy. The Moncalieri plant on Via Montegrappa blends those materials with locally sourced and imported botanicals, and the resulting vermouth carries a Piedmontese address even when its components travel further.

Soil And Site

Torino Distillati does not farm vineyards. The wine bases used in production, Marsala and Trebbiano, arrive as purchased materials. The botanical infusion and cask ageing take place at the Moncalieri facility. The closest analogue to site influence is the provenance of the wine bases: Marsala brings a fortified, oxidative character from western Sicily; Trebbiano contributes a neutral, high-acid white wine backbone that accepts botanical infusion without competing with it.

Story

The Moncalieri facility opened in 1906 under the Fratelli Ferrero di Riccardo family, a Piedmontese concern operating in wine and vermouth production at a time when Turin's vermouth industry was at its commercial peak. The family ran it for decades until the 1960s, when the Canadian multinational Seagram acquired the plant as part of its European spirits expansion.

Seagram held the facility for roughly three decades. When the corporation moved to dispose of it, Carlo Vergnano, then working as the plant's technical director, chose not to walk away. He bought the facility himself in a management buyout and registered it as Torino Distillati. What had been a Piedmontese family house, then a multinational production unit, became a family house again. Vergnano brought his wife Piera into the operation from the beginning. His daughter Rita joined later. The three of them run it today.

Hotel Starlino is the company's product line, separate from the Torino Distillati production entity. Starlino Rosso is aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels.

Vineyards And Cellar

Production begins with a blend of Marsala and Trebbiano wines. The two are combined and infused with botanicals, including orange peel, vanilla, and clove alongside multiple varieties of wormwood, for thirty days. After infusion the liquid is distilled to fix the botanical character, then transferred to Kentucky bourbon barrels for ageing.

The bourbon casks contribute more than colour. Used bourbon wood carries residual vanilla, caramel, and baking spice from the whiskey that preceded it, and those compounds migrate into the vermouth during ageing. Starlino Rosso has warmth and vanilla depth that sits outside the flavour range of most Italian vermouth. The finish is bittersweet rather than purely herbal, and the mid-palate is fuller than Trebbiano's natural character would suggest on its own.

The Hotel Starlino aperitivo expressions, including the Arancione and Elderflower lines, follow a different production path. Both use stainless steel maturation for six months, a process that allows the citrus and floral components to marry and mellow without the oak influence that defines the Rosso.

Wines

The Hotel Starlino range divides into two production streams: the oak-aged rosso vermouth and the stainless-matured aperitivi.

Starlino Rosso is a sweet rosso vermouth on a Marsala and Trebbiano base, infused for thirty days with orange peel, vanilla, clove, and wormwood, then aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels. It pours deep bronze amber with red glints. The nose is botanical and warm: orange peel and clove lead, with vanilla from the cask behind them. The palate brings prune, raisin, and stewed tea alongside vanilla and bittersweet herbal complexity. The finish is long, bittersweet, and herbaceous.

Hotel Starlino Arancione is a citrus aperitivo matured for six months in stainless steel. Blood orange and ripe peach dominate the palate, with bright citrus on the nose. Lighter in body than the Rosso, more immediate, and suited to long-drink formats.

Hotel Starlino Elderflower sits in the same stainless maturation programme as the Arancione. The packet supports only limited tasting detail for this expression.

The Rosso occupies a different flavour category from the aperitivi: it is darker, warmer, fuller, and intended for sipping or use in classic vermouth cocktails where depth and oak character matter.

In The Glass

Starlino Rosso opens with orange peel and clove, clear and botanical from the first pour. The vanilla that follows comes from the bourbon wood rather than the botanical infusion: it has the round, slightly caramelised quality of cask-derived vanilla rather than the sharper vanilla of a botanical extract. On the palate, prune and raisin arrive first, joined by stewed tea and a dry herbal undercurrent. The bitterness is light and balancing rather than dominant; it arrives mid-palate and lengthens the finish without overriding the fruit. The finish is bittersweet and lingers, carrying orange peel and dried herb into the close.

The Arancione reads differently: bright citrus on the nose, juicy blood orange and peach in the mouth, and a shorter, fresher finish. The six-month stainless maturation softens the citrus edges without flattening the fruit, so the liquid stays lively while losing any raw spirit sharpness.

The two streams are intended for different moments: Rosso as a sipping vermouth or a cocktail base where oak and spice contribute; Arancione as an aperitivo over ice with soda.

A Bottle To Understand It

Starlino Rosso is the bottle to open first. It is a sweet rosso vermouth on a Marsala and Trebbiano base, botanical and warm, aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels. Pour it over ice with a piece of orange peel and nothing else. The bourbon barrel ageing is immediately apparent: vanilla and baking spice sit beneath the orange peel and clove on the nose, and the mid-palate is fuller and warmer than most Italian rosso vermouth offers. Prune, raisin, and stewed tea carry the fruit; a bittersweet herbal finish holds the length. This is what makes Torino Distillati a distinct address in Italian vermouth: a botanical recipe and a deliberate decision to age in wood that most Piedmontese producers never touch.

Anecdote

Carlo Vergnano was the technical director of the Moncalieri plant, a facility that had been running since 1906, first under the Fratelli Ferrero di Riccardo family and then, since the 1960s, under the Canadian multinational Seagram. When Seagram decided to dispose of the site, Vergnano did not look for another employer. He bought the plant himself in a management buyout and registered a new company: Torino Distillati. The facility that a Piedmontese family had built at the turn of the century, that a North American spirits corporation had absorbed and operated for three decades, went back to being a family house. Vergnano's wife Piera joined the operation from the start. His daughter Rita came in later. All three of them run it today, from the same plant on Via Montegrappa.

Final Word

Torino Distillati is a vermouth house, not a winery, but it belongs in an Italian drinks atlas for the same reason any serious producer does: it has a place, a history, a family, and a method that produces something you cannot find elsewhere. The bourbon barrel ageing of Starlino Rosso is an Italian vermouth that tastes of Kentucky oak, and that choice alone is worth understanding.

Sources

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