Vermouth and related aromatized wines are backbones of cocktail culture. For this episode we’re joined by Giulio Cocchi principal Roberto Bava, who guides us through the aperitif wine spectrum and explains the connection between aromatized wines and chocolate.
Vermouths are a central component of today’s cocktail culture, and these aromatized wines and their relatives offer many avenues to explore. For this episode, we’re joined by Giulio Cocchi principal Roberto Bava, who shares some of the company’s history of making wines, including Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Cocchi Americano, Barolo Chinato, and more, and shares his passion for pairing fine chocolate with vermouth.
Radio Imbibe is the audio home of Imbibe magazine. In each episode, we dive into liquid culture, exploring the people, places, and flavors of the drinkscape through conversations about cocktails, coffee, beer, spirits, and wine. Keep up with us at imbibemagazine.com, and on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, and if you're not already a subscriber, we'd love to have you join us—click here to subscribe.
Paul Clarke
Hey everybody, welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I'm Paul Clarke, Imbibe's Editor-in-Chief.
And 20 years ago, when Imbibe was first starting to roll, one of the pieces we ran in an early issue looked at vermouth. I remember researching that piece back in 2006 and surveying the vermouth category, or at least what I could see of the vermouth category in the U. S. market. And at that time, the vermouth options in the U. S. were largely defined by a few big international brands, along with some cheaper budget options that really didn't have a lot to offer. At that time, of course, we were largely seeing vermouth through a cocktail lens. Dry vermouth for martinis, and rosso or sweet vermouth for pretty much everything else. We still do a lot of that today, but in the two decades since we first put together a vermouth article, the options have greatly expanded across styles and producers, and many of us in the drinks world have come to see vermouth in a different light and appreciate it much more on its own merits.
A key player in this significant shift in our understanding and appreciation of vermouth and other aperitif wines in the U. S. is the Italian producer, Cocchi. The Turin-based company has been around since 1891, making aperitif wines and sparkling wines, and the company had a significant global presence in the early 20th century. Owned by the Bava family since 1978, Cocchi has been rediscovered by countless American bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts over the past couple of decades, not only because of the widespread use of its signature Cocchi Vermouth to Torino, but also through products like Cocchi Americano and his Barolo Chinato. So for this episode, we're chatting with Roberto Bava, the principal of Giulio Cocchi and his family's Bava winery, about vermouth's return, the different wines in Cocchi's portfolio, and about his passion for fine chocolate and how that intersects with his love of aperitif wines.
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Paul Clarke
Roberto, welcome to Radio Imbibe.
Roberto Bava
Buongiorno a tutti, hello.
Paul Clarke
Ut is so wonderful to talk to you, and it's always wonderful to talk to you, and I wanted to have you on the podcast for a long time. And, know, sometimes it's difficult to know, you know, like a good timing for bringing a particular individual or particular brand or company on, but Cocchi is kind of a timeless brand. It's been around for a very long time, and we'll get into that in just a moment. It's something that's on the minds and is present to a lot of folks in our audience. And so I wanted to have you on to talk a little bit about the company and some of the products that you make and kind of the enduring appeal of it. And before we get into the individual things that you make, Cocchi is not a new brand by any means. And you and your family are not new to this wine world or aperitif world in any way. How far back does Cocchi's heritage go, and when did you and your family enter the picture and become a part of this company?
Roberto Bava
Well, first of all, I apologize for my Piedmontese English, so if I can speak Italian, Cocchi is a family name. So there's a family Cocchi. It's a family that, it's a surname that range between Tuscany, Parma, Torino. So you know this name linked to foods also sometimes. It's a kid of 135 years old this year. So it was established by Mr. Cocchi himself, Giulio. He used to be like a chef patissier and potentially a barman in the end of the 1800s. And then he moves to Torino to make his own recipe of a vermouth and aperitivo. So he moved in the right direction. By the way, I discovered that his original bar is still there in front of the Dome of Florence. If you go there, they call it the Scudieri. It's still there, quite a nice bar. It's a real story. It's not a brand, it's the real story of family. My name is Roberto Bava, because my family is Bava, and we also are vine grower. We are known for being long established, like a few hundred years actually, in Piemonte. Yes, so we are Barolo grower. We are Moscato. We are Barbera. We are vineyards. So the whole family is involved in this. Only 48, 45, 48 years ago, my father wanted to produce his own sparkling wine. And being a Barbera and Barolo producer, he had to be very specific in sparkling. And Giulio Cocchi happened to be, and still is, one of the oldest producers of sparkling wine, which is a surprise for many lovers of the Cocchi brand. So he entered in contact with the family, and there was only more a lady, a nice lady, Adria Cocchi, in the company, and we joined for a few years, and then we took over and this was like 45 years ago. So since then, what we brought to the distillery of Giulio Cocchi, which was a distillery at that time, we brought the expertise of wine and So we did like a big upgrade on any product, bringing the good wine to something which was already good, but of course, we have that secret. If you put good wine in Vermouth, you make a good Vermouth. So that was the story in a flash.
Paul Clarke
And as you noted, you make a number of things, sparkling wines, you make grappa. But for the sake of this conversation, I'd like to focus primarily on your wine-based aperitifs, because for an American audience, this is where many people are first encountering your products. And any conversation about Cocchi among American bartenders or American drinkers is going to start with vermouth. Cocchi storico vermouth di Torino. I recall a time not all that long ago when Cocchi was kind of the new kid on the block in terms of the American bar and seeing them behind the bars. How has that changed over the years? And why do you think Cocchi Vermouth di Torino has established such a presence in bars today?
Roberto Bava
This is the question, actually. When we started to produce, to enter the Cocchi, we found such a heritage on aromatized wine, of course. Wineries and distilleries at that time used to be very split in two. You had sparkling wine and aromatized wine, one company. And the other companies were normally pure wines. They didn't match. They didn't produce those three categories under the same roof. So, actually, we found that Giulio Cocchi was the inventor of Barolo Chinato, which is one of the super aromatized wines. And we found Americano in the winery also because he was a genius opening bars. What we call franchising today? Giulio Cocchi started to do in 1910, roughly. So, he opened bars to sell his own vermouth, his own Barolo Chinato, his own Americano Aperitivo. So, vermouth came back. And this is linked to my personal story. When we decided to do an upgrade category, starting producing a limited edition anniversary vermouth, this was in 2010. At that time, vermouth was kind of simple. I would say a commodity product. No superstar, no nothing. It was the main, basic, famous old brand. And Cocchi, in the meantime, had to discontinue for a while the product because the market was too poor. So, I personally made a challenge to bring back this neglected category, trying to put together all my colleagues, the industry. Remember, we are in Piemonte. This is where the old brands are. And I was, at that time, the syndicate leader. So, I had all of them around the table. They were not exactly enthusiastic to start it because they said at that time, oh, you know, the way you want to do vermouth is too expensive. We will lose the market, etc., etc. And at that time, I said, you know what, let's do a test. Let me do my first barrel of Vermouth di Torino Cocchi using my old historical formula. So, this is like the obsolete formula we used to do in the 80s. And we came back. We did the first barrel again. And it was such a success that after two years, all my colleagues came on board. And we decided together to build what is today the appellation, the only appellation to protect a vermouth in the world. And the name needs to be geographical and needs to be carrying where the modern Vermouth was invented, Torino.
Paul Clarke
And actually, I wanted to touch on that because I wanted to ask how this fits into the overall vermouth tradition. And when people mention the vermouth in the U. S. industry, they're mentioning the Vermouth di Torino. They're using that as part of the name and just rolling it out of their mouth. This actually means something important about the vermouth and how it's made it. And you were a part of establishing that.
Roberto Bava
Yeah, after that, I had to serve as president of the Institute of Vermouth di Torino that then became the consortium. So, the legal entity to control and to protect. And I've been doing this for the last 15 years, you know, right? But we believe, and this is in some way Italian as an attitude. We believe that alone you may win a battle, but if you want to win the war, you need to be allied. And this is the only reason why we were able to write the law, have it accepted by the Italian Parliament, and then double confirmed by the European This is why it actually came out. The law is a restriction, of course, on some others right, which is, if you used to do a vermouth in Poland or South America, well, to be real Torino, you need to be from Torino, or at least Piemonte. So, for the first boundary we have to close, also to guarantee a strict control. Then, and this is even more precise, we know that Torino was the capital simply because all the original ingredients were there. The wine was there, the Artemisia, the Artemisia absinthium, which is wormwood, grown in Piemonte is totally different from so many other Artemisia in the world. uh, and believe in me, why white truffle from Alba or hazelnut from Piemonte are different, so you need to believe that also the Artemesia is different. Putting together the good wine of Piemonte, putting together the wormwood, et cetera, et cetera, we, we could do it, so it makes sense that it's made in Torino because 300 years ago, the royal family adopted the Vemouth di Torino instead of the Rosolio to be the welcome drink, and remember, we had no internet, we had no Instagram, and the way product and information went through, especially high level product, were the royal cards. Opening a window, why chocolate is, good chocolate is in Madrid, Paris, Vienna, and Torino, simply because the royal cards were there, so accept the idea that vermouth, through, the royal cards became popular because it was where the trend could start.
Paul Clarke
Right, right, and it's a very familiar product to many American bartenders today, but every day, somebody somewhere is encountering it for the very first time. How do you explain it?
Roberto Bava
When we built the new wave of vermouth, we had to face some prejudice. We had to deal with a generation who lost the habit to drink vermouth, and in a way, I belonged to that, because normally vermouth were oxidized. They used to be kept out of the fridge, and now we learned from America, we know that it needs to be a fridge. I learned a lot, by the way, from America, because it used to be drunk neat, like an Amaro, but actually different from an Amaro is not water and alcohol-based. This is wine based, so of course, it's a wine with a little help, which is a botanical, the sugar, the alcohol, which are preservative, versus a normal wine. But at the same time, still 75% is wine in any bottle of vermouth. So you don't want it to oxidize, and this is why we keep it in the fridge after open the bottle. But at that time, the perception was, oh, this is oxidized, this is my grandmother's drink, this is not interesting. When we came back, we understood that this was the ingredient that the bartender were looking for, to give freshness, not oxidation, to give flavor, spiciness, acidity, sweetness. So it was a vehicle to go to a next step, adding mezcal, spirits, adding soda, adding something else. But if you don't start from the good base, you can add anything you want. At the very end, you won't have the final quality.
Paul Clarke
While we're still on the subject of vermouth, I should note that you also do an extra dry vermouth. And more recent addition, is that correct?
Roberto Bava
Yeah, we came out with the extra dry quite later. My brother, who's the botanist, and the other brother, who's the winemaker, they always told me the most horrible vermouth is the dry one, because there's no protection, there's not enough sugar, you need to add some alcohol. You know, you talk to the production people, and they are very, they have an opinion.
Paul Clarke
Yeah.
Roberto Bava
Scientific opinion, but... So we didn't want to produce it, until the Savoy, Savoy American Bar in London, and this is a known story, but they asked us to do it. And I may reveal that we said, no, but we are not so commercial. they said, oh, come on, we are using your Americano, we are using your Barolo Chinato, you don't want to do a vermouth for us. So we did it. And it was an incredible exercise, because it was a product that had to go with another product, which is gin. And they gave us the gin, they gave us the few drops to go with it. So the exercise was like a triangular situation, where we had to do a product, not to become a wine, like we do, pressing grapes, but to become a cocktail. Or culturally, and production-wise, it has such an exercise for the Bava and the Cocchi family to do it. And we didn't sell it anywhere else out of the Savoy for a few years, five years, five or six years. Then we had COVID, okay, and at that time we had so many, I call my customer lovers, because we love them, but they also love us. So they said, come on, the American bar is closed, we want to share, we don't want to go there and buy half a bottle for 40 pounds. So we said, okay, we'll do it, but we'll do it with the new formula, something that won't be very Piemontese. So it doesn't want to copy Chambéry, the Noilly Prat, which are the other serious, of course, dry. But we wanted to do something Piemontese. So we call it Ricetta Piemontese. And we put, first of all, Of course the wormwood, but even the menta piperita piemontese which is IGP. We put lemon from Amalfi which are so delicate and so extremely aromatic. I mean, you love them. They only last eight days after you harvest them. So it's kind of exercise. And et cetera. We use more herbs from the Alps around and it became like something different. But even more, we use cortese as a grape, which is a noble grape we have. So it was something new on the market and that's how it was then born. This is called the Extra Dry Piemontese .
Paul Clarke
And, you know, we are currently celebrating our 20th anniversary at Imbibe. And we've been spending a lot of time looking back at our history and the changes that have taken place in the cocktail world, especially in the U. S. in the past 20 years. In addition to vermouth, there's another wine that you make that's been very much part of the cocktail culture in this time. And that's Cocchi Aperitivo Americano. Now, the product had been in the U. S. market for some time, but then suddenly in 2010 or so, the energy was unleashed and you saw bartenders really starting to seek it out. What was it like to go from having something that was present but maybe not, you know, tremendously known to having something that was soaring in popularity?
Roberto Bava
This is also another case in history. Remember that Cocchi Americano was deep in our Piemonte culture and in generally Americanos being a version of vermouth with some bitterness, which came from botanical of course. And Cocchi was one of those who invented for sure, if not the category because this came out in the system, but for sure the Americano, one of the oldest recipes, and for sure, the surviving one, so many years. So we had this attitude, but it was local. I mean, this was before everybody's drinking that nice orange aperitivo called the Aperol, which was northeast. We are the northwest. So we are the other drink with bubbles, soda, zest, which you would do orange on northeast and white or rose on the northwest. Actually, the more you go to the northwest, you also go to Lillet, which are the other cousins doing... I mean, we belong to the same category. Remember that Piemonte used to be a kingdom, 50% French and 50% Italian, is now Italian. And so this was the way, but we struggled to sell it elsewhere, so it was almost daily. Any people in Asti, Torino, we remember the Cocchi bar around Liguria, Piemonte. So this was the market. I remember the first pallet I sold was to a genius, like Darrell Corti from Sacramento, which was one of the gourmet experts of America. And he bought it. then he said, you know what, I keep it because it's a super product, like in the 80s, the 90s, but you need someone else. You need another Don Quixote de la Mancha, which is Eric Seed. Let me introduce you to Eric Seed. And this is how it started. It became one of the ethnic at the origin, aperitivo from Italy, like Amaro from Italy, bitter from Italy, but then it moved to a next step. This is together one of the consistent, solid, quality, natural ingredient in the mixology around the world. how we call it in London? The best bartender's ketchup, simply because they use it a lot, not only for the taste, but also for being the base of so many recipes, a new recipe.
Paul Clarke
Right, right. And I recall back at that time, because there was a certain amount of internet traffic going on, talking about Cocchi Americano and how it was working ideally as a cocktail ingredient, especially in some vintage cocktails. And when it first started becoming more widely available in the U. S., at the time, I was in the habit of spending time at Zig Zag Cafe here in Seattle, and Murray Stenson was my regular bartender there at the time. And I remember having conversations with him and one day going in and asking him, have you got it yet? I know it's in town. Have you got it yet? I'd like to try it out. And he said, no, we don't have it in the bar yet. So at that point, I just said, okay, give me just one sec. I put the coaster on top of my glass, you know, like I was going to step outside to make a phone call. And I ran up the stairs to Pike Place Market, which is just upstairs from the bar. And there was a shop there, Delaurenti’s, which was selling Cocchi Americano. I bought a bottle, went to the cashier, ran back downstairs to the bar, put it on the bar, and said, okay, now we're ready to go. So that was, so I was, I am personally responsible for introducing it to Zig Zag Cafe back in 2010.
Roberto Bava
This is the love I was talking about.
Paul Clarke
Yeah. It's, you know, it was, it was so curious to check it out. And one thing I should ask about this product, because I know sometimes there's some confusion or misunderstanding, uh, but when we're talking about Cocchi Aperitivo Americano, we should emphasize that while this is a wine-based aperitif, it is not a vermouth. It's an Americano. And for, for folks who may not be familiar with that, what is the difference here?
Roberto Bava
Any, any time I do like a masterclass, I, or I meet people, I like always to, to give a frame of the family of aromatized wine, which is a legal family in Europe. Which are all of those, I will mention later, they have at least 75% wine. They may add it of sugar, they may add it of sometimes colors and botanicals. The concept is that according to the botanicals, that gives the main character, taste, then you define the, the subcategory. So, they all are aromatized wine, but if you add wormwood as a main herbs, there you are a vermouth. But if you add Gentian Achaolis, the blue flowers on the mountain, like a bell-shaped, very bitter, there you are an Americano. And this is because it was also a vermouth, but you add more Gentian to give more bitterness since the origin of it and the concept itself. So, you have a more bitter vermouth where the bitterness is given by the Gentiana Achaolis. By the way, there's another Gentiana called Lutea, which is the one, the yellow one, you do it for them. Then, if you go, you want to go on, you have the chinato, this is where the 75% of wine is added of chinato, chinato bark in Italy. And this would be a vino chinato. If this vino is barolo, there you are producing a barolo chinato. So, all of those names are the same family. They all have wormwood, potentially, but they get the name from the main characteristic herbs.
Paul Clarke
And while we're talking about the Americano, we should note Cocchi Rosa, which is in the same family, but goes also kind of in its own direction.
Roberto Bava
Yes. I have to admit that when I, as a young kid, out of university, I was asking my father to be the CEO, I laugh about this, of Giulio Cocchi, because we are a family, what do you do? I mean, you go and do the CEO. And the first thing I did was to take out the caramel from any aperitivo we had, because I thought it was in a way artificial, according to our being farmer, you know. And so I took out the caramel from Americano Rosso, and of course, it became Americano Rosa, so pink instead of red, or instead of brownish. I had, Paul, all the town of Asti against me, because we used to go to Bar Cocchi, which is still there, 435 years, still there, Bar Cocchi, and you go and have your Americano Rosso. And suddenly, your Americano Rosso becomes Rosa. Oh, wow. You know, you're changing the formula. You remember when Coca-Cola changed the formula, and everybody looked for old stuff.
Paul Clarke
People lost their minds.
Roberto Bava
Make it smaller, to a small town in Piemonte, and everybody's used to have its own, even without sitting. They get an Americano, and they go working, or they go having lunch. It was such a revolution. So, the town hated me for long. They were looking for the old bottles every shop, this kind of thing. But I'm so proud of this, because in the meantime, Rosa became a characteristic. We use aromatic wines, which deliver red fruit, deliver flowers, even without adding any red fruit in it. So, Rosa is one of the most, as I say, agricultural aperitivo you have, because the Rosa color comes from the wine itself. And it's so simple. It's so good. And now it's understood. But I had to expect, to wait for a whole generation to die, and get a new generation.
Paul Clarke
That's just how it works sometimes. So, two things I'd like to briefly touch upon, because they round up some of your wine-based work. And the first, you'd mentioned this earlier, you'd mentioned both of these earlier, but the Dopo Teatro Vermouth Amaro, and the second is the Barolo Chinato. And I'm bringing these up together, because they kind of go in a different direction. They're a little bit richer, they're more robust than some of the wines we've been talking about, but they also each go in their own direction. How do these kind of round out the portfolio, and round out the family of the aperitivo wines that you bring out?
Roberto Bava
These are two different stories. It's interesting to notice that every expression of Cocchi is not just a label. There's so much behind of anthropological story behind, and of course, starting from the Barolo Chinato. The Barolo Chinato today is what any Italian, you stop on the road asking what do you drink with dark chocolate, they would say Barolo Chinato. Sometimes Grappa, sometimes a liquor, but normally Barolo Chinato is definitely accepted for being the wine for dark chocolate. It is written in our labels. In 1995 I was the president of the Chocolate Association of Italy, which is a non-profit lobby for quality chocolate and competition and events and seminars in Italy. Since they are still existing, I'm no more the president. The sommelier of Italy used to recommend water with chocolate, you may not believe it. This was page two of the book. And, and of course, the French, which we considered the clever cousin, were recommended by Pineau des Charentes. I mean, they had an answer. You know. We simply were losing the opportunity. So I went to the National Association of Sommelier of Italy in Assisi, that's the date, 1995. I brought five different liquors. One was a ala marascato, was a cherry, one grappa, one was a late harvest of moscato, one was a barolo chinato, and I brought there ten different chocolates, asking them to raise their hand with what was the more logic to go with it. And we came out that Barolo Chinato was the most popular, especially with darker chocolate. So, still today, any back label of Barolo Chinato, which in the meantime has been enlarged the production, there are now more labels. We were the last label on the market left. So many. They are recommended with dark chocolate. So I'm the one who, in this life, will leave an which is just an idea, barolo chinato fits to dark chocolate. And this is why I invited you to a tasting in New York to do this story after 30 years of my original praline, the ganache barolo chinato by Andreas Litti in Mansurmano in Tuscany, used to be the world chocolate winner. 30 years after I decided to bring another four of my favorite praline to New York to share with my good friends and to show how the Cocchi line of product could fit to different chocolates. And I don't want to answer the links. But the point is that you can see all of our expressions like a rainbow of flavors, like a Pantone color of taste, where you can match this time chocolate, next time different soda, next time cheese, because it's a system. So Cocchi, at the very end, it's a system of flavors. And that's the story of Barolo Chinato. And if you are on the other side, Dopo Teatro. Dopo Teatro is a vermouth, is a more bitter vermouth, is an amaro. Well, it's not an amaro, it's a vermouth amaro. There's a kind of confusion. Your friends on the other side of the microphone may be confused because in Italian you say "amaro", and you mean liquor, water-based with herbs, very often sugar, etc. But also "amaro" means bitter. And then you confuse it again because bitter is also a category, and we all know the Campari-red bitters. So how can you say that you have a more bitter vermouth amaro without creating some confusion? So Dopo Teatro is a more bitter vermouth amaro, which is a liquid...it's a vermouth, but it tastes more bitter. The story is that we put together three different old obsolete recipes of Cocchi because we couldn't come out with three different formulas. So we merged and rebalanced the three formulas to make Dopo Teatro. So this is the most recent product, but it comes from three obsolete recipes. one was called the vermouth chinato, and that's in fact a double kina. One was called the vermouth amaro, and in fact was the rhubarb vermouth, so that's double the rhubarb. One was called the vermouth albarolo without being a barolo. And we had in the formula 10% Barolo in it. And then we had other herbs like chiretta flowers, maize, quassia, etc. So vermouth amaro, or Dopo Teatro, call it Dopo, by friends here, is an evening vermouth, which you would drink like a digestive end of the meal or end of the theater. Dopo Teatro. It makes sense. And it happened that, especially bartenders who are more used to more bitter flavor, that's their favorite.
Paul Clarke
This has been an amazing walk through your apertif wines. We're nearing the end here. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to share? Any Closing arguments you like to make?
Roberto Bava
Don't stop exercising on the product. Surprise us. We are farmers. We cannot invent a cocktail. Consider that even if you are not a pro, going home with a bottle of Americano, you just put two fingers. We don't use the jigger. Two fingers of Americano, two fingers of soda, or tonic water if you want to do a B&T, and zest of a lemon, and you have the most fantastic hydration, digestion, aperitivo. You can have simple, natural, and share it with friends.
Paul Clarke
Fantastic. Roberto, it's always wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Roberto Bava
Thank you, Paul. And again, thank you for what you do with Imbibe. Ciao.
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Paul Clarke
You can find out more about Cocchi online at their website, cocchi.it. We've got that link for you in this episode's notes. And that's it for this episode. Subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all our future episodes. We've got plenty of stories and recipes for you online at our website, imbibemagazine.com. Keep up with us day-to-day on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Threads. And if you're not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then here's your opportunity to change that. Just follow the link in this episode's notes and we'll be happy to help you out. I'm Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.