Explore Related Collections
Italian Wine Wines of Etna Wines of Piemonte Sicilian Wine Red Wine White Wine World Wine
  • Chinati Vergano Chinato at The Beerhive, Edinburgh. Free UK shipping.
1 1

Chinati Vergano Chinato

Chinati Vergano Chinato

£42.00
£42.00
Sale Sold out
Tax included. Shipping calculated at checkout.
Producer Chinati Vergano
Country Italy
Region Piedmont

Tasting Notes

Orange Peel, Cherry, Baking Spice and Herbs

Explore Further

Italy Vegan Vermouth

If you need more stock than we currently have, please contact: orders@thebeerhive.co.uk

Only 2 left

Don’t forget your corkscrew 🍷

Beerhive Waiter’s Friend

Edinburgh and UK Shipping

✓ Carefully packed by our team in Edinburgh

✓ Free local delivery in Edinburgh and
Falkirk for orders over £35

✓ Free UK delivery over £90

✓ Click & Collect available

✓ Shipping to Northern Ireland and Scottish Isles available on request: orders@thebeerhive.co.uk

View full details

More About Chinati Vergano Chinato

Chinato is perhaps Piemonte’s most famous digestif. Traditionally made with aged Barolo, it takes its name from the bark of the quinine (or “China”) tree, which is the chief botanical here. Vergano prefers to use a younger wine from Barbaresco, where the tannins are not as firm and the perfume is a little more lifted. The china bark lends the wine tea-like tannins, while herbs and spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, coriander, bay, ginseng, and rhubarb provide warmth and real interest. There is no better way to end a meal.  

Mauro Vergano worked for many years as a chemist for one of Italy's top pharmaceutical companies, developing flavors and aromas. A lover of drinks, he has long made them for friends to enjoy, and behind an unassuming door in the town of Asti, he now produces tiny quantities of Vermouth, Chinati, and other treasures that are in high demand among those in the know. These drinks are known as vini aromatizzati—wines that have had various aromatic ingredients added to them. Mauro begins with base wines full of healthy fruit—fresh, clean, balanced wines that provide the perfect jump-off point for the flavor juggling that ensues. To the base wine, he adds some sugar, raw alcohol, and a combination of citrus, quinine, wormwood, and other botanicals. In the wrong hands, this could go horribly wrong, but Mauro must be something of a genius, as each of his creations displays astonishing balance and length.

Meet the Producer, Chinati Vergano

Chinati Vergano

Style: Vermouth

Chinati Vergano occupies one of the strangest and most fascinating little corners of the Italian drinks world. Founded by Mauro Vergano, a former chemist turned vermouth and chinato obsessive, the project focuses on beautifully handcrafted aromatised wines that somehow feel simultaneously ancient, intellectual and dangerously drinkable.

The name itself gives away the inspiration. “Chinato” refers to quinine-infused aromatised wines traditionally produced in Piedmont, most famously Barolo Chinato. Vergano takes that old Italian aperitivo tradition and pushes it into wonderfully eccentric territory using carefully sourced wines, herbs, spices and botanicals.

The resulting drinks are extraordinary. Vermouths full of alpine herbs, bitter citrus, spice and floral notes, all balanced with incredible precision. Some lean bright and refreshing, others become dark, medicinal and almost hauntingly complex. The Chinato especially feels like something discovered in a forgotten monastery cellar after several centuries of increasingly ambitious herbal experiments.

What makes Chinati Vergano especially brilliant is the restraint. Despite all the complexity, the flavours remain beautifully integrated rather than chaotic. Nothing feels gimmicky or artificially exaggerated.

There’s also a lovely sense that Mauro Vergano makes these products because he’s genuinely fascinated by flavour rather than because anyone requested artisanal small-batch vermouth made with obsessive scientific precision. Which somehow makes the whole thing even more appealing.

Basically, if you enjoy cocktails, bitter drinks or Italian aperitivo culture generally, this is very dangerous territory for your wallet and cupboard space.