De humanis illustribus…

The following obituary by Filippo Larganà has been excerpted and translated from the popular Piedmont-focused wine, food, and agropolitics blog Sapori del Piemonte. The photo comes from the Maliosa winery website. Lorenzo Corino’s Maliosa estate in Maremma, Tuscany, was where he put his theories on natural wine and organic viticulture to work. Corino — a towering figure of Italian viticulture, writer, researcher, and a “fierce advocate” for natural wine — died this week at age 74.

Lorenzo Corino was born in the hills of Costiglie d’Asti. Immediately after receiving his degree in agriculture, he was hired by [Italy’s prestigious] National Research Council, became a scientist, and then was appointed as director of the Asti campus of the Institute for Viticultural Research at Conegliano Veneto. He was later named director of the Enological Research Center in Asti where he would oversee countless research and viticultural projects. He died after a long illness on November 4, 2021.

He was one of the leading figures of Piedmontese and Italian wine. Those who knew him often spoke of him a rigorous scientist who loved his work, who loved science and his land… Some called him a dreamer, an indefatigable utopian.

Corino was a fierce advocate for natural wine. He created a website especially to share his definition of natural wine and he developed a vinification method today known as the “Corino method.”

Leading wine writer and vineyard consultant Maurizio Gily remembered him on his blog as “my maestro.”

Corino, wrote Gily, was “a gentle, passionate, and meticulous man who was generous with his time. He was a Piedmontese through and through and he never wavered from his sense of right and wrong — no matter what the cost… For his entire life, he was guided by his vision for ethical viticulture and farming practices that would have the least impact on the land.”

Never one to shy from controversy, Corino was also an active writer and blogger and he regularly translated his work into English. Visit his English-language blog here.

See also this profile of Corino on the Raw Wine website.