My grandfather
A Piedmontese Beginning
Alfredo Soria was born in 1892 in Piedmont, one of the most progressive regions of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy (“Regno d'Italia”). The unification of the country was still a recent memory, achieved only in 1861, and Turin - its capital until 1865 - remained deeply bound to the House of Savoy, culturally very much aligned with Paris.
In those years, Piedmont stood as a natural bridge between Italy and France. French was widely spoken, and even among the humblest families it was not unusual to undertake, at least once in a lifetime, a journey across the border - to Nice, to Lyon, or, for the more fortunate, to the grandeur of Paris.
Alfredo’s father, Pietro Paolo Soria, had run, until April 1891, the Albergo Croce Bianca (Hotel Croce Bianca) in Canelli together with his brother Enrico. Soon thereafter, he moved to Bra, where Alfredo and his two siblings Umberto and Carmela - who would later distinguish herself as a painter - were born.
Bra, a modest town to the west of Canelli, lay along the route leading to the Tenda Pass tunnel, opened in 1882, a vital passage that offered direct access to the fabled Côte d’Azur. By the 1860s the town was already connected by rail, and by the end of the century it had become a lively and prosperous center of Barolo wine production, known for its ancient underground cellars, its welcoming inns, and its refined hospitality.
It was in Bra that Pietro Paolo made his fortune. Shortly after his arrival in 1891, he opened the Albergo Gambero d’Oro, praised in the Gazzetta di Bra for its “select wines, fine cuisine, and moderate prices.” In the years that followed, he would go on to manage the Albergo Italia Corona Grossa and the Albergo Pesce d’Oro, two hotels, hosting distinguished banquets and celebrations for notable occasions, among them festivities honoring the laureates of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900.
Those hotels, the long tables set for grand dinners, the richness of the wines, and the steady flow of travelers arriving from France - bringing with them a wider, more cosmopolitan world - left a lasting imprint on Alfredo’s imagination, one that would remain with him throughout his life.
Return to Canelli
History lives first within our very blood, and then in the experiences that come to shape it. Of Alfredo Soria, there remains not only a vermouth recipe, but also a deep-rooted familiarity with the world of hospitality - an art that, in Piedmont, enabled his family to welcome and put at ease countless people and travelers - as well as a rich body of knowledge in wine and commerce, acquired from an early age.
Alfredo remained in Bra with his family until the early years of the twentieth century, when the call of Canelli began to make itself felt. Archival records tell us that by 1910 he was already residing in his parents’ native town, where, at the age of nineteen, he completed his military service.
Canelli was then - as it remains today - the cradle of some of Piedmont’s most dynamic and distinguished wine houses, foremost among them Bosca and Contratto, whose legacy quite literally flowed in Alfredo’s veins. His mother, Rosina Bosca, was the daughter of Luigi Bosca, one of the historical figures behind the Bosca firm, while his uncle Enrico - the hotelier in Canelli- had married Teresa Contratto. From their union was born Armando Soria, Alfredo’s beloved cousin and close companion.
Armando was a man of letters, excelling in every school and examintion, while Alfredo, though still young, possessed an early familiarity with the wider world. Together, they embarked on what would become both a formative journey and an extraordinary apprenticeship. They traveled to Épernay, in France, to learn the méthode champenoise, the original technique by which French champagne was produced. There, they worked in the cellars, clad in the heavy aprons of winemakers - an image preserved in photographs that show them young and smiling - bringing back with them knowledge that would contribute to the earliest development of Asti spumante, the region’s celebrated sparkling wine.
Upon their return to Canelli, the First World War intervened. Alfredo was called back into military service, and only with the war’s end he was able to resume his pursuits.
The Industrialist
Upon his return from the war, Alfredo Soria set himself resolutely to work, and on August 26, 1926, in his marriage record, he was described for the first time as an “industrialist.” His bride, Rosa Ghione, was a devoted and accomplished schoolteacher in Treiso, a tiny village nestled among the high hills of the Langhe. As she would later recount to her grandchildren, at the beginning of each school year she would travel there by horse-drawn carriage with her father, returning home only at the start of the summer holidays. Of her, there remain a tender handwritten diary and a number of paintings that still speak to her sensibility.
But let us return to Alfredo. As early as 1926, anyone operating a business in the Regno d'Italia was required to declare it to the Provincial Councils of Economy; however, it was only from 1934 onward, following a Royal Decree, that these councils were obliged to maintain systematic registers of enterprises. Today, those records are preserved by the Chambers of Commerce, and it is in the historical archives of the Chamber of Commerce of Asti and Alessandria that an entire file - devoted exclusively to Alfredo Soria’s firm - has been preserved.
From this file we learn that his firm was a sole proprietorship - an individually owned business - dedicated to the production and trade of wines, spumanti (sparkling wines), and vermouth. Alfredo formally declared the establishment of the business on March 16, 1934, and by 1940 he also registered its export activity. From that time onward, his private correspondence - now preserved by his descendants - bears witness to numerous journeys undertaken to sell wine and vermouth in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Nice.
Year after year, the provincial records also document requests for information submitted by the Banco di Roma regarding the firm’s regular productivity, as well as certificates attesting to the analysis of exported products, ensuring that they were natural and free from disease or alteration.
The production of wine and vermouth, along with his travels abroad, continued until 1971, when Alfredo, at the age of seventy-nine, chose at last to retire.