Lorenzo Accomasso

Lorenzo passed on August 8th 2025, at near to 92 years of age; a remembrance of my first visit to him

I woke up to the news that Lorenzo Accomasso, the last of the old school traditionalists in Piemonte had passed on at near to 92 years of age. Here is a story I wrote, documenting my first visit to him back in 2013.

As we tried to suss out which apartment was Lorenzo Accomasso’s, I noticed roosters doing a damned good imitation of a Chagall painting perched there on the roof of the coop’s hut. We then walked into an open door, into a disheveled receiving room and saw the baseball-capped, blue-eyed Barolo legend himself, waiting for us.

Lorenzo Accomasso of La Morra is an outsider as well as a holdout for tradition. The winemaker is now in his 70s, and only speaks Piemontese dialect. Which is why Giorgio, a Piemontese man who lives in and imports wine into Australia, and wants Lorenzo for his portfolio, convinced Marta Rinaldi (Giuseppe’s daughter) to come along and interpret.

Lorenzo talked slowly and poured even slower. He finally allowed us the dregs of two open bottles while he rattled on to Marta. I sipped. I scribbled. “These wines are my new heartthrobs.”

Lorenzo is an elderly bad boy who makes thrilling wines, or at least the two that I tasted that afternoon. I’d never had them before as they are currently not available in the United States. I imagine they still remain somewhere on some wine lists, purchased in the days when Winebow was their stateside importer. But Lorenzo stopped that relationship fifteen years back. He found the process too much hassle—the back label, the front label, the rules and the red tape. His is old-fashioned, traditional barolo, showing off all of that Baroloness that left me speechless before I had a wine vocabulary; road tar, roses, licorice, a fine translucent sun-bleached, Brook’s bicycle seat. His fermentation occurs in cement vats for about 25 days, maceration on the skins, then into old big botti. Done.

“Those barriquistas used to try to convince me to use barriques,” the sky blue-eyed winemaker said. Those barriquistas failed. It was obvious Lorenzo is a stubborn guy who can’t be convinced to do anything he doesn’t want to do.

Something had happened in the middle of the translations and Marta’s voice changed. I saw she had started to pick her fingers and blush.

“What is he telling her?” I asked Giorgio.

He could make out a little of the conversation and whispered to me, “He said he had lots of girlfriends and women friends he’d have loved to take to bed but he didn’t want to mess with the friendships.”

Ah, I thought, the roosters weren’t only on the roof. If Lorenzo was gunning for Marta, a clear 45 years his junior, then good luck to this fine winemaker with the missing teeth and sparkling violet eyes and mischievous grin.

He finally poured us one more wine, the Rocche. It had more color, with a needle mouth, rustic edges, a touch of Good & Plenty candy and fresh salty air. “They’re not polished,” he said of his wines. Thank goodness for that.

But if you want to drink them, you have to go to Germany or Japan, or better still, go knock on his door. His is brilliant stuff, but it’s over when Lorenzo is over. Seek him out. Bring cash. Or maybe just bring Marta instead.

From a visit to Lorenzo in 2017 with Madame Lepeltier who came away completely fluent in Piemontese dialect.