Luigi Veronelli

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Luigi Veronelli (Milan, February 2, 1926 – Bergamo, November 29, 2004), oenologist, gastronome and Italian intellectual, is remembered as one of the central figures in the appreciation and promotion of Italy’s rich oenogastronomic heritage. Veronelli was the first to express views that would later achieve general currency and the protagonist in stubborn battles for the preservation of diversity in the fields of agriculture and food production. To this end he contributed to the development of Italian appellations of origin, fought alongside local administrations and offered his support to retail producers.

Veronelli was originally from the neighborhood of Isola in Milan.

As a young man he studied philosophy, becoming assistant to Giovanni Emanuele Bariè, and devoted himself to politics. He was a lifelong anarchist, a student of Benedetto Croce’s last lectures in Milan.

He began his editorial career in 1956 with the publication of three peridicals: I problemi del socialismo (Problems of Socialism), Il pensiero (Thought), Il gastronomo (The Gastronome).

Still working as an editor, in 1957 he translated Proudhon’s ‘The Social Question’ and De Sade’s ‘Histoiriettes, contes et fabliaux,’ as a result of which he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for the publication of obscene material (De Sade’s works would later be burned at Varese). During the seventies he was again imprisoned for six months for having incited Piedmontese farmers to revolt by occupying the station of Santo Stefano Belbo to protest new legislation that favored big industry to the detriment of small wine producers. 1959 marked the beginning of his twenty-year collaboration with Il Giorno. He would remain active as a journalist for the duration of his life, and his elegantly written articles, full of neologisms and archaisms and marked by a provocative style, would become landmarks in oenogastronomic journalism. Among the periodicals to which Veronelli made notable contributions are the Corriere della Sera (Milan), Class, Il Sommelier, EV, Carta, Panorama, Epoca, Amica, Capital, Week End, L’Espresso, Sorrisi e Canzoni TV, A Rivista Anarchica, Travel and Wine Spectator, Decanter, Gran Riserva ed Enciclopedia del Vino, and The European. His appearance on television notably increased his fame, in particular the program A Tavola alle 7 (Around the Table at 7), which he hosted with Ave Ninchi, and his Viaggio Sentimentale nell’Italia dei Vini (Sentimental Journey in Italy’s Wine Country), where he provided a provocative and informative report on the state of Italian viticulture. His extensive research in the field of wine and food led him to publish several fundamental works, amongst which can also be counted several popularizing works. Worth pointing out are Vignaioli Storici, Cataloghi dei Vini d'Italia (The Wines of Italy, 1964), dei Vini del Mondo, degli Spumanti e degli Champagnes, delle Acqueviti e degli Oli extra-vergine, and Alla ricerca dei cibi perduti. His collaboration with the renowned chef Luigi Carnacini was also of great importance; among its fruits were La cucina italiana and Il Carnacini.

In 1990 he founded the Veronelli publishing house ‘with the specific objective of thoroughly classifying the immense national gastronomic inheritance and contributing to the heightening of awareness of the touristic appeal of the loveliest country in the world’ (from Veronelli Editore website, ‘CHI SIAMO’).

Veronelli collaborated with Derive/Approdi, writing prefaces to several books on themes in history, politics, and gastronomy. His intense exchange of letters with Pablo Echaurren in the pages of Carta represented an important stimulus to reflection on questions related to the earth and material quality of life for the anti-globalization movement. During his final years he founded, with the help of several centri sociali – amongst which La Chimica of Verona and Leoncavallo of Milan – Terra e Libertà/Critical Wine. Also during these years he undertook campaigns to establish communal appellations (De. Co.), aimed at guaranteeing the origin of products, and to insure the identification of a food product’s price at its origin in order to uncover excessive price hikes along the chain between producer and consumer.