In a private room known as “The Connoisseur Room” at Collezione New York, the rare wine and spirits boutique on Madison Avenue, about two dozen bottles of single malt Scotch sit on a few shelves. The names are mostly familiar — Bowmore, Talisker, Ardbeg, and Springbank, among others — but the labels look unlike anything seen in a typical liquor store. The bottles appear brand new, but a closer look reveals that these whiskies were bottled decades prior, in some cases more than a half century ago. They’re part of an extraordinary find that took place in a warehouse in Italy earlier this year, and now they’re for sale to the public.
A taste of the Cantarelli whisky collection.
The Italian Connection To Single Malt Scotch Goes Back Decades
Many modern collectors are unaware of the Italian connection to Scotch single malts, but it’s impossible to tell the story of Scotch whisky in the 20th century without including Italy. From the late 19th century until the 1960s, single malt whiskies barely existed on a commercial level. Distilleries rarely bottled their own whiskies, instead selling casks to blending houses or to independent bottlers, where they would wind up in blended Scotches. Even after single malts started to become a viable proposition, first with the release of Glenfiddich‘s Straight Malt in 1963 and then with the launch of Gordon & MacPhail’s Connoisseur’s Choice series in 1968, they were still a tiny niche market until the early 1990s.
One notable exception to the rule was Italy. Much as Japan spearheaded the revival of bourbon in the ’80s, the early single malts found a receptive audience in the Italian market in the ’60s and ’70s. Forward-thinking importers like Silvano Samaroli, Nadi Fiori, Ernesto Mainardi and Armando Giovinetti aren’t household names in the world of whisky, but they’re the ones who planted the seeds of the single malt revolution that are still flowering today.
Single malt wasn’t considered a luxury spirit in those early days. “In the past, you’d go to any coffee bar in Italy to get an espresso,” says Stefano Pileggi, the owner of Collezione. “And then on the top shelf, you’ll find Glen Grant from the ’60s, and Macallan from the ’70s. People were drinking like that! That was the beautiful thing. It was not expensive.”
A native of Calabria, the 42 year old Pileggi is too young to have experienced the golden age of single malts in Italy firsthand. But as he developed a passion for whisky — before opening Collezione, he was one of the foremost Macallan collectors in the world — he befriended and learned from many of the original importers. Even though he’s lived in America since 2011, he still has close ties to the Italian whisky community. It was through that community (from whom specifically he won’t say, preferring to keep his sources confidential) that he first learned of a potential once-in-a-lifetime find.
Stefano Pileggi, owner of Collezione New York, in the Connoisseur Room.
A Legendary Italian Restaurant, And A Secret It Kept For Decades
Trattoria Cantarelli, or I Cantarelli, as it was known, opened in 1953, in the back of a small and well-curated grocery store founded in the early 20th century by the parents of the restaurant’s founder, Giuseppe “Peppino” Cantarelli. Peppino ran the store and restaurant with his wife, Mirella del Nevo Cantarelli, who was also the primary chef. The store was a wonder of its own, carrying a range of esoteric English, French, and Scottish delicacies, including whisky: Dario Zanasi wrote in 1965 of “the crowded shelves” containing “Barnetts smoked salmon, Bruchladdich malt whisky, Strasbourg pâtés, and Scottish jams.”
I Cantarelli’s legend has endured. It was a groundbreaking restaurant in its time. Located not in a big city but in the small town of Samboseto in lower Parma, it was the first trattoria featuring simple, provincial cuisine and an unfussy atmosphere to earn two Michelin stars, a status it kept from 1970 until its closing. The out-of-the-way restaurant became an international destination spot, not just for gourmands but for intellectuals, artists, and celebrities including Burt Lancaster, Gerard Depardieu, and Robert De Niro.
The food wasn’t the only focus at I Cantarelli. The trattoria also had a formidable wine selection — and a deep and well-curated selection of Scotch single malts. I Cantarelli closed the last day of December, 1982. The store remained open for the next decade until Peppino Cantarelli died in 1992, following Mirella, who had passed away in 1986. At that point, the remaining stocks of whisky went into storage and stayed there, forgotten, for more than thirty years.
The Find Of A Lifetime
Fast forward to 2026. Pileggi, who still travels to Italy regularly, recalls, “This guy tells me, ‘Stefano, there is the possibility of this crazy collection that this restaurant, Cantarelli, had for many, many years, and the family had, in this warehouse, cases’…. I said, look, it’s too good to be true. Like, it’s dream stuff. So when I went to Italy and I went to see the things, I was like, whoa, I want all of it.”
The cases turned out to be cardboard boxes. “[That’s how] the whiskey was delivered to the importers,” Pileggi says. “Remember, it was cheap stuff.” When he opened the boxes, “The bottles were packed in there, brand new, had never been unpacked.”
The definitive history of I Cantarelli, along with some of the bottles from the trattoria’s collection.
“New Old Stock”
Pileggi marvels at the condition of the bottles. “These are like, in the language of collectible watches or vinyl, ‘new old stock.’ In 40 years, these bottles, this is the second time someone apart from this family touched [them].”
Apart from the condition in the bottles, the liquid in them is the stuff of collectors’ wildest dreams. Highland Park from the 1970s, bottled at 57% ABV. 12 year old Ardbeg, laid down in 1954. Macallans distilled in the 1930s and ’40s and bottled by Gordon & MacPhail in the ’70s. Back then it was called “Macallan-Glenlivet;” Glenlivet was the standard bearer for Scotch whisky and its name was legally used in hyphenated form by other distilleries.
Asked if he has any favorites among the Cantarelli bottles, Pileggi quickly names three. A 12 year old Clynelish bottled in the late ’60s or early ’70s at 57% ABV, when almost all whiskies were bottled at 40% or 43% (“I only had one time the possibility of drinking the 57, and I was blown away”). A 15 year old Port Ellen, distilled in 1977 — six years before the fabled Islay distillery closed for good — and bottled at 63.6% ABV, one of the highest-proof Port Ellens ever produced. And a Springbank, aged in sherry casks, bottled at 57% ABV, distilled in 1972 and bottled in 1982 (“I’m in love with this whisky. All the full proof Springbanks…. I’m a sherry cask guy. the old ones”).
Perhaps the most important bottle from a historical viewpoint is a bottle of Rosebank, estimated to be from the 1970s. It’s not just that the distillery has been closed since the early ’90s (a new Rosebank distillery has since opened). A label on the back indicates that it was imported into Italy by Edoardo Giaccone for his establishment, Whiskyteca Edward & Edward in Salò. Whiskyteca wasn’t just one of the first whisky bars in Italy (it opened in 1958), but it was also the biggest, stocking more than 1,500 whiskies. Giaccone’s whisky collection was, for a time, the biggest in the world, even making it into the Guinness Book of World Records. The fact that one of his bottles wound up in the Cantarelli collection shows the connection between the various importers, merchants, and enthusiasts at the time.
“It’s Like They Knew The Future”
“The view of these big Italians back then, I don’t know, it’s like they knew the future,” Pileggi marvels. “And there was no future in the ’60s and ’70s. These guys were buying pallets [of whisky]. It’s difficult sometimes, even for me, to explain to the public. You don’t know Italians back there. We’re f***ing nuts!
Bottles like this are rarely found at auction, and when they are they’re usually less pristine, with scuffed labels, damaged or missing display boxes, torn tax strips and the like. And anyway, Pileggi isn’t a fan of auctions, especially online auctions, which is part of why he opened a brick-and-mortar store. “The things that you experience — the bottles, the beauty of them, you touch them, you see them, you can see the label, you like it, you don’t like it…. And in this case, if you think that provenance is important, you’re going to be the third [person] touching that bottle. You think about, it will be pretty premium excitement, at least for a collector.” For New Yorkers, or visitors to the city from out of town, visiting Collezione is a singular experience, though the store’s stock, including the Cantarelli bottles, is also available to purchase online.
Pileggi values the personal interactions that come with the shop, and while he doesn’t always match the lowest prices online, he makes sure the perks are worth the extra money. “For me, I always wanted to build relationships in life. That’s why I’m, God bless, 15 years in New York. I’ve built good relationships that allow me to meet people, that allow me to meet collectors. And now I can do what I can do. There are people that prefer to build their relationships, to have an experience on Madison Avenue. I spent money on the floor, I spent money on walls, I spent money in the cabinetry to make the stuff beautiful for [the customer], not for me.”
He brings it back to I Cantarelli: “I’m pretty sure, if I could time travel and see a picture of it, they didn’t save money in making the trattoria, either. They made the trattoria, really, the best they could have gotten. And back then, even the whiskies, they were the best they could have gotten. They didn’t [go] to their supplier and say, oh, I can find cheaper. They want the best Parmigiano, the best meat, the best, the best, the best.”
Pileggi is proud, he says, not just to have acquired the Cantarelli collection, but to have established a connection with one of the great Italian restaurants of the 20th century. “I’m giving a touch of life to the family, thanks to this collection. Cantarelli, they don’t exist anymore. They are dead. But now, they’re probably going to get a little bit of life again.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
