Ascorti

Ascorti is a pipe workshop founded in the town of Cucciago, in northern Italy's province of Como. The brand takes its name from Roberto Ascorti, who began producing under his own name in 1980 at just twenty-two. Ascorti is considered a direct heir to the workshop tradition concentrated around Como in Italian pipemaking, a tradition shaped along the line of Castello and Caminetto.

Family and Origins

The family's connection to pipes began a generation before Roberto. His father, Giuseppe Ascorti — known in the trade as "Peppino" — joined the Castello workshop in Cantù in 1959, left nine years later, and founded Caminetto in 1968. For Roberto, then ten years old, pipes became the trade discussed at home. While studying at art school, he also moved in and out of workshop tasks; in 1980, at twenty-two, he decided to make it his sole occupation. Since there was no room for him at his father's workshop, he began production directly under his own surname. The small early team included his brother Pierangelo and his then-fiancée, later his wife, Silvana. Roberto lost first his father and then his brother at a young age, and kept the workshop running together with Silvana.

The two brands' paths later crossed again. Caminetto had been shaken when partner Luigi Radice left in the late 1970s, and halted production in 1986. Records indicate that after the closure, part of the old team moved over to Ascorti, and the young brand found a wealth of skill accumulated over the years ready at hand. The Caminetto name was revived after a long gap in 2013 by Peppino's grandson, Tommaso Ascorti; the two brands are today regarded as two separate branches of the same family.

How the Workshop Works

Production at Ascorti rests on the logic of a single piece followed individually at the bench. For rough shaping, small machines that Peppino Ascorti built by hand in the 1970s are still in use. These are kept not to shrink the share of handwork, but so that each stage of the process can be carried out separately and under control.

Material selection is among the workshop's chief preoccupations. The briar blocks to be used are sorted by size, weight, and flaw; after the initial drying done in the region where the root is harvested, the material is, by the workshop's own account, left to rest roughly two more years. Once the chamber and shank are bored, the pipe enters a long sequence of steps carried out by hand for its weight; again by the workshop's account, a piece passes through some ninety stages, large and small, before it is considered finished. The mouthpieces are not bought ready-made either, but cut in-house from methacrylate (acrylic) sheet.

La Silvana

Silvana Ascorti learned briar craftsmanship within the Caminetto team from the mid-1970s onward. According to Pipedia, after more than thirty years of this experience, she created the "La Silvana" line under her own name in 2008. Built on a classic Italian line, the series was offered in two groups, smooth-polished and rusticated; it is set apart from the main production by its colored mouthpieces and separate logo.