The Italian Renaissance
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Kevin Godbee - Mar 3, 2014
- 13 min read
Alan Schwartz
Because of the Italian Renaissance of the pipe is in its full, PipeSMOKE made a pilgrimage to Italy. We started in Rome and continued a peregrination around the country northward to visit the industry saints or sinners (depending on whom you ask), and hand carvers in smaller workshops, as well as large factories. But, with so many pipe manufacturers and an enormous range of stylistic variations, we decided to acquaint or readers with the pipe culture of Italy and look at the "schools" of pipe making. Rather than trying to list everyone or trying to establish hierarchies we tried to find some unifying ideas to help understand this recent phenomena. Because it is nature and nurture in Italy to argue ones opinion vehemently and passionately, but without personal animosity, we must emphasize that the ideas expressed below are those of the individuals interviewed and not necessarily those of this magazine.
ROME: Shopping for Style and Culture
Fincato is a pipeshop dating to 1932, and located in the old Roman center near the eternal Pantheon and the ephemeral government offices. Here, Fauso Fincato holds court:: this is his empire. The shop’s street level features well-stocked display counters and wall racks with all the standard brands of tobacco and pipe. Up a flight of steps is a lounge-like showroom and museum outfitted with arm-chairs, couches, coffee, magazines, and tobacco humidors for a fill. Here, customers who drop by for a smoke, a chat, a sample, or a purchase find Fincato’s best offering – his personal attention.
A universally acknowledged spokesman for the Italian pipe world and publisher of the distinguished magazine, SMOKING, this suave, silver-haired gentleman has a style that would serve well in the diplomatic corps – discreet and direct, but with an agenda. He says, for example, that Italian pipe smokers mostly don’t buy what is commonly thought of as an “Italian” pipe – a large, freehand, fancy shape with baroque form or rococo ornamentation. What they like are the classics – standard. shapes that are time-honored but modified by the pipemaker’s artistic sensibility “As with great big cigars, huge pipes in everyday use are moments of exhibitionism. The pipe will remain, as it always has, classic. It promotes the image of elegance and refinement,” Fincato explains as he lights up a well- used Savinelli Golden Jubilee with a billiard bowl, a bit taller but slightly narrower than the sandblasted, thinner-shanked Dunhill billiard I am carrying with me.
We admire the Savinelli and the Dunhill, in the universal show-and-tell pipe lovers use to get acquainted, along with a Peterson billiard with silver mount and spigot that I withdraw from my pocket. “I can see that you like the classics too,” Fincato remarks. “Look at the perfect form, the balance between bowl, shank, and mouthpiece. This Savinelli is the classic Italian billiard; yours are the traditional English or Irish versions,” he points out.
In fact, most of the pipes Fincato displays in his upstairs area are classic and elegant, clearly, at home in a polished, urbane setting. “A pipe is something to carry in the pocket, part of the equipment of a gentleman. Novelty pipes sensa anima (without spirit) don’t create their own future, but all of these classics do,” Fincato opines. Creating the future is part of what the Italian pipe culture is about, but to do so it stands on the shoulders of the past.
This day, we are Fincato’s luncheon guests at the Circolo della Pipa (Circle of the Pipe), housed in a 15th century villa that belonged to a Vatican official, and probably was occupied by the painter known as “Raphael” (Raffaello Santi, 1483-1520). The Circolo, self designated as "associazione culturale," a pipe club composed of the Roman noblesse oblige, uses this elegant little villa, high up on one of the city’s seven hills, as a luncheon and dinner club, and as a gathering place for the members to meet for a convivial smoke, drink, card game, or chat.
A preference for the pipe, fine wines, and gourmet food unites Circolo members, and they discuss their passions over a meal, as a preamble to smoking (it is considered brittafigura – bad form – to smoke while others eat). A wide range of topics are discussed and argued: Is Ascorti the best designer of the Como school? Is it true that Radice is his cousin? Does Savinelli still uphold the old standards? Is Brebbia shifting away from classicism? Can you really classify the pipe carvers of Pesaro as a school with Giancarlo Guidi (Ser Jacopo) as their leader? What about Bruto Sordini (Don Carlos)? Are his pipes successful in the U.S.A.? Isn’t Franco Rossi (11 Ceppo) a true classicist? Do Americans still like Alberto Montini’s Mastro de Paja? Is Ardor well known in the States? Besides Aldo Velani and Thomas Cristiano, are there many brands of Italian pipes exported to America but hardly known in Italy? A lot of pipe knowledge here, and boundless curiosity.
After the meal, fine leather pouches emerge from pockets or the small leather handbags so many Italian men carry, and are passed around for approval or sampling. Treasured pipes surface and are examined. The air is filled with fragrant aromas of mostly natural English-style mixtures and Virginias, and a few of the lighter Dutch and Danish cavendish blends. A bond is formed through the act of dining and smoking together in this unabashedly men’s world of pipes, good food and drink, and fragrant coffee.
Back in everyday Rome, we visit the shop and workshop of Becker and Musico, just around the corner from the Trevi Fountain (as in “Three Coins in the one of the most densely tourist packed areas in Rome. Here, Paolo Becker, the son of the late famed pipemaker Federico (Fritz) Becker, and Massimo Musico work at making and repairing pipes. For pipe lovers it’s a respite from the outside world, again with comfortable seating, magazines, tobacco samples, and glorious pipes. Massimo is known as one of the best restorer/ repairmen in Rome, and even performed “emergency” surgery on a damaged pipe in my travel pack.
Becker’s work created a large following in the U.S. during the 1970s and ’80s for large freehand shapes, mostly with a rusticated finish, and rare, perfectly grained, smooth pipes. These days Becker still carves the freehands but is emphasizing a more classic line of medium-sized pipes with a British look and an Italian flair. “With so many younger professional men getting interested in pipes,” he says, “most of my sales are [pipes] in the medium-size range and are intended for daily use, not for collecting."
A few streets away, Augusto Ain the Wuof. About herrascenzo’s spartan shop, Regali Novelli, has the largest selection of Castello pipes this side of anywhere. And so it should, because Parascenzo is the designated distributor of Castello. Here the pipes are larger, more freehand than we’ve seen at the other shops and are “More for the Americans and Germans,” Parascenzo tells us. This street-level store is built for speed, not comfort, a far cry from the cultivated and leisurely connoisseurship promoted by Fincato or Becker & Musico. Pipe culture is somewhere else, but the Castello selection here is fabulous. Choice reigns, not elegance.
But Rome is for buying: the real “schools” of artisans, their workshops, and the larger factories are elsewhere.
Pesaro:
Northeast of Rome, in an Adriatic beach resort and shipping port named Pesaro, Giancarlo Guidi of Ser Jacopo, a master pipemaker generally regarded as the chief architect of the Pesaro style or “school,” shows us around his laboratorio (workshop) and offers a cogent explanation of the different schools. “Pesaro is artisan,” he says. “We all started by ourselves or in small groups of two or three to make pipes 20 to 30 years ago. We had only a few machines for drilling and polishing, but did all the cutting and shaping by hand, or at most with a lathe to turn the pipe while we shaped it with tools.
“Milan and Varese, on the other hand, had the industrial tradition of the north of Bruto Sordini of Don Carlos Italy,” he continues. “You can trace the anima (soul, spirit) of Brebbia and Savinelli back to the great Fratelli Rossi factory near Varese. They made up to 50,000 pipes a day at the beginning of the century. That’s 12 million pipes a year from one factory! When Buzzi (Brebbia) and Savinelli started together, and then split up, that was their tradition. To this day the factory concept drives both of their thinking and shows in their classical shapes, which I think are the best in the world. Even though they do make some very fine hand-carved pipes, they start conceptually with what can be made by machine and go on from there. The pipemakers around Gavirate-Ardor, Talamona, and others, are in the Savinelli-Brebbia orbit.”
“What about Castello?” we ask, intrigued by Guidi’s opinions and urging him to continue.
"Castello started the new Italian pipe. When Carlo Scotti began the company right after World War 11, his concept was to make radical innovations on standard forms and to make only the highest quality [product] for a small market of connoisseurs who could afford to pay the price. He used a very basic machine to cut the rough forms for consistent shapes, and then completed all the rest by hand. Great pipes, beautiful shapes. Of course there were also freehands, but only a small percentage. Ascorti and Radice originally worked for Castello, and when they went out on their own they carried out a similar idea: variations on classical themes, as seen in machined pipes. For that kind of artisan work, I think that Roberto Ascorti is one of the best pipernakers in the world today.”
Asked about the difference between the northern schools and Pesaro, Guidi responds, “We started as self-taught artisans, who then learned from each other. Some had worked in the northern factories, others spent time in Livorno with Cesare Barontini (a major supplier of raw briar for the Italian pipernakers and a large scale contract manufacturer of pipes to the world market.) I was self taught. As a university student of art and design, I started to make my own pipes and then, because there was no work in my field, decided to do that for a living. The only machines I had were a saw, a lathe, and a sander. And that’s all I have now, although more of the same.”
Guidi’s first company wasn’t Ser Jacopo; it was Mastro de Paja, which he started in 1970. In 1982, Guidi left Mastro to his partners and started Ser Jacobo, where he continued to make large and over-sized “organic” shapes determined by the grain of the wood, and implemented elaborate ornamentation at the joint between the wooden shank and the Lucite stem. “In my exploratory phase with Mastro and then in the new company, I made sculpture, not pipes that were comfortable and smokeable. Then I returned to the classics, as a type of maturity. I search for thematic material in folklore, art history, and pipe traditions,” Guidi explains.
One of the major accomplishments of Giancarlo Guidi is indirect: whether in the earlier phases of his career or the most recent, most of the Pesaro pipernakers have come under his influence. Either they worked for him or learned from him as apprentices. For example, Bruto Sordini originally studied medicine but was entranced by pipernaking, and learned the basics from a local carver in his native town of Cagli, in the mountains an hour west of Pesaro. Guidi supplied briar and the two became friends. Then Guidi asked Sordini to join him when he started Ser Jacopo in 1982. Since 1988, Sordini has made his own Don Carlos pipe in a purpose-built workshop in Cagli.
With a spectacular view of the mountains through the huge windows that flood his workshop with light, and opera blasting on his stereo, Sordini, his wife Rosaria, and one assistant make some of the finest examples of large freehand classics we’ve seen from the Pesaro school. Guidi’s influence is evident in the clean lines and balanced proportions, with surprising angles and curves, although the Don Carlos pipes are generally larger than his mentor’s. Sordini also likes to add substantial ornamentation to the mouthpiece/bowl joint, like Guidi. Sordini’s pre-pipe medical studies show too, with his scientific background leading him to invent and patent a carefully researched water filtration and moisture removal system in his “Hydra” pipe. His early apprenticeship with the local craftsman, along with the rugged local geography, also influence the outdoor character of his carving.
A more subtle Guidi influence is on Il Ceppo. According to Franco Rossi, who heads the company now, his sister and co-worker Nadia founded the company with her husband, master carver Georgio Imperatori, now retired. Imperatori worked with Guidi in the early days and started Il Ceppo when Guidi started Mastro. Somewhat younger, Franco Rossi started at Mastro after Guidi had gone on to form Ser Jacopo, and learned the Guidi style of pipemaking, the style Mastro still uses today. Later, Rossi joined Imperatori at Il Ceppo, and eventually took over.
Rossi, an amiable man who instantly makes you feel that you’ve known him forever, has a passion for classics, all hand-turned, but with differences in proportion from the traditional shapes. An unusually wide shank will flow from a narrow bowl, or vice versa. Innovative silver bands adorn the shanks, and the mouthpieces are jewel-perfect in size and proportion. “The classical mode comes from Imperatori,” Rossi says, “but the freehands have the flavor of Montini’s Mastro, courtesy of Guidi."
The next stop on our journey is Mastro de Paja, where Alberto Montini shows us his immaculate factory, where five micromanaged pipernakers are kept busy. “Mastro de Paja is still producing the freehand style pipes the company pioneered in the early days, except that the sizes are a bit smaller," Montini tells us. One mandated innovation here is that the finishers work on different shapes randomly sorted to keep their attention fresh and to avoid the numbing repetition of looking at the same pipes all day long. Montini, a keen observer of business trends, notes that he too is moving toward moderate sized classics in his 1998/99 collections. “The younger men want smaller, less obvious pipes,” he says, “and we want the younger men as customers. This is a market-driven business.”
Whether the members of the Pesaro school acknowledge or deny it, their history echoes Giancarlo Guidi’s own. All of them run small artisan workshops that they started, with difficulty, when they decided to go it alone, and all use limited machinery. All hire workers who can carry out any phase of pipernaking, some of whom, in fact, split their time among the different makers’ workshops, as the season and production schedules demand. All, moreover, bring a high degree of similarity in method and style to their work, with the distinct differences that personality dictates.
The Pesaro pipernakers have one other thing in common: they all have a prominently displayed picture of the world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti smoking one of their pipes. A passionate pipe smoker, Pavarotti has a home nearby on the Adriatic shore, and homage paid to him with a gift of a specimen briar from one of the pipe maestros begets a photo posed with that pipe. And we are assured that Pavarotti smokes them all.
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TO BE CONTINUED: Join PipeSMOKE next issue for the second part of our Italian pipe journey! We travel north to Milan, Cantu, Cucciago, Varese, Lake Como, and Lake Maggiore, with visits to Savinelli, Ascorti, Radice, Castello, and Brebbia. Learn which major pipe maker disagrees with Giancarlo Guidi! Visit Savinelli’s famous shop! Drive Italian-style on the Autostrada! Eat pizza near the Duomo! Feel your eyes burn in Milan’s smog! Discover how Brebbia generates its own factory electricity! Decide if the Italian-French opposition in WW II was caused by the closing of Fratelli Rossi! Learn the truth about the Savinelli-Brebbia rivalry. Watch Ascorti make a pipe! Meet Alberto Paronelli, keeper of the flame in the most unusual pipe museum in the world! Stay tuned, and don’t touch that dial! |
PipeSMOKE – Winter 98/99
Written by Kevin Godbee
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His grandfather came to the US with a $50 gold coin in his shoe, opened up a cigar shop, and his most famous customer was Babe Ruth. He holds the record for the longest slow smoke in the world at over 24 hours, and he is the only man who stopped Chuck Norris from round-house kicking the Nording Pipe Statue. The most interesting man in the world, Jonathan Goldsmith, stopped by the Chicago Pipe Show this year to get kissed on the cheek by Neal Osborn. Wait, what? OK, I kid. Jonathan came to honor his friend and fishing buddy Steve Norse of Vermont Freehand at the annual Doctors and Masters of Pipes award dinner. Steve was one of the two recipients of the Masters of Pipes award and asked Johnathan to show up and add some color to his acceptance speech. Slightly overshadowed but no less important! Jay Furman was also honored as this year’s hobbyist Master of Pipes, joining me and a pipe-star-studded list of great contributors to the hobby and profession of pipes. Jay is a character in his own right. While I don’t know him as well as I would like, I’ve learned that he’s a kind-hearted collector who started the Artisan Pipe Makers Club, a place where new artisans learn, grow, and are challenged. There are around 60 artisans who participate, collaborate, and learn. Jay and Mike Bishop also started the Long Island Pipe Club, which has around 50 members and meets twice a month on different sides of the island. What is not featured here are pictures of the Doctors of Pipes. Both recipients were unable to attend: Marco Parascenzo – Doctor of Pipes, Trade/Industry Regis MacCafferty – Doctor of Pipes, Hobby Please join us in congratulating these newly inducted Doctors and Masters of Pipes. It is a great honor, and each of these men embodies what our hobby and industry strive to do: grow, educate, and cultivate its future. I encourage everyone to attend the dinner next year as it’s always illuminating. And now, on with the show. Sort of. 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I want to thank Jonathan Goldsmith for taking a few minutes to sit down with me and being gracious enough to snap pictures with many of us at the show; it was a ton of fun and made this year’s show even more memorable! This year, the Chicago Pipe Show kicked it up a notch with a new location, new signage, new pre-registration and payment system, new show executive staff, and lots of new surprises. Now, Tim Garrity, President of the Chicagoland Pipe Club, tells me that over 400 attendees were at the show, but they are still tabulating the numbers too, so this is subject to getting updated and expanded. We do have our dates for next year at this same location – the first weekend of May at the Hyatt Regency, Chicago O’Hare. Of course, like any good Chicago show, there was plenty of room hopping and the announcement board. The signage this year was super helpful in knowing where to go when to go, and what tables our favorite vendors were at. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 605. Our featured interview tonight is with Pete Prevost. Pete is a pipe maker and the President of the BriarWorks pipe factory in Columbia Tennessee. BriarWorks is a a pipe maker co-op with several other pipe makers, including Todd Johnson, who co-founded it with Pete. Brian and Pete will be talking about what’s new at BriarWorks, and how they are getting ready to attend the Chicago pipe show. (This was recorded before the show that took place last weekend.) At the top of the show, Brian will give his report of his travels and what happened at the Chicago show.
When I first started with the pipe as a quirky and precocious teen, the only tutelage I had at my disposal were scenes from old movies in which a well dressed chap would stick his pipe into a pouch, scoop tobacco into the bowl and press it down unceremoniously with his thumb. Then, with great flourish, he’d strike a match and light the thing with all manner of cinematic excess, puffing up vast clouds of smoke falling just short of completely obscuring his visage. While it may look good on film, it’s a terrible approach to actually enjoying the thing. Somehow, though, this “technique” seems to have survived in the contemporary vernacular, at least to some extent, even with bit-loads of information handily at our fingertips that should dissuade us from the practice. But, at the time, this misguided approach was all I had; it’s no wonder my early days of puffing were fraught with difficult lighting, harsh, bitter smokes and tongue bite, all culminating in a fireproof mass of ye old soggy dottle in the bottom of the bowl. Ultimately, the resulting frustration made me give up the pipe, at least for a while. While the idea of it was still very appealing, the practice of it was not. It wasn’t until a few years later when, still full of curiosity and romantic notions of pipe smoking, I wandered into a real tobacconist’s shop, and learned my “method” was a long way from the techniques that would bring me to any sort of pipe smoking bliss. So, after my poor start, and under the guidance of someone who actually seemed to know how to do it right, I was given the opportunity to approach the process anew, this time with much greater success. It was only because I was both perseverent, and fortunate to have a local shop staffed with knowledgeable people, that I’ve been able to enjoy the experience ever since. At least mostly… How many fledgeling pipe smokers have simply given up on an enjoyable pastime because of similar early mis-starts? Fortunately, today, it’s not hard to find helpful guidance at the press of a key or ten. But, at the same time, not all roads lead to Valhalla, and sometimes the advice offered might well be labeled with, “Here be dragons.” The other day, I came across a short video on-line in which a well-meaning tobacconist suggested packing a bowl of an “English” mixture “nice and tight.” Perhaps somewhat ironically, I was smoking, or trying to smoke a bowl that I’d filled on auto-pilot, packed too tightly, and not only was having the devil of a time trying to keep it lit, I really wasn’t enjoying the acrid smoke the tobacco issued during the brief periods in which it was actually burning. “No, no, NO!” I found myself muttering at my pipe, and at the figure on the screen, my protests joined by the guttural growling noises that sometimes accompany my discontent. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 604. Our featured interview tonight is with Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and he is the former co-host of the podcast, Country Squire Radio, which ended their 10-year run last year. We’ll have JD with the “From the Country Squire” segment talking about all the new things happening at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, we’ll continue our audio tour of Brian’s pipe collection.
Before we begin, I should tell you: this tobacco review is being written by an A.I. Not the fancy new GPTs or their ilk; no, this is last century’s meat-and-bone, all-organic model. To be fair, a large part of what we call knowledge is merely the accumulated perceptions and impressions gathered from a life wandered through, synthesized into a spongy mass of what-it-is-that-we-think-that-we-know. The algorithm for this prompt is simple enough: pump thousands of bowls of smoldering plant matter into a gaping maw, cross-reference the chemical sensations with all other matter previously ingested or inhaled, sieve it all through the diffuse and fractal twin lens of memory and emotion, and churn out a panoply of adjectives that attempts to convey the sensations to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet. Odds are that a diligently trained monkey could succeed half the time; if this reviewer nears fifty-one percent then that would qualify as an unrivaled success. There must have been some similar musings perambulating through the mind of Per Jensen when he began his mad scientist routine at Sutliff with the Pipe Force project, which brings us to the current mixture under the microscope—Sutliff’s Pipe Force: Episode I. Here again are the unusual ingredients that engendered the series, with the stoved Rustica being the defining voice in this composition. From the tin: The Latakia-forward English mixture offers plenty of smoky flavor from the fire-cured leaf, which is artfully harmonized with floral, earthy Stoved Rustica. A mixture of high-grade Virginias imparts a natural sweetness. Katerini, the sole Oriental component, offers herb and spice notes bringing complexity and nuance to the flavor profile. It’s certainly Latakia-forward, with the stoved Rustica doubling up on the rhythm section like a second bassist. A first whiff from the tin releases the aromas of shoe leather and hide glue in a base of clay soil with a campfire wafted over it like last night’s beach party. Once it’s been accustomed to oxygen again, subtle hints of sweetness poke through from the Virginias: lemon rind, light milk chocolate, the dregs of a peaty Scotch, and muddled cherry. Old regulars like fresh-sawn oak and tilled earth are there, of course, with distinct notes of truffle, creosote, damp peat, and pine bark mulch. As an aside, I’ve been re-potting my camellias and the similarity of aroma to the ericaceous soil mix is notable; the Katerini really brings the unique depth of its vegetal complexion when supported by the Rustica and afforded more voice in the mix. The smoky Cyprian Latakia, in turn, is backed by equal earthiness from the Rustica, which overall exhibits a profile similar to dark-fired Kentucky; it leans more toward the woody and vegetal end of that spectrum, echoing and amplifying those traits of the other constituents. The tobacco is presented pressed and cut into a couple of thick, hearty flakes in the tin, lightly moist and easily crumbled to prepare—I prefer mine with a bit of drying time. The out-of-this-world tin art for this episode in the series is Major O’Meara smoking a cavalier. In the absence of confirmation, I’m going to hazard a guess he’s of the Ithklur species. The first taste from the light is sweet, with hints of that milk chocolate dancing around the edges. The Virginia leads the smoke through the top of the bowl, and orchestrates it well. Thoroughly smoky with lemony, grassy highlights from the Virginia spectrum, it soon segues into the mid-bowl profile: heartier, smokier, with the flavor leaning to the mildly acrid and tangy tinge that is the campfire-esque signature of English blends. Caution advised, it can turn overly bitter if pushed—this is where one’s sipping technique is required to maintain the fullness of flavor through to the heel. I did tend toward a lot of relights, though it may have as much to do with technique as with the blend. Pacing is also important as the nicotine starts to manifest; though the Rustica’s contribution has been tempered well by the stoving, it can certainly upend an empty stomach. At the end of every bowl, the mouthfeel somehow gets better. The balance of sugars in the tobaccos would seem to be spot-on in this regard. I started out my tasting in cobs, then cut short an unpleasant bowl in a meer, and finally landed on my best instrument with the lovely Dunhill 4427 pictured, a quaint group 4 shell briar with a gentle curve and Cumberland stem supporting a perfectly executed acorn bowl. It surprised me here, as I’ve learned through the years that I generally have the best experience with English blends in large, wide bowls. With this blend it seems that to get the best out of the Katerini’s somewhat diaphanous influence the smaller bowl fared much better. Room note is very English, so the company you keep will either love it or hate it, and it doesn’t linger too much. I find it paired best with a strong coffee; Sumatran beans complement the flavors well, as do Ethiopian if a lighter brew is preferred. Overall impressions of the blend are that it’s a curiously interesting take on the English genre, almost a reductive reconstruction of the theme using the unique components. This blend, if nothing else, expanded my vocabulary of sense perceptions with the uniquely treated leaf. While the average human can distinguish approximately one trillion (1,000,000,000,000!) different aromas, multiplied by seven basic tastes, and wholly dependent on variables from body chemistry to atmospheric conditions, our overworked and underpaid simian brains can’t effectively catalog them all. Our pet adding machines are exceedingly good at this, however, and someday soon they’ll be the ultimate and unequivocal authority on what something tastes, smells, looks, or even feels like. Until that time, friends, revel in the moments that can be stolen to savor over a bowl of Pipe Force: Episode I.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 603. Our featured interview tonight is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and he is currently working on his third book. He is a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. He has traveled the world visiting pipe makers, and learning their different techniques. He is also the founder and chairman of Creators Syndicate, which currently represents more than 200 writers and artists. At the top of the show we’ll have a Pipe Smoking 101 segment discussing best pipe shapes and sizes that are best suited to certain types of tobacco.
Very cool. Love the history behind the names. Would love to visit Italy and some of those shops, especially the ones where you can sit and smoke, and chat
It certainly would be s treat to visit some of the shops and factories in Italy. Great read!
Very good read! Learned a few things!!
Very informative.