Castello: Natural Vergin Pot (KKKK) Tobacco Pipe

Italian workshop Castello has a rich history that stretches back to 1947 with its founding by Carlo Scotti, being established as one of the first Italian brands to offer high-quality handmade pipes to the general public. In the 1960s, following the addition of Luigi Radice and Peppino Ascorti to their team of carvers, Castello's pipes began to take on a form that was quite different from the Anglo-French classics that they and others had been producing. The Italian neoclassical style which they had begun to develop led not only to a shaping renaissance within Italy but the production of a number of now-iconic profiles. A stout pipe of relatively compact dimensions, this straight Pot boasts a robust bowl with plenty of surface area for the fingers to wrap around. A wide transition leaves plenty of room to drape a thumb, and from here starts the thick shank's gradual taper toward the stem, keeping the aft side of the pipe a touch more svelte than it would be otherwise. The bowl here sits atop a rounded, pronounced heel, though not so much at the Italian workshop's iconic "55" shape, and the walls that grow out of it take on an understated taper to the rim. The wealth of material possessed by this pipe offers a fantastic canvas of briar for the Natural Vergin finish to dress: a craggy rustication left unstained for unlimited patination potential.