Enrico Alliata

ENRICO ALLIATA, THE DUKE OF SALAPARUTA, (1879–1946) was born in Sicily. He studied music at the Conservatory of Milan but eventually gave up music to study agriculture and run the family wine business. In 1824, Enrico’s great-grandfather, Giuseppe Alliata (“Prince of Villafranca, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Spain, and Duke of Salaparuta”) founded the Corvo wine company to produce gifts for diplomats, ambassadors, princes, and noble ladies. Enrico later transformed the family vineyard into a successful international business. Among many interests, Enrico Alliata was a dedicated student of diet and health. He wrote against the “dietary orthodoxy” of the day and advocated a vegetarian diet, which he believed could prolong human life to 130 years and which he called “absolutely regenerative.” To Alliata, however, vegetarianism was no impediment to a good meal: he often hosted six-course vegetarian feasts, which he believed to be—along with the house wine—a “solution to human happiness.”