Wine Spectator - August 2004

Interview by Ryan Isaac - Wine Spectator Assistant Editor

Federico Castelluccio, 40, was born in Naples, Italy, and his family moved to the United States in 1968. He is best known for his role as Furio Giunta in the hit TV series The Sopranos, but he began his career in the arts as a painter. He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City on a full scholarship and only started acting after he received his fine arts degree. Today, he lives in New Jersey and pursues both acting and painting. His favorite wines are Italian, and include Brunello di Montalcino and Barolo.

Federico Castelluccio: My father makes wine. He started in Italy, and he's been making it all along in New Jersey. He makes a nice rich red wine, a rosé and a white wine. With Italians, they want to share it with everybody. You make it to give it away. I started getting into wine in college when we had a lot of wine and cheese afternoons for art exhibits. That's when I really started tasting it. I love something corposo, you know, with body.

WC: Do you help your father make his wine?

FC: One year my father made some wine that didn't taste right. There was something that tasted a little bitter. You know what it was? When he was crushing the grapes, he had the stems in there. The vines were very green, so you're crushing the juice of the green vines in there, and that's seeping into the taste of the wine. It was horrible. I said to my father, "Pa, you can't drink this. This is not good." I figured out that we needed to get an extractor to take the stems out. Now the wine is coming out beautifully.

WC: There is a lot of wine drinking in The Sopranos. Is there any off the set?

FC: On the set, it's not real wine because of union rules -- you can't drink alcohol while you're working. Most of my work was with James Gandolfini -- and the fourth season was with Edie Falco. When we wrap up a day, from time to time we would go out for a glass of wine. After 16-hour days, you want to take the edge off.

WC: Do you have any particular favorite wines?

FC: There's a really great Montepulciano d'Abruzzo that's named after my last name. It's Duchi di Castelluccio. I was in an acting class years ago, and a guy comes up to me and goes, "Hey, I was in a wine store the other day, and I was thinking about you. I got this for you." It was a bottle with the exact spelling: Castelluccio. When I tasted it, it was just amazing. My grandmother used to always say that our lineage was from dukes. Then I see this label, and it's very interesting. Maybe there's something there.

August 2004