The man who listened to the perfumes

When you hear him speak, Baldinini never really uses the language of contemporary beverages. He doesn't talk about "experience," he doesn't hide behind words like premiumization or signature. He talks about aromatic accords. About obsessions. About intuitions that come to him while walking in the woods or standing still, staring at a pool like an alchemist on vacation. "I almost never write formulas in the lab," he says. "They come to me outside. Then I refine the accord in there." In there, he means Olfattorio. The name itself sounds like it came from a Borges story, but corrected by a bartender with dark circles under his eyes. A laboratory hidden in the Rimini hills of the Tenuta Saiano estate, where thousands of essences, tinctures, extracts, barks, spices, and botanicals from half the planet coexist. But calling it a laboratory is an understatement.

Perfumes to wear on the palate

The Olfattorio feels more like a sensory recording studio. Each bottle is an audio track. Each essence is a frequency. Each botanical is a voice that enters or exits the mix. And the curious thing is that Baldinini, despite being born into the world of perfumery, has never really had any interest in remaining closed in it. "At twenty, I already knew I wanted to marry perfumery with food and wine," he says. Like certain musicians who started out at the Conservatory and ended up playing dirty blues in smoky clubs because technique alone is no longer enough. In his spirits, mixology isn't liquid makeup. It's musical composition. He describes gin, for example, as the distillate closest to a perfume. "Our products are perfumes to wear on the palate," he says at one point. And as you listen, you understand that it's not a phrase created for LinkedIn. He truly believes it. Also because he literally lives immersed in aromas. The team members say he often disappears for hours into his personal laboratories. Not to isolate himself from the world. But to listen to him better. Also because Baldinini thinks like a nose but speaks like a bassist. Everything always comes back to the same thing: harmony, rhythm, balance, improvisation. His family is musical; he himself grew up surrounded by Hammonds and '80s synthesizers.

Building liquid identities

During the chat, we end up talking about Lenny Kravitz, concerts, scores, and ears ravaged by excessive volume. And ultimately, it makes sense. Because a great cocktail, in his vision, works exactly like a great song: impeccable technique, yes, but above all emotion. "Technique is needed to avoid making gross errors," he says. "Then the feeling does the rest." And here perhaps lies the difference between those who create spirits and those who build liquid identities. Baldinini, for example, doesn't chase the territory like so many do today. He loves it, but without turning it into label folklore. "I don't believe in zero-kilometer products," he says. "I believe in the freedom to choose the best." So his botanicals come from all over the world. Not for Instagrammable exoticism, but because every aroma must sound exactly as he wants. No false notes. No shortcuts. And above all, no rush. In the contemporary beverage world, where products often come and go in the time of a reel, Baldinini seems like an elegant survivor of a slower civilization. "Frenzy corrodes the soul," he says with an almost eerie calm. In his spirits, time isn't a cost of production. It's an ingredient. The infusions must wait. The aromatic accords must settle like certain toxic loves or certain jazz vinyl records found used at a flea market in the rain.

Create something unique

Then of course, there are the medals. Lots of them. More than a hundred international awards, including the London Spirits Competition, the World Gin Awards, and the Bartender Spirits Awards. But when I ask him what the best compliment he's ever received is, he doesn't mention prizes or rankings. He says something much more human: "Realizing you've created something unique. Not chasing. Not copied." And perhaps this is what makes Dibaldo interesting in an era full of perfect and often soulless products. The feeling that behind every bottle there's still a real human being. With his manias, his obsessions, his aromatic nights and his silences. At the end of the conversation, we even end up talking about personal perfumes. I tell him I've been using the same Guerlain Vetiver for years. He smiles like some provincial doctors do when they've already figured out everything about the patient before even examining him. "The perfume," he says, "has to make you feel good. Not others." Which, if you think about it, is also the perfect definition of a great cocktail. Or a great song listened to alone on the way home.