"Scarpetta" means a small piece of bread used to soak up the last bit of delicious sauce on the plate that you can't possibly leave behind. It's the gesture that tells you everything about how Italians relate to food and to the enjoyment of everyday meals — the insistence that nothing worth having should be left unfinished, that the pleasure at the table deserves to be pursued to the very last drop. When Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson named their wine project after this gesture, they were making a statement about what they wanted Scarpetta wines to be: everyday Italian wines, accessible and honest and genuinely good, made from the regions and varieties that the founders fell in love with during travels through northeastern Italy.

Bobby Stuckey is a Master Sommelier and the owner of Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado — one of the most celebrated Italian regional restaurants in the United States, whose focus on Friuli-Venezia Giulia cuisine and wines earned it a James Beard Award. His deep knowledge of Friuli, and his specific affection for the wines of this overlooked northeastern Italian corner, are what gave Scarpetta Pinot Grigio its specific production philosophy: not a single-terroir wine but a two-terroir wine, combining the crispness and minerality of the Grave region's gravelly soils with the body and complexity of the Colli Orientali's Ponca hillsides.

The result is a Pinot Grigio that the winemaker describes as "light on its feet but complex" — bone dry, bright acidity, stone fruits and melon with a distinct mineral note, the kind of wine that works beautifully as a stand-alone aperitivo and even better alongside food. The CellarTracker community found it "much better with food" — fleshy, mouth-coating, and distinctly mineral, with green melon, unripe peach, apple, pear, lemon zest, and guava. Total Wine describes "veins of minerality and floral aromatics, stone fruits, lavender, honey, pear, white flowers and minerals." The scarpetta wine. The one you finish.

Origins & Craftsmanship

Scarpetta was founded by Bobby Stuckey — Master Sommelier, owner of the James Beard Award-winning Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder — and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, Frasca's executive chef, whose shared passion for the food and wine culture of Friuli-Venezia Giulia inspired the creation of an Italian wine project built around the varieties and regions they discovered during travels through northeastern Italy. The brand draws from relationships with growers and estates across Friuli-Venezia Giulia and other Italian regions, with the Pinot Grigio sourced from two specifically complementary Friulian terroirs.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is the region that gives Pinot Grigio its most specifically serious expression — the northeastern Italian corner bordered by Austria and Slovenia whose cool climate, diverse soil types, and generation-spanning viticultural history have produced Italy's most complex and most internationally respected Pinot Grigio wines since the 1970s. Within the region, Scarpetta draws from two sub-zones that contribute complementary qualities:

Friuli Grave (70%) — the broad, flat alluvial plain west of Udine, whose name comes from the gravel ("ghiaia") deposited by ancient glacial rivers from the Alps. The free-draining, light, gravelly soils produce wines of crisp, clean minerality and bright acidity — the cool, open landscape's specific contribution to a Pinot Grigio of freshness and precision.

Colli Orientali del Friuli Ponca soil (30%) — the steep hillsides of the Colli Orientali, Friuli's premium wine-growing zone bordering Slovenia, where the soils are "Ponca" — a specific marl and sandstone formation that is one of the most specific and the most specifically body-and-complexity-conferring soil types in all of Italian white wine production. The Ponca's tighter structure and the steep hillside exposure produce grapes of greater concentration and aromatic depth, adding the body and the specific mineral weight that the Grave component alone cannot provide.

Critics Reviews

No published numerical critic scores are available for the 2024 Scarpetta Pinot Grigio specifically.

Scarpetta winemaker's notes (2024 vintage confirmed):
Color: "Light straw color with just a hint of salmon."
Aromatics: "Aromas of both stone fruits and melon."
Palate: "Showing Pinot Grigio's ability to be light on its feet but complex. Melon and stone fruits with minerals and medium body."

Total Wine (confirmed):
"Light and dry with veins of minerality and floral aromatics. Crisp and dry with medium-high acidity and tastes of stone fruits, lavender, honey, pear, white flowers and minerals."

CellarTracker community (2023 vintage — most recent scored, 87.6/100):
"Light silver/straw gold color. Aromas of orchard, stone and tropical fruits, wet stones and a pleasant funk. Flavors of green melon, unripe peach, apple, pear, lemon zest and guava. Distinct mineral note on the crisp medium finish. A bit fleshy, mouth coating and bone dry. Bright acidity and very fresh tasting. Much better with food."

CellarTracker blind tasting note (most complete):
"Ripe white peach, ripe lychee, ripe melon, ripe apple, ripe pear, guava, coriander, sage and palo santo on the nose. Medium+ intensity of aromas."

Anthony Gismondi and Stuart Tobe (prior vintage):
"Floral, ripe pear, light honey and apple skin aromas. Fresh, dry, creamy, slightly lean palate with grapefruit rind, pear, light lees, honey and guava flavours. Solid style for food."

Scarpetta founding philosophy:
"True to Italian traditions, part of everyday meals include drinking good wine, great conversation, and little moments of celebration. Scarpetta was created as an homage to this lifestyle."

Tasting Profile

Nose
Light straw with just a hint of salmon — the 2024 vintage's Ponca soil component's subtle contribution in a color of genuine freshness. The nose opens with the two-terroir combination's most immediately appealing quality: stone fruits and melon lead together — peach and white nectarine from the Colli Orientali's Ponca concentration, green melon from the Grave's crisp precision, the two complementary fruit registers creating the more complete aromatic picture that Scarpetta specifically designed the two-terroir blend to achieve. Apple and pear add orchard freshness. Lemon zest adds citrus brightness. Guava adds the most specifically unusual and the most pleasantly tropical secondary fruit note — the Ponca soil's mineral-concentration quality translating into this unexpected aromatic depth. Wet stones add the most immediately minerally and the most specifically Friulian secondary quality. A pleasant funk from the natural vinification adds complexity. Floral notes of white flowers and lavender add delicacy. Light honey from the lees contact adds warmth.

Palate
Bone dry, fleshy, mouth-coating, and distinctly mineral — the CellarTracker community's most accurate characterization of a Pinot Grigio that achieves genuine body without sacrificing the Grave's crisp precision. The entry is light on its feet in the winemaker's specific characterization — not weighty, not heavy, but genuinely present on the palate in the medium-body register that the 30% Ponca component specifically contributes. Stone fruits and melon carry the primary fruit character through the mid-palate. Grapefruit rind adds the most specifically dry and the most tart secondary citrus note. Bright acidity drives every flavor forward with the freshness that the Grave region's gravelly soils produce most directly. The mineral note is distinct and persistent — the Ponca marl's most enduringly quality-confirming contribution at the palate's core. Juicy, tart, and creamy simultaneously — the most multi-textural Pinot Grigio descriptor confirmed across multiple tasters.

Finish
Crisp, medium length, and mineral-persistent. The distinct mineral note carries the close most enduringly from the CellarTracker observation — the Ponca soil's specific contribution most present at the finish as a clean, slightly stony, genuinely terroir-expressive quality. Lemon zest and stone fruit linger. The acidity's freshness makes the finish genuinely refreshing and genuinely appetizing — the wine that is, in every taster's assessment, "much better with food."

Quick Overview

Food Pairings

The mineral precision, bright acidity, and bone-dry character make this one of the most specifically Italian-table-oriented white wines in the Blackwell's section — better with food than without, as multiple tasters confirmed:

• Sashimi, pesce crudo, and ceviche — the winemaker's own specific recommendations
• Grilled shrimp and seared scallops — the citrus and mineral carrying through shellfish
• Lemon herb chicken
• Fresh salads with vinaigrette — the acidity amplifying the dressing
• Light pasta with olive oil and herbs — the most classically Friulian and the most specifically scarpetta-tradition pairing
• Risotto with vegetables
• Light grilled fish