Schiopetto
One man is often called the father of modern Italian white wine — and he made it here, in the Collio hills on the Slovenian border. Here's the estate that taught Italy to bottle clean, varietal, ageworthy whites, which bottle to reach for, and how to taste on the frontier.
Italy took a strange, long time to make great white wine. The reds had their icons for generations; the whites, too often, were an afterthought — oxidised, tired, made without much care. The man who changed that worked in a corner of the country most people can't find on a map, on hills that spill straight across the Slovenian border. His name was Mario Schiopetto, and this is his estate.
Schiopetto sits in the Collio, the small range of marl-soiled hills in the far east of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and it's fair to call it one of the birthplaces of the modern Italian white. Here, from the 1960s onward, Mario Schiopetto brought a cellar discipline that barely existed in Italy at the time — temperature control, obsessive cleanliness, careful handling to lock in aromatics — and used it to bottle whites that were clean, precise and vividly varietal. The crisp Italian white you take for granted today largely descends from what he worked out on these slopes.
The man who cleaned up the cellar
To understand why Schiopetto matters, picture the alternative he replaced. Italian whites of the mid-century were routinely made in warm cellars, exposed to air, their fruit long gone by the time they reached a glass. Schiopetto treated white wine the way the best of Germany and France did — as something fragile and aromatic to be protected, not brutalised.
The result was revelatory: a Friulano that actually smelled of the grape, a Pinot Bianco with cut and length, whites with the freshness to drink young and the structure to age. Growers across Italy took notice, and the modern era of Italian white wine began, in no small part, right here.
Before Schiopetto, Italian white wine was mostly something you drank quickly and forgave. After him, it was something you could take seriously.
The estate today carries that legacy under newer ownership, still working the Collio's crumbling ponca soils and still leading with the grapes that made its name.
The wines
Start with the Friulano — the house's signature and the truest introduction to what the Collio does. Dry, textured, with that unmistakable almond-and-pear character and a savoury bitter-almond twist on the finish; grown on these hills, it's a benchmark rather than a mere refresher.
Many drinkers reach first for Blanc des Rosis, the estate's white field blend — a supple, aromatic wine that's the easiest crowd-pleaser in the range and a fine gateway to the house style. For the quiet connoisseur's pick, the Pinot Bianco is taut and mineral, one of the most underrated whites in Italy. And the Ribolla Gialla, the region's own ancient grape, gives a leaner, more citrus-driven cut.
The through-line is Schiopetto's founding idea: precision in service of the grape, the ponca minerality left free to show, nothing masked by heavy oak.
The setting
The Collio is one of Italy's best-kept wine-travel secrets — a quilt of gentle hills straddling the border, where the same range continues into Slovenia as the Brda and the culture belongs to both countries at once. Vineyards, a scatter of villages, some of the finest food in Italy, and almost none of the tourist traffic that clogs the famous regions. It feels like a frontier, because it is one.
Visiting
Schiopetto receives visitors in the Collio by appointment rather than as a walk-in, with tastings across the range and a look at the hillside vineyards. The reason to make the trip is the whole zone: base yourself among the Collio hills, eat exceptionally well, and taste the wines that taught Italy how to make white — in the quiet border country where they were born.
Book ahead and confirm the current format on schiopetto.it before you build a day around it.
What to buy
Match the bottle to the moment. To meet the house on its own terms, reach for the Friulano — the signature grape, the benchmark, the clearest expression of the Collio. Want the easy, aromatic charmer? Blanc des Rosis is the one that wins a table over. And if you want the insider's pick — the wine that shows what Schiopetto's precision really achieves — the Pinot Bianco quietly outperforms its reputation every time.
Common questions
Effectively inventing modern Italian white wine. In the 1960s and 70s Mario Schiopetto brought a level of cellar precision Italy hadn't seen — temperature control, cleanliness, reductive handling to protect aromatics — and used it to bottle single-variety Collio whites that were fresh, pure and unmistakably varietal. Almost every crisp, clean Italian white you drink today traces back to what he pioneered here. Friulano is the house's signature grape, but the whole range is the legacy.
Yes — Friulano is the grape long called Tocai Friulano, renamed after an EU ruling reserved 'Tokaj' for Hungary. It's the signature white of Friuli: dry, medium-bodied, with a distinctive almond-and-pear character and a savoury, faintly bitter almond twist on the finish. In the Collio hills, in hands like Schiopetto's, it's textured and ageworthy rather than merely refreshing — the quiet benchmark against which Friulian whites are measured.
Yes — the estate receives visitors in the Collio by appointment rather than as a walk-in, with tastings across the range and, typically, a look at the vineyards on the hills near the Slovenian border. The Collio is one of Italy's most underrated wine-travel corners — gentle hills, a genuine frontier culture straddling two countries, and superb food — so it rewards the detour. Book ahead and confirm the current format on schiopetto.it.
A small range of hills in the far east of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, hard against the Slovenian border (where it continues as the Brda). Its marl-and-sandstone soils — locally called ponca — and cool, breezy climate make it one of Italy's greatest white-wine zones. Collio whites, from Friulano, Pinot Bianco, Ribolla Gialla, Sauvignon and others, are textured, mineral and built to age, and Schiopetto is one of the names that made the region's reputation.
Glossary
- Friulano
- The signature white grape of Friuli, formerly called Tocai Friulano — dry, savoury, with a bitter-almond finish. Schiopetto's is a benchmark, and the house's history is bound up with the grape's modern rise.
- Ponca
- The local name for the Collio's soil — a layered marl and sandstone that crumbles easily and gives the region's whites their mineral cut and texture. It is the reason these hills make wine the surrounding plains cannot.
- Collio
- The cross-border hill zone of eastern Friuli, one of Italy's finest white-wine DOCs, continuing into Slovenia as the Brda. Cool, marl-soiled and breezy — ideal for the taut, ageworthy whites the region is known for.