Azienda Agricola Schiopetto is the living legacy of the pioneer Mario Schiopetto, who began his journey as a winemaker upon acquiring the vineyards around the Archbishop’s Palace at Capriva and realizing the great potential they held. Since bottling his first “Tocai” in 1965 from his estate in Capriva del Friuli, he single-handedly helped spur Italy’s white wine revolution. Today the estate continues his life's work of bringing modernization and international recognition to the wines of this region.
Beginning in the 1960s, Mario traveled across Europe and the U.S. to discover other wines and winemakers, and gained renown for his wines and efforts to improve and modernize the methods of Italian wine production. Stainless steel for the white wines, French barriques for the reds, and new French and German vine clones were some of the innovations that Schiopetto introduced for the first time and are now standard among Friuli’s top producers. The Germanic influence is especially evident in Schiopetto’s white wines, right down to the shape of the bottle.
The Schiopetto estate today aims to follow in Mario’s footsteps, by maintaining a strong focus on innovation while working with dedication to the earth and the environment in order to guarantee high quality products. The estate covers 30 hectares in the Collio Goriziano and Colli Orientali del Friuli appellations, including four Crus (Capriva, Zegla, Pradis, and Oleis) from which they produce classic white varieties such as Tocai Friulano, Malvasia, Pinot Bianco and Ribolla Gialla, as well as some superb reds from Bordeaux varieties and some Refosco. The original vineyards are more or less contiguous and surround the palace on all sides, providing a variety of exposures. Each vineyard block is fermented separately with pied-de-cuve that originates in that precise block, propagated in a dedicated lab on the premises affectionately known as “Mario’s Room”. The flagship wine, named simply Mario Schiopetto after the estate’s founder, is from a 65-year-old Tocai Friulano vineyard co-planted with 3% Riesling. Since 2014 in the hands of the Rotolo family, the estate continues to carry on Mario’s legacy of quality and innovation.
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