Why it matters
The producer
Scarpa sits in Nizza Monferrato, a hill town in the Asti province of eastern Piedmont, where Barbera is the local grape and Scarpa makes Barbera d'Asti DOCG. Scarpa is not most producers. The house farms more than 30 hectares across two distinct zones: Barbera country in the Monferrato hills around Nizza, and Nebbiolo parcels that reach west into the Langhe, where Barolo and Barbaresco begin. Two grapes, two geographic registers, one cellar philosophy.
The published histories of the house disagree on when it started. Scarpa's own chronology places Antonio Scarpa's founding at 1900. A regional source attributes the establishment to 1854, citing the same Venetian migrant by name. The discrepancy has never been formally resolved. What both accounts agree on is the trajectory: a house that moved early from bulk selling into estate bottling, and built its reputation on keeping wine in barrel and bottle long after most of its neighbours had shipped theirs.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Nizza Monferrato stands at the eastern edge of Piedmont, separated from the Langhe by a ridge and a temperamental difference in grape emphasis. Barbera d'Asti DOCG is the appellation that covers this ground: it designates red wine made from Barbera grown on the calcareous clay hills of the Asti and Alessandria provinces. The grape produces wines with naturally high acidity and fruit-forward character, and its DOCG status allows both unoaked and oak-aged expressions.
Scarpa's reach into the Langhe adds Barolo DOCG to the estate's output. Barolo is Nebbiolo grown within a legally defined zone of eleven communes in the Cuneo province, further west and south. The appellation demands long aging before release, minimum three years for standard Barolo and five for Riserva, with a fraction of that time mandated in oak. The two appellations ask for different grapes, different soils and different cellar timelines, and Scarpa manages both from a single base in Nizza.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The stated philosophy at Scarpa is low production yields, long macerations and fermentations, aging in large wooden barrels, and prolonged rest in the bottle before release. Large barrel aging, as distinct from small new-oak barriques, allows the wine to develop slowly without accumulating heavy oak character. The wood breathes without flavouring. Long maceration extracts more tannin and colour from Nebbiolo in particular, building the grippy, slow-evolving frame that Barolo collectors expect to carry for years. Extended bottle rest lets those tannins soften gradually before the cork is pulled.
Silvio Trinchero monitors the vineyards as well as the cellar, giving the enologist oversight of the full chain from vine to bottle. No verified farming certification has been established for the estate.
Wines to know
The range in view
Scarpa divides its range into two levels. Briccomora is the entry wine: a Barbera d'Asti DOCG made without oak. The grape's naturally high acidity is left unmarked by wood, producing a wine of bright red-cherry and raspberry fruit, smooth tannins and fresh, succulent character. It is deliberately fruit-led rather than aged and complex, and its style sets it apart from oak-treated Barbera.
The Excellence Wines tier collects four bottles. Tettimorra is the Barolo that sits at the head of the group. The 2020 vintage shows floral character alongside forest-berry fruit and a savoury truffle note, underpinned by a firm mineral frame and chewy tannins, with bracing acidity that holds the whole together. Decanter gave it a 95-point Gold at the 2025 World Wine Awards. Tettineive, Monvigliero and La Bogliona complete the tier: all are long-aged expressions, all built for patience. The architecture is clear from the label: one accessible red meant for early drinking, and four wines that ask the cellar to wait.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Briccomora Barbera d'Asti DOCG. It is an unoaked red from Barbera grown in the Monferrato hills around Nizza, produced without barrel aging so that nothing stands between the grape and the glass. The acidity is high and immediate, the fruit is red-cherry and raspberry, the tannins smooth enough to drink young. Scarpa built the range with this bottle at its base for a reason: it shows what the house does with Barbera when the cellar stays out of the way, and it gives a clear point of reference for understanding what changes when the Barolo side of the range adds years of barrel and bottle time into the equation.