Pizza joint hiding a serious Italian cellar
Downtown · Aspen · Italian Trattoria & Pizzeria · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed July 27, 2026 · How we review
RagingWine reviewed Acquolina Trattoria & Pizzeria’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
You walk into what looks like a neighborhood pizza spot — wood-fired oven, casual buzz, families sharing pasta — and then the wine list lands on the table and you do a double-take. A hundred and fifty labels, all Italian, with Bartolo Mascarello, Bruno Giacosa, and Domaine Leflaive staring back at you from a laminated menu next to a margherita. It's a genuinely disorienting and wonderful thing.
The list is an all-Italy affair executed with real conviction. Piedmont gets the most love — there's serious Barolo depth here, from Bartolo Mascarello's 2012 to Aldo Conterno's Gran Bussia Riserva 1990 and a 3-liter Bruno Giacosa Asili Riserva 2000 that borders on absurd. Tuscany holds its own with Ornellaia in multiple vintages, Tignanello, Biondi-Santi, and even Soldera's Case Basse 2017 for the high rollers. There are smart pops of Sicily (Terre Nerre Santo Spirito Nerello Mascalese) and Friuli (Jermann Vintage Tunina) that keep the list from feeling like a greatest-hits trophy case — though there's some of that too. Burgundy cameos via Domaine Leflaive, which technically breaks the all-Italy premise but nobody's complaining when Bienvenues Bâtard-Montrachet is on the table.
Thirteen by-the-glass options at $16–$35 is a reasonable spread for Aspen, though the glass program doesn't quite reflect the ambition of the bottle list — expect clean, crowd-friendly pours rather than anything that'll make you put your phone down. The range covers the bases from sparkling to red, which means you're not stuck choosing between Chianti and Chianti. Rotation data is thin, but with a sommelier on staff there's likely more flexibility than the printed list suggests.
Tenuta San Guido Guidalberto 2021 — $185
The little sibling of Sassicaia, Guidalberto consistently punches well above its price class. At $185 in Aspen — where everything costs what it costs — this is the most honest bottle on the list for someone who wants serious Tuscan Cab-Merlot without ordering a second mortgage.
Terre Nerre Santo Spirito Nerello Mascalese 2021
Most tables here are ordering Barolo or Brunello, which means this Etna Rosso from Terre Nerre gets overlooked constantly. Nerello Mascalese from the slopes of an active volcano has a silky, perfumed quality that's genuinely unlike anything else on the list — and at $175, it's one of the few bottles here that rewards curiosity over status.
Moët & Chandon Dom Pérignon 2013
At $655, Dom Pérignon 2013 is the safe choice for people who want to look like they know what they're doing. Retail on this bottle hovers around $200–$230, which makes the markup somewhere north of 3x. The Krug 170ème at $445 is a better glass of Champagne and a smarter spend — or better yet, skip Champagne entirely and let this Italian list do what it does.
Antinori Tignanello 2020 + Veal Milanese
Tignanello's Sangiovese-Cabernet blend has enough dark fruit and earthy structure to stand up to a pan-fried veal cutlet without overwhelming it. The wine's acidity keeps cutting through the richness of the breading, and at $405 it's actually a reasonable Tignanello price for a mountain resort town.
The Bottom Line
Acquolina is genuinely strange and genuinely good — a casual trattoria with a cellar that could embarrass most fine dining rooms in Colorado. The markups are real and the glass program is unremarkable, but if you came to drink serious Italian wine with a wood-fired pizza, there are very few places in the state doing it better.
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