Piattini
Great Room, Wine List Needs Work
Back Bay · Boston · Italian · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed March 23, 2026
Wingman Metrics
First Impression
Walking into Piattini on Newbury Street, the Italian enoteca energy is real — small plates, warm lighting, the whole thing. Then you open the wine list and it starts strong: 100-plus bottles, heavy Italian focus, some serious names scattered throughout. But flip a few pages and the cracks show fast.
Selection Deep Dive
The Italian backbone here is genuinely solid — Antinori Solaia, Brunello di Montalcino from Colombini, Barolo from Ca'Viola, and Allegrini Amarone give the list real credibility at the top end. The problem is the middle and entry tiers, which lean on grocery-store stalwarts like Josh Cellars Chardonnay and Kenwood Cabernet Sauvignon — bottles you can grab at Stop & Shop for $14 and $18, respectively, being sold here for $46 and $59. The Italian house pours are similarly thin: La Vis Pinot Grigio and Zonin Prosecco are fine in their place, but not at 200% markup. There's a real list hiding here behind the budget filler; it just needs a tighter edit.
By the Glass
Twenty-plus options by the glass is a legitimately good number for a neighborhood Italian spot, and the range covers the usual suspects — whites, reds, bubbles, rosé. What's missing is any sense of rotation or curation; this reads like a static list that hasn't been touched in a while. At $10–$17 a glass, you're paying mid-tier Boston prices for entry-level pours.
Barolo Ca'Viola — $N/A — bottle
If you're going to spend money here, spend it on this. Ca'Viola makes real Barolo — not a trophy bottle, but the kind of producer who actually gives a damn about Nebbiolo. It's the most honest pour on the list relative to what you're getting in the glass.
Brunello di Montalcino Colombini
Colombini (Donatella Cinelli Colombini) is a name most people scroll past because they don't recognize it, but this is a respected Montalcino producer making age-worthy Brunello. On a list that otherwise leans safe, this is the bottle worth hunting down.
Chardonnay Josh Cellars Craftsman 2023
At $46 a bottle, you're paying nearly 3.5x retail for a $14 grocery store Chardonnay. Josh Cellars is fine at a backyard barbecue. It has no business commanding $46 on a restaurant wine list that's supposedly celebrating Italian culture.
Amarone Allegrini + Piattini small plates (cured meats and aged cheeses)
Allegrini's Amarone is a big, raisined, serious red that needs something equally rich to stand up to it. A spread of cured meats and hard cheeses from the piattini selection gives it the fat and salt it wants — and turns a few small plates into an actual moment.
❌ The Bottom Line
Piattini has the bones of a great Italian wine bar — the right address, the right vibe, a few genuinely exciting bottles — but the markup on entry-level pours and the reliance on supermarket brands undercut the whole thing. Go for the Brunello or the Barolo, skip everything else under $50.
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