Tipo

You open the list at Tipo and immediately know someone here actually cares. This isn't the standard Pinot Grigio and Chianti lineup you'd sleepwalk through — it's a tight, regionally focused Italian list that reads like someone did their homework in Emilia-Romagna and didn't stop there. Fifty to eighty bottles, none of them lazy choices.

The list leans hard into the regions that match the kitchen — Emilia-Romagna for the pasta, Sicily for the wood-fired intensity, Piedmont when you want something with more weight behind it. Friuli shows up too, which tells you someone in this building knows their northeastern Italian whites. Lambrusco di Sorbara earns its spot on a list like this — it's the real stuff, not the grocery store sweetness people think of — and the Nero d'Avola and Vermentino fill out a Southern Italian perspective that most Maine restaurants wouldn't dare attempt. The gaps are minor: no deep Barolo cellar, no serious Champagne presence, but that's not what Tipo is going for anyway.

Ten to sixteen pours by the glass is a strong showing for a restaurant this size, and the selections track with the bottle list rather than veering into safe filler territory. A Vermentino by the glass at a wood-fired pizza spot is exactly the kind of call that builds trust. Rotation appears to happen, though not on a programmatic schedule — more curator's instinct than formal program.