history of La Piccolina

"My husband Ryan and I were fortunate enough to live in Northern Italy for two years with the United States Army. While living there we immersed ourselves fully in the Italian culture. From sipping on espresso shots to spritzing all hours of the day, our time in Italy was nothing short of magical. We traveled throughout most of Italy, learning enough of the language to order pizza and pasta, get yelled at, scowled at, and kissed on by the Nonna who lived downstairs and came back to the United States a little softer around the edges.

As we explored the beautiful country of Italy we continued to see these wonderfully small Piaggio Ape’s (pronounced “Ahh-Pay” and in Italian means “Bee”) on every corner of the country. From chugging through vineyards to racing their way around the narrow hills of Cinque Terre, we always gave a little chuckle when we saw them out and about, usually with a large man and small dog in tow.

So when the opportunity arose to buy one of these small but mighty bees we jumped on it. We spent the afternoon in the home of a very lovely Italian family in Piovene Rocchette, who spoke little to no English, drinking Prosecco from the hills of that region and saluting our sale with the husband, wife, sister, brother, cousin and friend (you get the point) who sold it to us. 

As we looked at our new, tiny-sized family member and pondered over what to call her, we remembered that the same sweet woman who scowled, yelled and kissed us many times, would call our four legged fur baby, “piccolina” as we passed her in the hallway of our casa. “Piccolina” has an endearing translation to — “little one.” It was then that we realized there was no better name for her than after our very own little one and all those memories in our sweet little apartment overseas. 

We hope you love our Piccolina as much as we do! Trust us, she carries with her a lot of stories and all the good vino."
– Nicole 

Nicole + Ryan's story