Baton Rouge’s annual Italian Heritage Festa features a “grape stomp,” when teams of women wearing coordinated outfits perform a dance routine and — you guessed it — stomp grapes. This year, the lighthearted charity event will be tinged with sadness. Buddy Amoroso, the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council member killed in a bicycle accident June 30, had always been one of the grape stomp judges, said Festa co-chairman Frank Arrigo.

Arrigo said organizers had intended to leave a judge’s seat open to acknowledge Amoroso’s absence. But a meeting with Denise Amoroso, his widow, led to a change of plans. “I said, ‘Denise, I can only think of one person who is worthy of filling that chair,’” Arrigo recalled. “‘You.’ She said, ‘You’ve got it.’”