Italy makes wine in all twenty of its regions, which is unusual, and it makes most of it from grapes that grow nowhere else, which is rarer still. Several hundred native varieties are in commercial production. That is the single fact that makes Italian wine harder to learn and more rewarding once you have.
The country is also a mountain range with coasts attached. Altitude, aspect and the distance to the sea change over a few kilometers, and the wines change with them — which is why Barolo and Barbaresco, eleven miles apart and made from the same grape, are not the same wine.
The club shipped Italian wine alongside California for most of its run. The Italian winery archive holds the monthly profiles, and the Italian Wine Club page describes the series.
