After many years living in and traveling around Italy as an American, just trying to understand the wine, a few key—yet unanticipated— habits rubbed off on me. The biggest one: How to drink wine like an Italian. There is a certain ceremony and order to it—if you ask an Italian.

I did not. But I might as well have asked each winemaker I met from Piedmont to Puglia, “What’s one thing you think Americans are doing wrong when we drink wine?” Here’s how they answered the question I did not ask.