by McClatchy/Tribune

"Italy is the most complex wine-growing region in the world," says Brian Larky, founder of Dalla Terra, an importer of Italian wines. "In California, you've got — what? — five, eight, 10 major growing regions," he says, "but in Italy you've got more grapes and more regions than anywhere else on the globe."

A common estimate is that more than 2,000 wine grape varieties grow throughout Italy; somewhere between 300 and 400 regularly make wine at commercial levels, and this happens in a country that produces wine in more than 400 legally demarcated places. Any of that, in combination or alone, can appear on a label of Italian wine. Mamma mia.

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Source: http://www.postcrescent.com/