Collecting wine can involve complex bidding wars on rare entities with nebulous certificates of authenticity (yeesh). Or it can be as simple as carefully choosing bottles and storing them properly.

If you want to dip your toes into the collection pool, start with Italian wine. Sure, there are over 20 regions, and each region is its own “country” of food and wine. There are 590 classified grape varieties and counting. There are also more than 20,000 winemakers in the country. And yes, with DOC and DOCG combined, there are well over 400 appellations in Italy.