In a rural corner of northern Italy’s Lombardy region, you don’t have to go far from the highway to see the future of Italian sparkling wine. Here, in the upper thigh of the Italian boot, about 40 miles south of Milan, if you head up into the sparsely populated foothills of the Apennine Mountains and past the concrete shells of abandoned 20th-century wineries, you’ll reach vineyards that stretch up to 1,500 feet above sea level for as far as the eye can see.

Amid dozens of local grape varieties is Italy’s largest concentration of Pinot Noir, known as Pinot Nero, which has been farmed here for centuries. “To me this is the biggest opportunity in Italy,” says Paolo Ziliani, 60, president of famed Italian sparkling wine producer Guido Berlucchi, based about 50 miles to the northeast in Chardonnay-dominated Franciacorta—an appellation known for its traditional-method bubblies, like those in Champagne.