Much of this ancient peninsula is rich in UNESCO heritage sites and well known for its red wine production. However Italian whites, particularly from the South, rarely get enough respect. Despite the fact that they absolutely deserve it and are among some of the best wines being produced in Italy today.

Many are made from hard-to-pronounce grapes: try Catarratto on for size as a tongue twister. Despite consumers’ lack of familiarity with them, they are well worth exploring. I recently judged a wine competition in Southern Italy, Radici del Sud, where a 20-something team of journalists had a chance to enjoy several hundred unique grape varieties indigenous to the Italian regions of Puglia, Calabria, Sicily, Basilicata and Campania.