Studying Italian? Try 3 classic regions

Because you, like us, are craving Italian this month, you’re probably going to want some wine to go with those recipes you try.

Italy is home to hundreds of grape varieties, and becoming intimately familiar with all of them would require you to devote most of your time and energy to that project from here on out. Good thing you don’t need to know about all of them.

If the overwhelming breadth of Italian wines makes your forehead throb and causes you to shut down and decide against deciding — the laundry detergent aisle in a supermarket has the same effect on me — take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. It is reasonable to avoid buying laundry detergent — that’s what dry cleaners are for — but it is most certainly unwise to avoid Italian wines.

Pick a starting point, say, Piedmont, Veneto and Tuscany. They form a sort of triangle in the top half of the country, with Piedmont in the northwestern corner, Veneto in the northeast, and Tuscany roughly centered beneath the two of them. You can picture that triangle superimposed on the boot, can’t you? You could even use the tri-color Italian national flag to keep them straight: green for the verdant, rolling hills of Piedmont; white for the Veneto’s Soave and Prosecco; and red for the Chianti and other reds of Tuscany.

We are skipping over a lot of important wine regions in Italy here (even skipping over some wines styles in these three regions), but you have to start somewhere. There is no dry cleaner-equivalent in the wine world; you have to do the work yourself, and lucky for you, you love the work. famous wines: Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

Chianti comes in a variety of styles and quality, and within the overall Chianti region, Chianti Classico is the top of the heap. Look for the “Gallo Nero” symbol, a black rooster inside a purple ring, on every bottle of Chianti Classico. This food-friendly wine offers tangy cherry, along with various savory notes. It’s great for accompanying anything from pizza to pastas with tomato-based sauces, and roasted or grilled meats. Brunello di Montalcino — capable of aging for years, even decades — is earthy, complex and powerful, while Vino Nobile di Montepluciano, in both style and price, lands somewhere between Brunello and Chianti Classico.

To save even more money, try a Rosso di Montalcino or Rosso di Montepulciano, the little siblings of Brunello and Vino Nobile. (And don’t mistake Montepuliciano, a Tuscan hilltop town, with montepuliciano d’Abruzzo, a red grape from Abruzzo. Confusing, right?)

Ready to splurge? Opt for a “Super Tuscan.” This famous renegade wine style was developed in the 1970s when Chianti winemakers began blending sangiovese with cabernet sauvignon, merlot and other French grape varieties, approximating a local Bordeauxstyle blend. Today, some of these bottles can fetch half a year’s worth of dry cleaning, but you can also find versions at prices worth a few rolls of quarters you’ve squirreled away for the dryer cycle.

The Italian wine world is vast and complex, and getting to know it all will take some time. Thankfully, like laundry, you don’t have to do it all at once.