Halfway between Milan and the 45th parallel, Oltrepo Pavese quietly bottles around 25 million wines a year across seven DOCs and DOCGs... yet everything here still comes back to just one grape.

That grape is Pinot Noir, and it makes up roughly 70% of Italy's total plantings. Most people outside Italy don't know that. These hills are the variety's undisputed Italian cradle, and among the country's four Metodo Classico appellations - Franciacorta, Alta Langa, Trento - Oltrepò Pavese is the only one built entirely around Pinot Noir, with a DOCG reserved exclusively for Blanc de Noirs.