Italy contains twenty official regions, but the country is more diverse than that number implies. The country is composed of forty percent mountains and forty percent hills; imposing natural boundaries separated many communities from the rest of the country until modern development connected them with tunnels and highways; a short drive often means you’re in a place with it’s own traditions of cooking, winemaking, and general way of living.

Some things confuse visitors to Italy.

The land has been inhabited for millennia, but the country is young. The unification process began almost one hundred years after The United States of America, in 1861. Italians more often than not identify with, and are most loyal to, their hometown. The region they are from is typically of diminished importance. The country, even less so.

The country is also densely-populated. Italy covers about the same amount of land as Arizona, which is about two percent of the USA’s landmass, but has more than sixty million inhabitants. You have twenty percent of America’s population squeezed into two percent of its land.

In Italy, grapes grow in every corner and with more variety than any other place on earth. The recipe in one town changes a little when you go to the next, but both will argue their way is the right–and only–way. This competitive spirit and healthy suspicion of outsiders mixes with an indigenous desire to improve everything around them, to make everything work better and look more beautiful. The result? The best food and wine culture in the world.