5 Italian Towns Among the Vineyards Where Summer Heat Isn’t a Problem

A few weekends ago I spent a couple of days in one of those Italian towns built entirely around wine, in the hills around Valdobbiadene. For me it’s one of the most beautiful corners of Italy, right up there with the whole Valpolicella area. I got to tag along on a guided tour of a winery, where they walked us through the whole process: growing the vines, then turning the grapes into the Prosecco we all love so much. It was fascinating, obviously, but what really struck me is how much work goes into it, and how much of it is still completely at the mercy of nature and the weather. Climate change is messing with a lot of things these days, and it turns out this is one of them. Very few wineries can afford to irrigate. First because it’s expensive. Second, and this is the part I didn’t know, for some of the best wine categories, the DOCG ones, irrigation just isn’t allowed. Do it anyway and you lose the label, and on paper, you lose the prestige too, no matter how good the wine actually turns out. So every year, hundreds of thousands of people work these...