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Piedmont ('foot of the mountain'), lying in a remote amphitheatre of the Alps in northwestern Italy, is the country's preeminent fine-wine region and the homeland of the nebbiolo grape — no place in the world grows more of it, or has had more success with this difficult, highly site-specific variety (only about 8 percent of Piedmont's plantings).

From nebbiolo come Barolo and Barbaresco, two of Italy's most legendary and serious reds — structured, tannic, ageworthy wines often likened to great red Bordeaux and, in the Italian mind, to the kingly status of France's cabernet sauvignon; Barolo is the more robust and austere (the 'king'), Barbaresco the slightly more graceful (the 'queen').

Both are grown in the Langhe hills of the southeast around the town of Alba, whose clay-limestone-sand soils and south-tilted 'bricco' and 'sori' slopes give maximum ripeness.

DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, "controlled and guaranteed designation of origin") is the top tier of Italy's wine classification pyramid, above DOC, IGT, and Vino da Tavola.

Introduced in 1980, it adds a government tasting-panel approval requirement and a numbered state seal across the bottle neck (the fascetta) on top of the geographic, yield, and production-method rules that already apply to DOC wines — intended to guarantee both origin and a minimum quality bar.

The first four DOCGs, granted in 1980, were Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.