The Essence of Italian Food and Wine

I'm quite sometimes asked define the difference between Italian varietal wine and other wines. Sometime ago I wrote the following piece; it at least provides AN answer (that makes some sense to a non-Italian like myself!)

To a large extent, the uniqueness of Italian varietal wine stems from two unique features..
Firstly, until 150 years ago, what we today call Italy was a multitude of separate kingdoms, dukedoms, regions, sub-regions, cities and villages. (And even now, the country is quite fiercely tribal!). Trade between these was sporadic; interrupted by ‘turf’, and made difficult by geography and by dialect. Communities guarded jealously their own produce – including wine styles and food styles– from their neighbours. And they are never tired of extolling the virtues of their own above all others!
And secondly, Italians, more than almost any country on earth, enjoy lots of wine with their food. At the same time, they prefer food to wine by some distance. As many Italian’s would put it, “the chief purpose of wine is to make our favourite dishes taste even better!”
So Italian varietal white wine styles tend (there are always exceptions, but not too many) to be simple, unoaked, and acid-crisp from using early-picked fruit. Red wines styles are made so as not to overwhelm food - they are mostly medium or even light bodied, savoury (rather than fruit-driven, to match the Italian’s love for savoury meat and vegetable dishes) and made with good acid firmness. And almost all wines are light in alcohol, so as not to distract the consumer from the main game – food!
So in Piedmont for example – where many regional dishes have a Francophone richness (the Savoy connection), favourite red wines like Barbera and Dolcetto are a combination of uncommon fruitiness and relatively high acidity– perfect to match ‘sweeter’ cooking tastes and to cut through those béarnaise sauces and quite fatty bollito misto (mixed meat) dishes.
A good example of the coming together of ‘local knowledge’ and allowing wine to support food, not compete with it.
There’s a saying in Italy…”Don’t try and outsmart the village sommelier!” Why bother?