The Italian Cellar

Five bottles get you Italy. A benchmark Barolo, a historic Brunello, a dried-grape Amarone, a serious metodo classico bubbly, and the amber sweet wine of a Sicilian island — the country's most collectible reds, its answer to Champagne, and one bottle of pure sunshine. Here's the shortlist we'd actually pack, by style, with a straight line on each and what to pour it with.

Start here: the one-bottle answer

Taking home a single bottle? Make it a Barolo. It's 100% Nebbiolo from the Langhe hills of Piedmont — pale in the glass, ferocious in tannin, all tar and dried roses — and it's the red serious collectors cross Italy for. The safe, reliable buy is a Vietti Barolo Castiglione, a blend drawn across several villages that gives you the grape's whole personality in one bottle. Structured, savoury, built to age a decade or more. Pour it with brasato, game, mushroom risotto, or an aged hard cheese; give a young one an hour in a decanter. If Piedmont is pulling at you, the Strada del Barolo is the drive.

The benchmark reds

Two more reds show what Italy does at the very top.

• Biondi-Santi Brunello di Montalcino — the historic one. This is the estate that all but invented Brunello, Sangiovese at full power from a single hill in southern Tuscany: austere, long-lived, high-toned, a wine that rewards patience like almost nothing else in Italy. Bistecca alla fiorentina, wild boar ragù, or a Sunday roast. Follow it home on the Florence-to-Montalcino run.
• Allegrini Amarone della Valpolicella Classico — Veneto's great rich red, made by drying the grapes for months before pressing until the wine turns velvety and potent. Dark cherry, dried fig, a warming depth. Braised short ribs, hard cheeses, or a cold winter night on its own.

The value play

Here's where the smart money goes. Skip the marquee names for a night and look south. Aglianico — the "Barolo of the South," off the volcanic soils behind Taurasi and Aglianico del Vulture — gives you dark, structured, ageworthy reds for a fraction of a top northern price. The Etna reds of Sicily, from Nerello Mascalese grown high on the volcano, are the other steal: fragrant, mineral, almost Nebbiolo-like, and still overlooked by half the world. Neither has to travel in your suitcase — but they're the bottles to remember when you get home and want the character without the collector's price. See the wine reference for the full map.

The bubbly

Italy's serious sparkling isn't Prosecco — it's Franciacorta, made in Lombardy by the same bottle-fermented method as Champagne, and the benchmark house is Ca' del Bosco. Its Cuvée Prestige is crisp, biscuity and fine-beaded, a proper metodo classico for a fraction of grande-marque money. Serve it as an aperitif, with fried and salty things, or with a whole meal of seafood. The easiest yes on this list, and the safest celebration gift.

The island sweet wine

The one bottle of pure sunshine here is Donnafugata's Ben Ryé, a passito from the tiny, windswept island of Pantelleria off Sicily's coast. Zibibbo grapes are dried in the sun until they concentrate, then pressed into a luminous amber wine — apricot, orange marmalade, dried fig — with enough acidity to stay fresh rather than cloying. Pour it with blue cheese, an almond tart, or — its natural partner — a square of dark chocolate. The most beautiful gift on this page, and the one nobody at the table will have tried.

Buying it, and shipping it home

Bottles and vintages move, so treat the picks as styles first and labels second — a current-release Barolo, a benchmark Brunello, a Franciacorta off the shelf. And don't ship from Italy. In the US and UK these names are already carried by importers and online retailers, so the simplest, cheapest, safest route is to buy them in your own market and currency. Shipping wine across borders yourself means duties, heat risk and courier limits — and in the US, delivery is regulated state by state. Buy local where you can. Save the suitcase space for the bottle you can only find at the source.