Italian wines, perhaps more than any others in the world, are vexing. This is not because of quality — the best Italian reds take their place with the world’s greatest — or availability.

Instead, the vexation is a uniquely Italian unpredictability about style. Despite a famous name, such as Chianti or Soave, there’s really no way to know or even predict what sort of wine you’ll discover after opening the bottle.

Will it be heavily veneered with oak? Many Italian producers are enthralled by small French oak barrels, which infuse wines with a dime-store cologne of vanilla from the overuse of new oak barrels.

Will the wine be composed of traditional indigenous varieties such as sangiovese in Chianti or garganega in Soave? Or will they (legally) absorb the addition of merlot, syrah, or cabernet, such as in many modern Chiantis, or chardonnay, which is now molto alla moda in Soave?

The answer to all of the above is: Who knows? Although wines everywhere in the world have their stylistic flourishes, nowhere are they more extreme — even iconoclastic — than in Italy. This makes for fun drinking, to be sure, but it can be exasperating, and expensive, too.

This is especially so if you are, as I am, something of a traditionalist. The list of Italian wines that betray their ancient local heritage is distressingly long.

But Italy still retains a good number of producers who have never forfeited their local — and tasty — heritage, or who have returned to their birthright grapes and wine aesthetic after an unsatisfying fling with an ill-conceived “modernity”. Their number, I’m happy to report, is growing.

The following wine is an exemplar not merely of traditionalism but of a real integrity that proves its worth in a single sip. And it’s a stunning bargain, too.

HERE’S THE (TRADITIONAL) DEAL

Barbaresco 2003, Produttori del Barbaresco — Readers with long memories may recall my recommending the exceptional 2003 Il Favot from Aldo Conterno (“A Fortuitous Mistake,” November 29, 2006).

It described how Mr. Conterno, one of the Barolo zone’s greatest winegrowers, had misjudged the very hot and tricky 2003 vintage, initially thinking that the likely result wouldn’t deserve the prestigious Barolo designation. So he declassified all of his nebbiolo wine, bottling it under his proprietary label called Il Favot. It sells for $50 rather than the $125 to $250 his various Barolo bottlings usually command.

No sooner had I visited Mr. Conterno last fall, than I ventured into the adjoining Barbaresco zone —where wine is also 100% nebbiolo — to visit Aldo Vacca, the director of the winegrowers’ cooperative, the Produttori del Barbaresco.

“I want you to taste our 2003,” he said. I did so and it was remarkable. Indeed, it may well be the finest “basic” Barbaresco the cooperative has ever produced.

When I said as much to Mr. Vacca, he nodded appreciatively and offered the simple, if hugely expensive, reason: “We declassified all of our single vineyards and put the grapes into the basic Barbaresco bottling,”

Keep in mind that the approximately 65 growers of the Produttori del Barbaresco collectively control about 40% of all of Barbaresco vineyards, including many of the top sites in the zone. Usually, these top vineyards — Rabajà, Pora, Asili, Montestefano, Moccagatta, Rio Sordo, Ovello, Pajè and Montefico — are bottled separately, but not in the 2003 or 2002 vintages.

But as with Mr. Conterno’s experience, Mr. Vacca admitted that they may have been a bit hasty in their early assessment of their 2003s. “It turned out much better than we originally expected,” he said. I thought he sounded a little rueful when he said that, but I may have been imagining it.

The 2003 vintage in Barolo and Barbaresco is something of a Cinderella vintage, and that in turn makes it the rarest of deals for us. When you get a Barbaresco wine — made without any oak fripperies or winemaking splash — that includes all of the great grapes normally steered into single-vineyard selections from a surprisingly fine vintage for just $25 a bottle — well, you’d be foolish indeed not to ardently pursue such a deal.

Barbaresco 2003 from the Produttori del Barbaresco is a deep-colored, rich, intensely fruity nebbiolo of impressive depth and surprising gentility, offering classic nebbiolo scents of roses, red fruits, and a hint of tar.

This is the real Barbaresco deal offered at an exceptionally low price given its superb quality. Serve it now or 10 years hence with your best pasta dish or a choice piece of beef, lamb, or game and you’ll be a confirmed Italian traditionalist forever. $24.95 at D. Sokolin & Co., and Garnet Wines, among others.