In the course of writing a book about Italian wines, I learned one thing: It’s impossible. Oh, you can take a stab at it, as I did. But even the likes of Linnaeus would despair at imposing order on what is surely the planet’s most chaotic, individualistic, and downright rebellious wine nation. My valiant attempt is scheduled to be published this fall.

The reward, of course, is a degree of diversity like no other. Italian wines, more than any other, have taught me a much-needed lesson, namely, to relax. The nature of the wine writing beast is an insatiable demand for the ever better and the ever rarer. Italy certainly supplies both. But in the course of 5,000 years’ worth of vintages, Italians have learned to take wine in their accomplished stride, sometimes too casually so.

The greatness of Italian wine today, the thing that sets it apart from any other accomplishment in at least the past century of Italian life, is that Italy’s winegrowers have struck an admirable balance between ambition and complacency. Today, Italy’s best producers take a backseat to no one in their fine-wine ambition. Yet they are simultaneously more relaxed about it than anyone else, too.

This is a good approach for those of us who like, buy, and drink Italian wines. The wines to follow are exemplars of graceful accomplishment. These are terrific – dare I say great? – wines that ask deceptively low prices for their respective achievements.

HERE’S THE (SEEMINGLY EFFORTLESS) ITALIAN DEAL

PALAZZO DELLA TORRE 2001, ALLEGRINI This striking, intensely flavorful red wine from the Valpolicella zone near Verona in northeast Italy is a superb example of Italy’s relentless drive to improve, refine, and even redefine.

The Valpolicella zone has been growing grapes since ancient Rome, if not earlier. Over the centuries the locals developed a liking for a light red wine that you could practically quaff. Indeed, it went well with the local cuisine and besides, they were the only ones drinking it.

By the time the late 20th century rolled around, Valpolicella was practically in a stupor of complacency. If all you’re doing is making a light red wine for early (and local) consumption, then you certainly don’t need low yields in your vineyards, do you? So the grape growers happily pruned their vines for high yields.

In the meantime, the tastes of outsiders changed. Foreign clients – Germans, British, Americans, Swiss – wanted stronger, richer, more flavor-intensive wines than the ordinary Valpolicella bottlings offered.

So starting in the mid-1960s, but accelerating only in the 1980s and ’90s,Valpolicella producers revived an ancient technique of fortifying the flavors of a regular, already fully fermented Valpolicella wine by fermenting it yet again on the skins and lees (sediment) of the powerful Recioto della Valpolicella, made from highly concentrated semidried grapes of the exact same varieties used for regular Valpolicella. (The producer Masi was the first to do this in 1964, christening the technique ripasso, passed through again.)

The resulting wine emerges much darker and more powerfully, even pungently flavorful, than a conventional Valpolicella. A ripasso Valpolicella is always a powerful, rich, fully dry wine with a higher alcohol content than regular Valpolicella, thanks to the second fermentation. But it’s nowhere near as potent as a full-blown Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone, although it shares the dark, brooding look and licorice-inflected qualities of its stepparent. It’s best reserved for foods such as braised meats, game, and strong cheeses where the ripasso wine’s intensive flavors are congruent rather than bullying.

Palazzo della Torre is a ripasso Valpolicella. And in the great 2001 vintage, Allegrini has issued the finest version of Palazzo della Torre that I’ve tasted. Partly it is a function of the unusually fine vintage. But partly it is the consequence of refinements in the ripasso technique allied to a deft, unintrusive use of oak. A blend of blend of 70% Corvina Veronese, 25% Rondinella, and 5% Sangiovese, this is a dark, lush, intensely flavorful red wine suffused with a striking minerality and notes of black currant and licorice. Where other vintages of Palazzo della Torre have been a bit soft and even overly sleek, the stern density of the 2001 vintage has given this wine more backbone than Allegrini usually offers. Serve this with braised meats or a loin of lamb and you will discover a not-so-simply extraordinary wine selling for an improbably low price: $15.95.This is worth hunting down.

ROERO ARNEIS 2004, BRUNO GIACOSA Italy’s Piedmont region, in the northwestern corner of the country, has been much in the news lately thanks to the recent Winter Olympics. Inevitably, there’s also been commensurate attention to Piedmont’s extraordinary food (the best in Italy for this man’s palate) and red wines (ditto).

Piedmont’s red wines are famous, with names such as Barolo and Barbaresco resonating with wine lovers everywhere. Much less well known, however, is Piedmont’s indigenous white grape, arneis.

Arneis is obscure simply because it almost went extinct. (In Piedmontese dialect, arneis means rascal, rebel, difficult, or stubborn, because it’s an unreliable, sometimes exasperating grape to grow, which tells you something right there.) Only in the 1980s, when the world demanded dry white wine – any dry white wine – did Piedmontese producers decide that they’d better offer something in addition to their lavish array of reds. Two producers rescued and revived the almost-forgotten Arneis: Bruno Giacosa and Alfredo Currado of Vietti winery.

Mr. Giacosa makes the finest arneis, hands down. It is so superior, in fact, that I once had the temerity to ask him – as respectfully as I could – whether he added anything to his arneis that made it such much richer and more voluptuous than anyone else’s. Mr. Giacosa, a man of notoriously few words, glowered at me and insisted that he did no such thing.

This 2004 arneis from Bruno Giacosa is a dry white wine of uncommon goodness, in every sense. It’s a delicate dry white that delivers the usual white wine scents of hay and wildflowers along with whiffs of pear and green apple. But what really makes it stand out is arneis’s signature scent of almonds.

Because Arneis doesn’t age well, nearly every producer avoids aging the wine in oak, including Mr. Giacosa. His arneis is made in stainless steel vats and bottled young, the better to get it on the market while it’s fresh. This is a dry white that should be drunk as young and fresh as possible, paired with fish and shellfish, of course, but also delicate cheeses. It’s a standout Italian white. $24.95.