Something extraordinary happened on my recent trip to Italy: I found myself immensely enjoying the act of wine blogging for no apparent reason.

A few colleagues and I had a day off and so we spent it not focusing on work but just visiting wineries we love already or have yet to explore.

I tasted the wines of but had never physically visited with Stefano Perrone of Elio Perrone in the tiny village of Castiglione Tinella (“castle of the barrel” is a facile but apt translation) where a preponderance of limestone soils make it a top zone for Moscato d’Asti DOCG.

Stefano’s Moscato d’Asti is simply one of the best wines I’ve ever tasted from the DOCG. It had the signature freshness of a great Moscato d’Asti but it also had an electricity to its rich fruit, buoyed no doubt by the acidity that Castilgione Tinella’s famous subsoils express in the wines.

Moscato d’Asti is all about a balance between the intense sweetness of the natural (not refined!) sugar of the grape berry and its acidity.

There are some other great Moscato d’Asti wines out there but man, this one is unforgettable, the kind of wine you’d drink throughout a meal. Can you imagine this wine with Texas BBQ?

I also really loved Stefano’s blend of Chardonnay and Moscato (just about 10 percent), “Gi,” a wine that, again, was buoyed by the soils there.

And for the record, Stefano is also known locally for his Barbera, also excellent.

But the thing I loved the most about visiting Stefano was how his aesthetic, beyond the wines, permeated his entire “habitat.” From the works of art that adorned the walls and the labels to the pseudo-brutalist style of the cellar to his low-key style of working and living.

It was a reminder of why I — we! — started wine blogging in the first place: wines were a means to experience richly populated worlds otherwise impenetrable for mutton-headed city dwellers in search of a meaningful connection between land, mind, and soul.

Thank you, Stefano, for an unexpected and much enjoyed treat. Thank you.