To find out more, I embarked on six days of tastings, cellar visits, and vineyard hikes.

Three of them tended to their cliffside vines as I passed by.

For more than 20 years,Cinque Terrehas been one of Italys most popular places to visit.

Pair of photos from Cinque Terre, Italy, one showing a bar terrace at sunset and one showing the view of vineyards from a town

From left: Aperitivo hour at A Pié de Ma bar, in Riomaggiore, Italy; the terraced vines of Cheo winery overlook the town of Vernazza.Credit:From left: Francesco Lastrucci; Andrea Leonardini/Courtesy of Cheo

The impossible prettiness of it all draws travelers from across the globe.

But above them lies another Cinque Terre, one built on agriculture.

Only a few vintners remain, but today, these holdouts are making some of Italys most distinctive wines.

Wine and toasts on a vineyard terrace in Italy

Local wine on the terrace of Cantina Capellini, in Volastra.Uta Theile

I had learned about it the day before from local Edoardo Lanzi.

Vines are like our kids, he had told me, stroking a leafy tendril.

Out on the cliff, I looked up.

Pair of photos from Italy, one showing wine bottles on a shelf and one showing the entrance to a winery and farmstay

From left: Stocked shelves at Ghemé, in Riomaggiore; the entrance to Buranco.From left: Courtesy of Ghemé; Courtesy of Buranco

She runs the winerys open-air Agrivino tasting room a patch of dirt between two rows of vines.

Her husband, Mirco, is the seventh-generation winemaker at Cantina Capellini.

Together, they opened the Agrivino in 2020.

We want to share the history we have a thousand years of it.

I continued climbing, past hikers sipping Cinque Terre DOC grown just feet away.

It felt like I was dangling from a cloud.

Wine, I was starting to realize, was a portal to the real Cinque Terre.

AtBuranco,a farm stay in Monterosso, I tried wine-trekking: hiking with a bottle in hand.

Clambering around the terraces in the blistering heat, I gained an intense appreciation for the vintners work.

The next day I headed toCian du Giorgi Winery, in the hamlet of San Bernardino.

The following year, they moved there.

Giorgi stuffed a bottle of white into a backpack and drove us to a cliff looming behind Riomaggiore.

Usually I like to make people hike up, so they can feel the effort, he grinned.

Happily we took atrenino,which remains the only technology used in Cinque Terres vineyards.

Below us, Vernazza sat astride its promontory, thrusting out into the sea.

Music floated up on the breeze; crowds pushed through the streets.

Thanks to the wine, I was high above it all.