FEW things are simple in northeastern Italy, least of all lagrein, a red grape that can produce fresh, aromatic, highly seductive wines. Why, just last week, I asked a linguistically minded friend who is fluent in Italian for the proper pronunciation of lagrein. Here is his response, or part of it:

“Lagrein is a tough one,” he said, “in part because it’s pronounced using a Germanic, as opposed to an Italianate vowel system.” He went on to offer his preference, lah-GRAH’EEN, but allowed that lah-GRINE and lah-GREYE’NE (where greye rhymes with eye) were also acceptable. Well, linguists are nothing if not perfectionists. But even allowing for such hairsplitting, lagrein comes with ample grounds for confusion. It is grown primarily in Alto Adige, a region so far to the north in Alpine Italy that it practically touches Austria and Switzerland. There, the culture is more Tyrolean than Italian, and the first language is often German. Many wines from the region are labeled in both Italian and in German. Even the name of the region, Alto Adige, does not speak for itself; it is generally rendered bilingually with its German counterpart, Südtirol (South Tyrol, using the Germanic vowel system, of course).

Whatever you want to call it, the region is a good source for crisp whites, including the much-maligned pinot grigio, which takes on more substance and character when made there with serious purpose.

Not unexpectedly, the Germanic grapes gewürztraminer and riesling do very well, and I am partial to the pinot neros of Alto Adige, that is, pinot noirs. But I am particularly interested in lagrein, a grape that, like its counterpart teroldego in nearby Trentino, is grown almost nowhere else. For such an unusual grape, though, it produces congenial, straightforward wines that can be deliciously plummy, earthy and chewy, dark and full-bodied but not heavy, with a pronounced minerally edge.

But it is unfamiliar, which is an understandable obstacle for consumers. Why risk money on mysterious unpronounceable bottles when so many good, satisfying known quantities are available?