(Forbes) - Let me start with a confession.

So far in my life as a wine lover, Piedmont has proven to be a conundrum. I’ve had a hard time getting my head around it, and an equally hard time finding my way “in,” so to speak.

I know in my head that there’s a lot to appreciate about Piedmont. I know in my head that the wines of Piedmont, and Barolo in particular, are some of the most valued and respected in the world. There are good reasons for this, including a careful (and regulated) minding of the balance between supply and demand.

Yet, until this year, Piedmont has seemed closed off to me, the way that someone with a polite but guarded temperament seems closed off. The Piemontesi know this about themselves: some of the region’s – and the world’s – best wineries there still do not regularly open their doors to visitors.

“Winemakers here have few words but a lot of communication,” said Stefano Gagliardo of Poderi Gianni Gagliardo, whose vineyards lie in the Langhe and Roero areas. “Our best representatives actually don’t say a lot.”

Gagliardo likens the winemakers to bears, in the sense that they can be guarded and gruff. I pointed out that, normally, when you see a bear you run in the other direction. How exactly, I asked, does this help you sell wine?

“Here you don’t run in the other direction,” Gagliardo said. “Here you say hmm. That’s a bear. And the bear sees you, too, and decides if you’re the right person.”

That inaccessibility, in Gagliardo’s opinion, is actually an invitation. It just isn’t a normal invitation and the invitation isn’t delivered in the normal way.