When I was working as a sommelier in an Italian restaurant in Berlin in the early 1990s, a colleague of mine told me a story about an underwater vineyard in Sicily. I thought it was a myth because it just didn’t make any sense to me. Vines are hardy, but a vineyard that is inundated surely cannot produce anything close to quality and would probably drown. But it turned up again, this time in 2001 during Vinitaly, the world’s largest annual wine fair, which takes place in Verona. This time I was shown pictures of vines sticking out of a...