Chianti, famous and yet unknown. A journey through the history and ancestral origins of these super wines

Within Italy we find some 526 geographical indications and, within them, known worldwide, our protagonist today, the CHIANTI, undoubtedly stands out. Chianti, famous and at the same time unknown. Today I propose a journey through the history and ancestral origins of these super wines. Wines exported to a multitude of countries all over the world, if not practically all of them.

However, despite being such a famous Denomination of Origin, it remains for many a great unknown outside of the most technical and professional circles. And this is largely due to the fact that Italian legislation is very confusing and gives rise to a multitude of confusions.

But that is why I am here today, with my now ‘little by little’ known time machine.

I propose a walk through the history of Chianti, as simple and pleasant as possible, so that all of us, absolutely all of us, end up knowing what is and what is not an authentic CHIANTI.

Chianti History

To begin with, the average consumer, not to mention the neophyte, can find a multitude of indications with this wine in its name:

• CHIANTI Classic
• CHIANTI Reserve
• CHIANTI Superiore
• CHIANTI Rufina
• The Super Tuscans
• The Colli Florentina

There are a lot of terms and it is not easy to clarify, being very likely to get overwhelmed and (unless we have a good professional at our service) end up not knowing exactly what we are drinking or tasting.

Origins Chianti History

Taking into account that Italy as a state is relatively young, it has existed for 160 years, it is true that it is an old, no, very old country, with a millenary wine tradition in which we can already find the origins of these wines.

The Etruscans, a people that preceded the Romans by centuries. According to studies carried out and contrasted, they were already producing wine some 3,000 years ago.

The Romans, as we all know, appropriated the ‘Hellenic Culture’ from the Greek Culture and expanded their empire and knowledge throughout the Mediterranean and practically all of Europe. They were great consumers of wine, to the point that one of the main and most curious laws they had was nothing more and nothing less than the one related to wine, which stated that:

‘In every conquered territory, and before proceeding to the settlement, as a referential motif (just as Noah did as soon as the waters subsided and he touched land) he must always plant a vineyard’.

In other words, what we know today as a ‘vitisvinifera’. But with the peculiarity, and this was made very clear in this Ancient Roman Law, that a vineyard would never be planted in a territory, field, land, valley or mountain where any other biological crop could be planted.

In other words, they already knew, and in what way, what the vine preferred, a need for soils that were poor in organic matter and at the same time high in mineral substances.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, today’s Italy became a kind of multitude of city states. But this, and I don’t want to go into it any further, would make for one of my longer and more extensive passages of history.

But today we are talking about the CHIANTI, so let’s take the time machine and go back to 1816.

Once we arrive, we will observe with innate curiosity how the Grand Duke Consimos III de Medici was the creator and developer of the first wine-growing area called CHIANTI.

The truth is that the Grand Duke, because he was ‘graceful’, was ‘the gentleman’, apart from taking great care of his appearance. Tall, good-looking and powerful, he literally took the maidens by storm. We could say that he was one of the first ‘metrosexuals’ in history.

But he was also a great aficionado and drinker of any great and sublime wine that would pass by his table. That is why it was so easy to see him drinking and enjoying on the balconies of his Pitti palace, with that wine that he himself founded and promoted and which today is called CHIANTI Classico.

We take the time machine back to the unification of the city states into a single country (with the exception of only one state, now called San Marino), what we know today as Italy. We were already starting to talk about DOC, DOCG and IGP (Controlled Designation of Origin, Controlled and Guaranteed Designation of Origin, Protected Guarantee Indication).

Going back to the beginning of the article, Italian wine is a really complicated puzzle, complex and difficult to decipher at times. But the most famous region, the one that exports the most and is best known is the CHIANTI region.

It lies between the cities of Florence, Aretzzo, Siena and Pisa. By the way, the nearest airport is in Pisa if you want to visit the Italian Tuscany.

All these cities were the ones that the Grand Duke originally framed when he created the CHIANTI. All the wine bottled within this quadrant is known and labelled as CHIANTI Classico.

In the 19th century, once the Italian state was already constituted, it was its second president Betino Ricasoli (the Baron of Ricasoli), who apart from being president was also a winegrower with family vineyards within the CHIANTI region, who gave an enormous impulse to what is known as modern CHIANTI, defining the grapes that could be used and the blends that could be made, beginning the worldwide expansion of this precious wine.

From 1932 to the present day

In 1932 what is known as the new CHIANTI was formed. The original cities were extended to several new producing areas.

From 1932 the production of Chianti extended to the provinces of Arezzo, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia and Prato. Today, the Chianti area is divided into eight sub-areas:

Classico, which covers part of the provinces of Florence and Siena; It is identified by a seal bearing a black Rooster, hence its name «Chianti Classico Gallo Nero».

• Colli Aretini, in the province of Arezzo
• Colli Fiorentini, in the province of Firenze
• Colli Senesi, in the province of Siena
• Colline Pisane, in the province of Pisa
• Montalbano, which covers part of the provinces of Pistoia and Prato
• Montespertoli, in the territory of Montespertoli, in the province of Florence
• Rufina, in the territory of Rufina (pronounced ‘Rufina’), province of Florence

After the Second World War, the Americans and the English began to import this wine that they had known during the war, becoming the greatest ambassadors of Chianti all over the world, to such an extent that in the English-speaking world CHIANTI became known as CHIANTISHIRE (SHIARIE is the English term for a county). This was the prelude to the first appearance of the DOC CHIANTI in 1967.

However, in the 70’s, there was a great depression and a great discredit of these wines because the big grape productions (it seems unbelievable being a DOC) took precedence over the selection of the grapes and vineyards, giving priority to quantity over quality, and the CHIANTI wines became known as low quality wines, cheap wines.

You know this story here in Spain too, don’t you?

As a consequence of this, a number of wineries and producers decided to leave the AOC and the rules they were obliged to follow.

For example, 10% white grapes had to be used or foreign grapes such as Cabernet, Merlot or Syrah could not be used.

These producers ignored the rules and began to add a series of foreign varieties such as SANGIOVESE (the main grape of CHIANTI) or the aforementioned varieties.

These varieties enriched the wines in such a way that, even when they were marketed as Vino de Tavola (table wine), they became more in demand than the most prestigious wines or the most expensive Italian wines, even paying between 5 and 10 times more than the DOC CHIANTI wines themselves.

And these wines (for example Tignanello or Sassicaia) are the ones that ended up being called SUPERTOSCANOS.

As we still have to show you more and much of the modern history of our today’s guest, the CHIANTI, for the moment we leave it here, although we invite you to the next article. Where we will continue the story, so that at the end we have everything very clear in the simplest possible way.

So, as I usually like to say….

Soon more and better Chianti and history