Chianti Classico: The Search for Tuscany's Noblest Wine 9780520965539

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CHIANTI CLASSICO

FRONTISPIECE Detail from Gerardus Mercator’s map of Tuscia, 1589. Reproduced with permission from Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi, Tenuta di Bibbiano, Castellina in Chianti.

CHIANTI CLASSICO The Search for Tuscany’s Noblest Wine Bill Nesto, MW, and Frances Di Savino

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2016 by William R. Nesto and Frances Di Savino Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Nesto, Bill, 1951– author. | Di Savino, Frances, 1960– author. Title: Chianti Classico : the search for Tuscany’s noblest wine / Bill Nesto, MW, and Frances Di Savino. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016015932 (print) | lccn 2016017542 (ebook) | isbn 9780520284425 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520965539 (Epub) Subjects: lcsh: Chianti wine. | Chianti (Italy)—History. Classification: lcc tp559.I8 n469 2016 (print) | lcc tp559.I8 (ebook) | ddc 641.2/209455—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015932 Manufactured in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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With this work we honor our mothers, Antoinette Sirugo Nesto and Geraldine Saporito Di Savino, for their love, wisdom, and fortitude.

We dedicate this story to the winegrowers of Chianti past, present, and future for daring to be true.

As soon as the climb ends and the road levels off, the horizon widens and there you see the first harsh hilltops of Chianti—a land which remains forever Etruscan and medieval. The city and the present already have grown faint; the solitude of the forests and the fields fills me and blurs those boundaries which had appeared so clear. My renewal always begins here. MARIA BIANCA VIVIANI DELLA ROBBIA, FATTORIA NEL CHIANTI (TRANSLATION BY FRANCES DI SAVINO)

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface xiii

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The Original Chianti 1 The Evolution of Chianti through Bettino Ricasoli: The 1600s to the 1870s 21 The Birth of Chianti Classico and External Chianti: The 1870s 35 to 1945 Chianti Classico Enters the Global Market: 1945 to the Present 59 Chianti’s Hidden Roads 96 The Geography of Chianti Classico 105 The Secret of Sangiovese 117 Viticulture in Chianti 132 Enology in Chianti 161 Chianti Classico Winegrowers by Subzone 189 The Medici Code 252 •

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

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Afterword 273 Notes 277 Selected Bibliography Works Cited 299 Index 313 •

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ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

1. G. Garavini, Borders and Administrative Division of the Chianti 54 Zone, 1929 •

2. Chianti Classico by Subzone 3. Radda in Chianti

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4. Gaiole in Chianti

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5. Castellina in Chianti 6. Greve in Chianti

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7. Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico 8. San Donato Classico 9. San Casciano Classico

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FIGURES

Frontispiece.

Detail from Gerardus Mercator’s map of Tuscia, 1589

1. Giacomo Tachis at Brolio Castle in 2000

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2. Giulio Gambelli at Tenuta di Bibbiano in 2000

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3. Villa Pomona in Castellina in Chianti: “then,” 1916 4. Villa Pomona in Castellina in Chianti: “now,” 2015

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5. Bando of Cosimo III de’ Medici, September 24, 1716 6. Torquato Guarducci, Il Chianti map, 1909

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ILLUSTRATIONS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with heartfelt gratitude and respect that we acknowledge the individuals and institutions that have offered us guidance and assistance in the creation of this work. We are grateful to the archivists at the State Archives and Libraries of Florence and Siena, to Davide Fiorino at the Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence, and to Dawn Webster at Kiplin Hall in North Yorkshire, England, for their patience and selfless dedication to the cause of historical truth. We thank the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico and its member producers for organizing our tastings at the consortium’s headquarters and for providing us with important technical information, especially Giuseppe Liberatore, Michele Cassano, and Silvia Fiorentini. Our quest to tell the story of Chianti Classico would not have been possible without the support and commitment of our stellar team at University of California Press—Kate Marshall, Dore Brown, and Zuha Khan—and our copy editor, Juliana Froggatt. Many thanks to our initial acquisitions editor, Blake Edgar, for helping to bring this work to life. We appreciate the friendship and knowledge that Daniele Rosellini and Nadia Riguccini shared with us during our many sojourns in Tuscany. We are grateful to our family and friends for their love, patience, and encouragement. Our profound thanks to our mère and belle-mère, Geri Di Savino, whose pencil touched every word of this text, and to our frère and beau-frère, Sam Di Savino, who held the fort in Boston while we climbed the hills in Chianti. Herein lies the fruit of all their efforts.

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PREFACE

Fresh from our odyssey in Sicily, recounted in The World of Sicilian Wine, we embarked in 2014 on a new adventure—to tell the story of the ancient land named Chianti and the modern wine zone known as Chianti Classico. Located in the heart of Tuscany, Chianti in many respects is a world away from Sicily. Yet both have histories woven with conflict and complexity, despite the simplicity of their majestic landscapes. The similarities do not end there. In the nineteenth century, Italy’s two most famous and respected wines were Sicily’s Marsala and Tuscany’s Chianti. Like Marsala, Chianti became known worldwide in the twentieth century, propelled by the millions of Italian immigrants who brought their culture with them to the New World. The name Chianti was synonymous with the straw-covered flasks that graced virtually every Italian restaurant table until the 1970s. Bill vividly remembers his father (who had emigrated from Apulia) storing a large flask of Chianti under the kitchen sink. Every evening Dr. Nesto brought it to the family’s dining table to pour a small glassful to savor with his dinner. Chianti was also the first region in Italy that Bill visited during his studies for the Master of Wine examination. He was made an honorary member of the Lega del Chianti (League of Chianti) in 1999. Fran’s introduction to Chianti was in the 1980s when she studied for a year at the University of Florence and lived with the Anichini, one of the oldest families of viticoltori (winegrowers) in Chianti, who have farmed Fattoria Le Corti (in the high hills of Greve between Ruffoli and Lamole) since 1424. Our first adventure on the wine road together began in Castellina in Chianti in 2003. As we traveled Chianti’s rural roads, we discovered a shared love of this land—its

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countryside and its culture. From that year on, we returned every September in time for the vendemmia (harvest). Bill gave a winemaking course to a small group of American wine students, and Fran introduced the budding winemakers to the culture and history of Tuscany. Then we began our Sicilian journey in 2008. In telling the story of Sicily, we came to understand yet another truth it shares with Chianti. Like Sicily, Chianti as a name is universally known, though as a place it is essentially unknown and misunderstood. In telling the story of Chianti, we knew from the beginning that it was essential to explain its origin and evolution as both a place and a wine region. The expansion of the Chianti wine zone to encompass most of Tuscany in the early 1930s effectively blurred the distinction between the original Chianti region (from then on known as Chianti Classico) and the external Chianti region (with the exclusive right to use the name Chianti for its wine), consisting of multiple subzones. We have met many a Tuscan, Italian, and American who are unaware of the differences between Chianti Classico and external Chianti. Remarkably, Chianti was among the first legal appellations of origin for wine in the world. The publication of this book will coincide with the three hundredth anniversary of that historic (but long forgotten) milestone of 1716. And so, in our search to discover Chianti we were determined to take the wine road less traveled. In addition to visiting dozens of Chianti Classico wine estates and participating in organized tastings of Chianti Classico wines, we navigated the historical archives and libraries of Florence and Siena to search for clues to the transformation of Chianti as a wine region. We also met with Tuscan historians and former senior officials of the Chianti Classico consortium as part of our research. Along the way, we were privileged to speak with older Chiantigiani whose sharecropper families had tended Chianti’s vines for centuries. In our travels we built a real and virtual library of treasured volumes dating from the fourteenth century to the present day. In the process, one clue led to another and the story of Chianti emerged like a statue from a block of marble. Only by studying the history of agriculture in Chianti and Tuscany (including garden design) did we learn about a virtually unknown Tuscan named Girolamo da Firenzuola, who lived in Florence in the mid-sixteenth century and wrote the earliest known Italian agricultural treatise to mention (and laud) the vine variety Sangioveto (Sangiovese), the essence of Chianti Classico wine. Firenzuola, along with subsequent authors, also explained how to make wine in the style of Chianti (more on that later). In the pages that follow we tell the unified story of Chianti by interweaving and sharing our mutual discoveries along the way. (Unless otherwise noted, all translations in the text are by us.) The first four chapters trace the origin and evolution of Chianti from the Etruscan civilization through our age. Fran wrote chapter 1, “The Original Chianti,” and chapter 5, “Chianti’s Hidden Roads,” a personal narrative of our journey around the region with one of its most knowing guides. As we did in The World of Sicilian Wine, we have chosen to infuse this and other chapters with the narrative voice, to bring the historical, cultural, and sensorial ideas of our story to life. We coauthored the historical chapters (2, 3, and 4) that explore Chianti from the seventeenth century to the present

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day. Bill wrote the vinicultural chapters: 6 (on geography), 8 (on viticulture), 9 (on enology), and 10 (profiles of modern-day Chianti Classico wine estates by subzone). He also penned chapter 7, “The Secret of Sangiovese,” which unearths the long-lost secrets of Chianti Classico’s noblest vine variety. We conclude with a detective story in chapter 11, “The Medici Code,” in which Fran reveals Chianti’s most complicated and existential secret of all. She wrote this preface and the afterword as well, to respectively begin and end our tale. Our mission has been to unlock the mystery and essence of Chianti. For we believe that an understanding of place is essential for an authentic appreciation of its wine. It is with profound respect and affection for Chianti and its winegrowers that we have chosen to tell the story of Chianti in this way. They deserve no less. By 1442, Florence’s leading civic humanist, Leonardo Bruni, had completed his twelve-book History of the Florentine People. During and after his lifetime, he was recognized as Italy’s first modern historian. Through the depth of his research and the honesty of his scholarship, Bruni endeavored to reveal the true history of Florence from its earliest origins. He was not content to repeat, or to let stand unchallenged, ancient myths and legends. In the spirit of Leonardo Bruni, and in the quest to reveal the true Chianti, we humbly do the same. Bill Nesto, MW, and Frances Di Savino

PREFACE

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1 THE ORIGINAL CHIANTI . . . nomi seguitino le nominate cose . . . . . . names are born of the things they name . . . DANTE ALIGHIERI, LA VITA NUOVA (TRANSLATION BY FRANCES DI SAVINO)

This is the story of the wine region once known simply as Chianti. But it is not a simple tale. With its many twists and turns, peaks and valleys, Chianti is a territory worthy of an epic. Framed by Florence to its north and Siena to its south, Chianti is a land of quintessential beauty and culture. It is the timeless paesaggio (landscape) in the background of a Renaissance painting. It is a land of castles, chapels, bell towers, farmhouses, hills, oaks, cypresses, olive groves, and vineyards. It is an authentic place which gave birth to an iconic (and then generic) wine, also known as Chianti. It is a wine region that is striving to reclaim its identity from the vast Tuscan appellation, which, by law, has the exclusive right to the name Chianti—and which we shall call External Chianti in these pages. Long before a Fascist-era ministerial decree officially designated it a vino tipico (wine type) in 1932, Chianti was valued as a special wine from the rocky hills of three river valleys between Florence and Siena in the heart of Tuscany: Val di Pesa, Val di Greve, and Val d’Arbia. This place, the original Chianti, now known as Chianti Classico, has been rooted in conflict for much of its history. Beginning in the twelfth century, Chianti was a battlefield, buffer, and border between these two warring city-states (and their respective proxies). Yet it was the dispute over the borders of the Chianti wine region in the twentieth century that came to be known as the Guerra del Chianti (War of Chianti). With the outbreak of this conflict in the early 1900s, Tuscany witnessed the birth of a field of scholarship aimed at answering the question What is Chianti? The resulting treatises mapped a multitude of Chiantis—Chianti storico (historic), geographico (geographic), geologico (geologic), enologico (enological), classico (classic), and commerciale (commercial).1 They reveal how zealously the forces of

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Chianti Classico and External Chianti waged their battles both on paper and in parliament. But for all of the politics, polemics, conflicts, and complexities that have whirled around Chianti, the original place has remained one of bucolic simplicity and historic richness. We begin our journey by exploring Chianti culturale (cultural). This story is our search for the true Chianti.

T H E D I V I N E M YS T E RY

From its earliest days, Chianti has been shrouded in mystery. Historic maps of Tuscany (called Tyrrhenia, Etruria, and Tuscia during earlier epochs) do not consistently identify a region named Chianti. Rather, the place-name Chianti often appears somewhere north of Siena and in the vicinity of the townships of Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole2 and the Pesa and Arbia Rivers. Similarly, the origin of the name has yet to be discovered. It likely derives from a word in the language of the people who once controlled Etruria, the Etruscans.3 The Arno River to the north of Chianti was the natural boundary for northern Etruria. Since at least the seventh century b.c., Chianti was the entroterra (hinterland) of the Etruscan cities of Volterra to its west, Fiesole to its north, Arezzo to its east, and Siena and Chiusi to its south. Remarkably, Volterra, Fiesole, Arezzo, and Siena were four of the five dioceses of the Catholic Church that had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Chianti as of the Middle Ages (the fifth being Florence, which the Romans founded). In contrast with the later period of Roman rule, when the main north-south roads, the Francigena and the Cassia Nova, circumvented it, during the centuries of Etruscan rule, roadways connecting established urban centers crisscrossed Chianti. This “road map” provides interesting clues to the relationship of Chianti to the surrounding towns, even in the present day. One throughway ran northwest along the high ridge from the town of Radda, past the parish church (pieve) of Santa Maria Novella, then north past the town of Panzano, eventually turning west in the direction of Sambuca in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa.4 From this juncture another throughway branched north past the pieve of Santo Stefano in Campoli, on a hill between the Pesa and Greve River Valleys, then continued northwest toward the towns of Mercatale and San Casciano in Val di Pesa. A third one traveled from Volterra east to Castellina, then northeast to Lamole, and then to the Monti del Chianti (Chianti Mountains), where it intersected with the roadway that ran parallel to these mountains, leading north to the Arno River and south to the strategic city of Chiusi. This network of roadways, or “ridgeways,”5 suggests that there was an exchange of people and produce between Chianti and the Etruscan cities surrounding it. And indeed the Etruscan ruins discovered throughout Chianti provide ample evidence of this exchange. In the main square of Castellina there is a small museum, Museo Archeologico del Chianti Senese, which is housed in the town’s medieval castle. Here many archaeological remnants of Chianti’s distant Etruscan past are on display. By one account, in January 1507 a farmer in Castellina was digging to plant a vineyard when he uncovered an

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Etruscan tomb containing many precious objects.6 These included wine wares and other ceramics associated with the Greek-inspired symposium (the after-dinner wine-drinking, poetry-reciting, music-playing, and other-pleasure-seeking ritual). Unlike the wine lovers of ancient Greece and Rome, the Etruscans invited their wives (and female relatives) to participate in their sacred symposia. Among the objects that the Etruscan Chiantigiani (native people of Chianti) used in their symposia were the bucchero kantharos (a wine goblet on a pedestal with two high, vertical-looped handles) and the kyathos (a onehandled wine cup or ladle). The kantharos was closely associated with the ritualistic worship of the Greek wine god, Dionysos (and the Etruscans’ wine god, Fufluns).7 The term bucchero refers to a typology of fine Etruscan black-fabric ceramics. The kantharos and kyathos objects on display in Castellina were made outside Chianti, in the more established Etruscan settlements of Chiusi, Orbetello, and Populonia (the last two both on the Tuscan coast). In the middle of the seventh century b.c. the Etruscan aristocracy imported their prized wines from the Greek islands (such as Chios in the eastern Aegean) and the Turkish coast.8 By the end of that century, they had developed their own dynamic wine industry and culture. They exported their fine wine and bucchero wine wares throughout the entire Mediterranean region, including to coastal and central France, Spain, Greece, Syria, and Egypt. While the Etruscans adopted the ritual of the symposium and the style of many Greek ceramic wares, the bucchero kantharos and kyathos were strongly associated with Etruria and were imitated by ancient Greek (and Celtic) potters.9 Greek pottery commonly depicts Dionysos holding a bucchero kantharos.10 Bucchero wine wares and ceramics have been found in tombs and other Etruscan sites excavated throughout Chianti, including one on a steep hill in Gaiole called Cetamura (almost 700 meters, or 2,297 feet, above sea level), on the property of the present-day Chianti Classico wine estate Badia a Coltibuono. Whether the Etruscan Chiantigiani used their kantharoi, kyathoi, and other bucchero and bronze wine wares in the consumption of their native wine is not known. Archaeobotanic evidence of both the wild vine (Vitis silvestris) and the cultivated vine (Vitis vinifera) is suspected at the Cetamura site from as early as the third century b.c. As of 2014, approximately 430 grape seeds have been recovered from six strata (including Etruscan and Roman) in a 106-foot well there.11 These discoveries were made by an Italian firm specializing in the excavation of wells, in close collaboration with a team of archaeologists from Florida State University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Syracuse University, and New York University under the direction of Nancy Thomson de Grummond, the overseer of the Cetamura del Chianti archaeological site since 1983. Many seeds were found in vessels that are believed to have been cast into the well as sacrificial offerings, along with coins, votive cups, animal knucklebones (astragali), and ceramic and stone tokens, as part of a sacred ritual involving divination at this high-elevation site at the eastern edge of Chianti. An Etruscan ceramic amphora, pottery from two of Chianti’s surrounding Etruscan cities, Volterra and Arezzo, and an Etruscan bronze wine bucket, along with a fragment of an Etruscan wine strainer, were also

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retrieved from this well. In light of the archaeological evidence for the ritual and artisanal activity that took place at this site during the Etruscan, Roman, and medieval periods, De Grummond and her team have christened it “the Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans at Cetamura del Chianti.” As this book went to print, the Cetamura grape seeds were undergoing DNA analysis to determine their varietal identification. There is much excitement in Chianti about whether Sangiovese or an early precursor of Chianti Classico’s principal vine variety will be found among the pips from Cetamura. Given the routes that the Etruscans established throughout Chianti, it is an open question whether wine was being transported from there to the surrounding Etruscan towns. There is evidence that an Etruscan settlement at Pisa, at the mouth of the Arno River, served as a repository for agricultural produce (perhaps including wine) shipped down from the Arno River Valley.12 What is known is that, unlike the Greeks and their colonists in southern Italy and Sicily, who trained their vines either with the alberello (bush-vine) method or low on wooden stakes, the Etruscans “married” their vines to trees (usually elm, maple, or poplar).13 While the Etruscan words for “wine” and “vineyard,” vinum and vina, are Italic in origin, the Etruscan language included a distinct word, ataison, to identify this native form of vine training.14 From the Middle Ages until the mid-twentieth century, the sharecroppers of Chianti used a type of vine training called alberata or maritata, vines “married” with trees. Whether these peasant farmers knew it or not, their conjugal form of viticulture had deep roots in Chianti’s Etruscan soil. Chianti remained a rural landscape for the Etruscan urban areas that encircled it. The pattern of modest Etruscan tombs in Chianti suggests that small family groups settled this countryside to intensively cultivate grapevines, olive and chestnut trees, and legumes as early as the second half of the seventh century b.c. Given the wooded hills and rocky soil, agriculture in this region must have been (and still is) a greater challenge than in the plains and valleys to the west of the Elsa River or on the gentle clay hills to the south of the Arbia River. The only evidence of ancient Chianti’s agriculture on display at the archaeological museum in Castellina are the fragments of bronze and iron implements that the Etruscan Chiantigiani used in their farming. The grape seeds that the archaeologists have excavated from the aqueous layers in the ritual well of Cetamura promise to help unlock some of the mysteries of Etruscan Chianti’s vinicultural past. Long before there were wine appellations of origin, there were the natural territorial borders established (and worshiped) by the Etruscans. The Etruscans used peaks, valleys, waterways, and trees to delimit both their urban and their pastoral landscapes. The Roman historian Varro credited the Etruscans with developing the science or discipline of defining the boundaries of land and sky, including the “cardinal points of north, south, east, and west.”15 Among their many deities, Selvans, depicted as a young man, was the protector of Etruria’s forests and wooded lands. He was also the god of their arboreal boundaries and borders.16 In the centuries to come, the winegrowers of the original Chianti would have done well to honor their ancient sylvan god!

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COMMUNES AND CASTLES

Following the rise and fall of ancient Rome, Tuscany was invaded by tribes from north of the Alps, including the Ostrogoths and Longobards (Lombards). The former Etruria and its elevated wine culture lay buried deep in the rubble. The Etruscan cities of Fiesole and Chiusi were among the casualties. By 800, Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, had liberated Italy from the Longobards and was crowned the Holy Roman emperor in Rome by the pope. A parade of Germanic and French kings followed Charlemagne, each vying for the imperial crown and hegemony on Italian soil. The ensuing conflicts between the empire and the papacy dominated the Tuscan landscape for centuries to come. Florence and Siena, along with dozens of other cities and townships (comuni, the plural of comune) in central and northern Italy, emerged as vibrant centers of commerce and capital (financial, political, and cultural). This process of urbanization (inurbamento) profoundly reshaped the relationship of Florence with its surrounding countryside (contado). Although each city had deeply personal (and violent) factions in support of both the papal and the imperial causes, Florence ultimately allied itself with the papacy under the Guelph banner (with the goal of securing greater political autonomy and the pope’s lucrative banking business), while Siena allied itself with the imperial aspirants under the Ghibelline banner. The feudal lords of Longobard stock (such as the Ricasoli-Firidolfi clan) with fortresses in Chianti generally also allied themselves with the Ghibelline cause. For their loyal service to the Germanic kings, these imperial legates were granted more territory and greater jurisdictional and fiscal prerogatives in their fiefs in Chianti. These feudal families fortified their castles and landholdings, including hilltop villages, in a process known as incastellamento. During the same age, Florence’s links with Chianti were strengthened as reform-minded religious orders such as the Vallombrosans built abbeys (badie, the plural of badia) in the countryside in search of solitude and agricultural revenue. By the end of the eleventh century, the Vallombrosan order had established both Badia a Passignano in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa and Badia a Coltibuono in Gaiole. To safeguard their commercial and agricultural supply routes, Florence and Siena sought greater control over their surrounding territory (ager in Latin). In each city’s march to become a city-state (civitas in Latin), conflict was inevitable. And Chianti became their battlefield. Before engaging on the battlefield, Florence and Siena set out to subjugate the feudal families controlling their respective contadi (the plural of contado). This was the battle of commune versus castle. For Florence, that meant defeating the Ricasoli-Firidolfi clan, which possessed, by some accounts, as many as fifteen castles in Chianti, from Brolio Castle in Gaiole to Panzano Castle in the heart of the territory between Florence and Siena.17 In his sweeping history of Florence, the sixteenth-century author Scipione Ammirato described the Ricasoli family as the ancient “padrona d’una gran parte del Chianti” (lord of a large part of Chianti).18 One of the earliest pictorial representations of the region lies at the base of a Ricasoli family tree engraved in 1584 (reproduced on the back of this book’s dust jacket). Armored knights on horseback, with lances in hand, are

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shown riding into battle and hunting (two of Chianti’s longest-standing pastimes). The Arno River courses downstream east of the Chianti Mountains toward Florence,19 and the Massellone River flows through the center of Gaiole. Chapels and cypress-lined ridges punctuate the hilly landscape. The walled city of Siena lies in the background. It is a panorama of Ricasoli castles and fortified villages which also are among the storied estates and townships of modern Chianti Classico: Coltibuono, Montegrossolini (Montegrossi), M. Rinaldi (Monterinaldi), Brolio, Cacchiano, Meleto, Gaiole, S. Sano (San Sano), Selvole, Vertine, Ama, Rietine, Radda, and Panzano. According to a later Ricasoli genealogy, Chianti’s first family also owned castles in the upper Arno River Valley and the castle of Monteficalli (Montefioralle) in Greve.20 In telling the story of Florence’s conquest of Chianti, Ammirato identified Greve as the “villaggio al principio della provincia del Chianti” (village at the beginning of the province of Chianti).21 During the twelfth century, the Florentine Republic brought the Ricasoli-Firidolfis and the other feudal families of Chianti (and their vast landholdings) under its control. Brolio Castle (whose pentagonal bastions are unmistakable in the Ricasoli family tree) was the last Ricasoli citadel north of Siena’s territory. It fell to Florence in 1176. Florence finally asserted its dominion over Montegrossi Castle, the original bastion of the Firidolfis, in 1197.22 From that time forward, the Ricasoli-Firidolfi clan and its network of castles were perforce part of Florence’s defensive line against Siena. By 1203, Florence was challenging Siena’s growing territorial influence. Siena had acquired control of the township of Montalcino to its south. The Florentines returned to the battlefield to extend their borders in Chianti while Siena was raiding the next important town to its south, Montepulciano. In the dispute over Chianti, the Florentines eventually prevailed at the bargaining table. The podestà (ruler) of Poggibonsi, together with an assemblage of bishops and leading laymen, awarded control of Chianti to the Florentines in an arbitral decision known as the Lodo di Poggibonsi (Poggibonsi Judgment) in June 1203. The Sienese flouted this decision for more than 350 years, until the Florentine Grand Duchy annexed their city-state in 1555. Every couple of decades or so, the citizensoldiers and mercenaries of Siena (and its imperial allies) trampled the Chianti countryside, toppling castles and razing vineyards. (There were some difficult vintages in those centuries!) In response, the Florentines organized a network of military leagues (leghe, the plural of lega) to defend and govern their hard-won territories in all directions. The dimensions of each lega were based on the challenges which it was likely to confront in overseeing and defending its borders. The Lega del Chianti was born shortly before 1306.23 It united the three principal towns of Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole with almost seventy surrounding smaller villages and parishes. Radda served as its headquarters, and the gallo nero (black rooster), symbolizing vigilance, became its emblem. As of 1384 the Lega del Chianti extended from Staggia Castle on its western border (near Poggibonsi) to the parish churches in the Chianti Mountains on its eastern border (overlooking the upper Arno River Valley). Moving from the west, its northern boundary skirted south of the Pesa River and then farther south of the township of Greve and its several hamlets,

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including Panzano and Lamole, as Val di Greve had its own lega. The Florentine Republic appointed Piergiovanni Ricasoli as the commissario (commissioner) and podestà of both the Lega del Chianti and the Lega di Val di Greve during the Aragonese invasions of Chianti from 1478 through 1484.24 With this wartime commission, Florence effectively united Chianti and Val di Greve as one territory under the defensive command of the Ricasoli (and the standard of the gallo nero). Over time, the wine region of Chianti naturally evolved to incorporate the Greve River Valley as well. Piergiovanni Ricasoli and his fellow knights of the Lega del Chianti would not have been surprised. In 1384 the Lega del Chianti adopted a formal set of bylaws (statuto) to govern itself. For the most part, their provisions covered the military and civil matters at the core of the lega’s mission. The lega added an article in 1444 called “Della vendemia” (About the harvest). It prohibited the harvesting of wine grapes within the lega’s borders before September 29 (the Feast of Saint Michael) each year.25 While recognizing the hardship that might compel certain families to harvest “their vineyards before the grapes were mature,” the language unequivocally prohibited this, given the “great damage which the lega would receive because the wines would not be good and could not be sold.”26 The provision also required that all dog owners keep their dogs tied up for the entire month of September. Violators were subject to monetary fines payable to the lega (with onequarter of the fine going to the whistle-blower). A former podestà of the Lega del Chianti, Michelangelo Tanàglia, in the late fifteenth century authored a didactic poem titled De agricultura, in which he advised his readers on the open hills, to never tire of planting vines, of the best kind, or of attending the plant of Bacchus,27

because wine grapes are the most profitable crop. The poem (written in the vernacular Tuscan language) also includes detailed descriptions of vine varieties and viticultural and enological recommendations. This lega took its Chianti seriously! Between the early fourteenth century and the disbanding of the leghe by the HapsburgLorraine grand duke in 1774, the borders of the Lega del Chianti changed slightly as townships and parishes were added or removed. After 1774 the townships of Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole were combined with the potesteria (territory) of Greve to create the vicariate of Radda. The grand duke himself, Peter Leopold, toured Chianti in July 1773 and kept a travel journal of his observations. He described “il Chianti” as encompassing the broad swath of land between Florence and Siena. According to the grand duke, Chianti was “tutta montagna” (all mountains), was bordered by “Florence, Certaldo and S. Casciano, as well as by Valdarno di Sopra and Siena,” and comprised “the vicariate of Radda and the potesteria of Greve.” He explained that “the most traveled road of Chianti” was the one “from Florence through Greve and Panzano to Castellina.”28 Remarkably, the map of the “vicariato di Radda” produced by Ferdinando Morozzi in 178129 looks like

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it could be a map of the first consortium of Chianti wine producers, established in 1924. For certain strident tradizionalisti (traditionalists) in the twentieth century, the historic borders of the medieval Lega del Chianti constituted the definitive boundaries of Chianti as a wine appellation. The story of Chianti as a wine region, however, did not begin or end with the Lega del Chianti.

L A V I T E N U O VA

In the long centuries that followed the decline of the Etruscan and Roman civilizations, the culture of the vine (vite) languished in the land of Etruria. As the cities in Tuscany grew into centers of trade, finance, and manufacturing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, agriculture was also commercialized and revitalized. In contrast with the rest of Europe, Tuscany’s rinascita (rebirth) began in the Middle Ages. This rebirth flourished in urban markets and rural fields. It was rooted in a culture of commerce and contracts— and poets and painters. The city of Florence established close links with its sources of grain, meat, produce, and wine. Urban citizens (cittadini), from noblemen to artisans, increasingly purchased land in the countryside with the goal of securing their food supply and investing their gold florins securely. Acquiring land in the contado promised greater economic self-sufficiency for city dwellers.30 It also conferred social capital once possessed only by the landed aristocracy. Within the walls of Florence and Siena, monastic and lay farmers tended walled gardens. Their vestiges are the extant communal streets and other places with vigna (vineyard) in the name. These urban vineyards (including those just outside or nearby the city walls) were likely either specialized or kitchen gardens with grapevines and olive and fruit trees planted together (vinea cum arboribus). Given the constraint of urban space, grapevines, whether trained low or on a pergola, would have been densely planted. In the early 1300s, ecclesiastical institutions and Florentine landholding families began widely planting specialized vineyards in the plains and hills surrounding the city.31 Beyond providing daily sustenance (as a companatico, or bread pairing), wine had assumed liturgical and medicinal importance in the Middle Ages. Before the bubonic plague epidemic (known as the Black Death) struck in 1348, the city of Florence had ninety thousand to one hundred thousand citizens by some counts, making it one of the five most populous in Europe. Its surrounding contado, including Chianti, was under great pressure to supply Florence with its most essential staple, grain. Prior to the Black Death, Florence needed to import the equivalent of seven months of its grain supply every year.32 The local market for wine was also robust. Florence’s guild of wine merchants (Arte dei Vinattieri) was first organized in 1266. The vinattieri worked with a network of agents (mediatori) throughout the countryside to purchase wine for the Florence market, even from peripheral areas of the contado such as Chianti.33 By one estimate, the consumption of wine in Florence totaled 23.7 million liters (6.3 million gallons) in 1280.34 Its annual per capita wine consumption ranged between 220 and 260 liters (58 and 69 gallons) during the 1300s.35 Each barrel of Chianti

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brought to market in Florence would have been subject to the duties (gabelle, the plural of gabella) imposed by the Florentine Republic on wine brought into the city and sold within its walls. The gabelle were also levied on other staples, including grain, meat, oil, and salt. By all accounts, the increasing gabelle (used to fund interest payments on the republic’s mounting public debt) did little to slake the Florentines’ thirst for wine.36 Jurists (civil and canon), notaries, and learned laymen who acquired land in the contado to plant their vines used their classical scholarship to recover the viticultural knowledge that was lost with the decline of Roman civilization. The rebirth of the classics so closely identified with the Florentine Renaissance of the 1400s and 1500s began centuries earlier with the recovery of Roman law by medieval counselors and clerics. Their knowledge of Latin provided a gateway to the discovery of ancient Roman texts, including the epic of Virgil, rhetoric of Cicero, and husbandry of Columella. The Tuscan poet and humanist Petrarch wrote works in Latin as well as Tuscan during the fourteenth century. He embraced the classical Roman ideology of agriculture as an ethical pursuit by personally tending to the grapevines, fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs in his gardens. In his library was a treasured personal codex of Virgil’s works. In 1339–40 he commissioned the Sienese master Simone Martini to paint a frontispiece for this volume. It is a tribute to Virgil’s three celebrated works, the Eclogues (also referred to as Bucolics), Georgics, and Aeneid. In the lower left-hand corner, symbolizing the Georgics, a lengthy poem exalting the virtues of agriculture, is a vinedresser at work. In contrast with the opening lines of the Georgics, which promise to explain how to “marry the vines to their arbor of elms,”37 Martini’s vinedresser is pruning a stand-alone, alberello-like vine. A distinct form of alberello tied to a stake is still found today in the high Chianti hills of Ruffoli, Casole, and Lamole overlooking Val di Greve and in Panzano. Compared with the maritata, or treefestooned, vines of Virgil’s Georgics or the classic Tuscan countryside, Martini’s depiction of the freestanding vine in the Virgil frontispiece suggests a more careful form of viticulture, which the Sienese artist surely observed either in the Chianti hills and mountains north of his hometown or in Avignon, where he was working on commissions for the papal court (and on the Virgil frontispiece for Petrarch) during the 1330s. The merchants of Florence also brought back empirical observations about French wine from their business travels north of the Alps. From the Middle Ages, Florentine and other Tuscan merchant-bankers were well represented at the Champagne fairs, and later those in Bruges and Lyon. At these fairs, Tuscany’s merchant-bankers were engaged in long-distance trade and finance in almost all commercial sectors, except those involving wine and other foodstuffs. One early Italian raconteur of France’s wine country was the Franciscan monk Salimbene. In his thirteenth-century Chronicle, he marveled that the hillsides and plains in Auxerre were covered everywhere with vineyards. He added that the farmers in this area of Burgundy “sow not, nor do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn; but they send wine to Paris by the river which flows hard by; and there they sell it at a noble price.”38 In other words, Salimbene (who had previously lived in Lucca, Siena, and Pisa in Tuscany) was amazed that the economy of Auxerre supported

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a monoculture of vines. Indeed, any Tuscan or Lombard merchant traveling to and from the Champagne fairs would have been equally astonished, given that no city in Tuscany or Lombardy (or elsewhere in continental Italy) lived on its agricultural trade “like the wine ports and cities of France, Rouen and La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Laon, Auxerre, [and] Beaune.”39 In the summer of 1348, following the bankruptcies of two of its most prominent banking houses (the Bardi and the Peruzzi) and devastating harvests in the previous two years, the bubonic plague felled approximately one-half of the population of Florence.40 The decades following this sudden population loss witnessed a dramatic reduction in the amount of grain that Florence required to provision its citizens. Remarkably, this also represented the beginning of Florence’s most vibrant economic growth, lasting until the end of the fifteenth century.41 Agriculture in the surrounding contado became more diversified (and by some measures more efficient) in the succeeding decades. In some areas, grapevines were planted on more than 30 percent of the cultivated land.42 More grapevines and olive and fig trees were also planted in areas of the countryside, like Chianti, “in ways more suitable to its nature.”43 In contrast with the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century, fewer specialized vineyards were planted in Florence’s surrounding countryside, in favor of an increasingly mixed system (coltivazione consociata) of tree-trained vines and other arboreal crops (which reduced a landlord’s capital expenditure by eliminating the need for wooden canes and specialized labor for dedicated vineyards). Because of the loss of manpower in the countryside following the Black Death (particularly in already sparsely populated areas like Chianti), absentee Florentine landowners consolidated their landholdings (in a process known as appoderamento) to create farms (poderi, the plural of podere) that could each be managed by a single family of tenant farmers.44 Unlike the winegrowers in Auxerre whom Salimbene observed, the farmers of Chianti were required to sow and reap their grain as well as tend and harvest their grapevines and olive trees. The Chiantigiani also lacked access to a navigable river on which to ship their wines to market “cheaply and without excessive jolting”45 (the Arno River was navigable only downstream from Florence to Pisa). The limited quantity of Chianti wine that reached Florence had to travel in barrels by mule- or ox-drawn carts over steep hills and through valleys. For wine being transported from Val di Greve (only about twenty-six kilometers, or sixteen miles, south of Florence), the cost of overland transport in this period is estimated to have added 25 percent to the price.46 Notwithstanding these challenges, Chianti wine made its name in the Florence market by the end of the fourteenth century, when the price of wine was increasing appreciably.47 The first known documentary reference to the wine of Chianti is an entry dated December 16, 1398, in a Florentine account book of the well-known Prato merchant Francesco di Marco Datini. It refers to his purchase, as arranged by his notary, Ser Lapo Mazzei (an ancestor of the Mazzei family of Castello di Fonterutoli in Castellina), of six barili of “vino biancho di Chianti” (“white wine of Chianti”; one barile, the singular of barili, was equal

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to forty-six liters, or twelve gallons, in the Florence of the early 1400s).48 In a letter of 1401, Mazzei also referred to “wine from Lamole in Val di Greve, which after some time will be good red wines.”49 While the earliest reference to Chianti wine is ironically to a white wine, Ser Lapo’s description of the red wine from Lamole could come from a modern wine writer’s description of a fine Chianti Classico. In establishing a more equitable system to tax its residents (including the exaction of “interest-earning forced loans”50 to fund the public debt, called the Monte), the Florentine Republic in 1427 fortuitously developed a classification of the wines from its subborghi (suburbs), contado, and distretto (outer district). Called the Catasto (census), the new tax system required cittadini and contadini (the residents of the contado) alike to report the value of their taxable assets (based on the investment return on real estate and the fair market value of movables such as shares in the Monte). In taxing “liquid wealth,” the Catasto established reference values for agricultural products like wine. These were also used to calculate the yield harvested from agricultural landholdings. For our purposes, the 1427 Catasto could also be called the 1427 Classification. Without naming or ranking specific estates (like Bordeaux’s 1855 Classification), it established a tariff schedule for the wines of 106 growing regions or localities representing most of modern-day Tuscany (with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Massa-Carrara).51 The “reputation enjoyed by the various production zones” determined these tariffs, although in certain cases the assigned reference values diverged from actual market prices.52 Among the highest valued were the wines from several localities in the upper Arno River Valley (such as Galatrona) and then those from “Chianti et tucta la provincia” (Chianti and its entire province), Panzano, Badia a Montemuro (a high-altitude hamlet north of Radda on the slopes of Monte San Michele), and “Valdirubbiana” (the Ema Creek Valley, near the modern-day hamlet of San Polo in the northeastern corner of the Chianti Classico appellation), followed by the wines of Lucolena and Mercatale a Greve.53 In other words, for the architects of the 1427 Catasto, the wines from Chianti and its entire province just north of Siena and farther northward to Panzano, the Chianti Mountains, the upper Greve River Valley, and the Ema Creek Valley were all worth their weight in florins! While the 1427 Catasto did not define the geographic borders of “Chianti and its entire province,” an analysis of the numerous other place-names it listed indicates that in the early fifteenth century Chianti was still considered largely synonymous with the domain of the Lega del Chianti. Nevertheless, “and its entire province” suggests a more expansive view of Chianti as a wine region. As the Catasto’s tariff schedule indicates, the wines from the high valleys of the Arbia, Greve, and Pesa Rivers between Florence and Siena were all highly valued. So it is only natural that the intrinsic geographic and geologic conditions (steep hills with poor and rocky soils) that distinguished these locations came to be collectively associated with the prized territory that the Florentine Republic had wrested first from the feudal Ricasoli-Firidolfi family and then from the Republic of Siena a little more than 225 years earlier, namely Chianti.

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GOLDEN MEAN

In reviving the Latin agricultural treatises of classical authors such as Cato the Elder, Pliny the Elder, and Virgil, the Florentine humanists also restored the agrarian ideals of ancient Rome—in both letter and spirit. As Rome had evolved from a republic to an empire, its leaders had embraced “agricultural tranquillity and the pursuit of the golden mean, ‘aurea mediocritas.’ ”54 Following Florence’s evolution from a republic to a principate, its ruling families likewise embraced agricultural tranquillity. In the first half of the fifteenth century, Cosimo de’ Medici immersed himself in both the library and the garden at his country villa outside Florence.55 By the late 1400s, Lorenzo de’ Medici (instead of pruning vines or grafting fruit trees like his grandfather Cosimo) was writing works that “expressed his delight in the beauty of the Tuscan countryside and in the many pleasures it offered.”56 Beyond finding peace in their country gardens, the landowning families and ecclesiastical orders of Florence institutionalized agricultural stability in the form of the mezzadria (sharecropping) system. Florentines brought their knowledge of legal contracts and financial accounting to the management of their agricultural landholdings. They entered into leases with tenant farmers on either a fixed-term or a perpetual basis, stipulating fixed rent (monetary or in kind) or share (in kind only) payments, to cultivate previously abandoned or wooded lands. In the mid-thirteenth century, the mezzadria form of tenancy was introduced in the countryside of both Florence and Siena. Chianti was no exception. Radda, Greve, and Castellina are the places in Chianti where the earliest mezzadria contracts have been identified, from the Duecento (1200s).57 The Florentine landlords increasingly entered into fixed-term leases with their sharecropper farmers (mezzadri, the plural of mezzadro) to cultivate Chianti’s rocky terrain and lean soil. These contracts provided that the padrone (landowner or landlord) and the mezzadro would share the year’s harvest equally (mezzadria deriving from mezzo, or “half”). As a general rule, the landlord would deduct from the mezzadro’s share an amount equal to one-half of the working capital that the landlord had advanced (without interest) earlier in the agricultural cycle for oxen, manure, seeds, wooden stakes, or tools. The landlord also invested capital to construct or enlarge the farmhouse, or casa colonica, for each resident mezzadro family’s podere. This was typically a stone building that included (in addition to the farmworkers’ living quarters) a cistern, stall, oven, and wine cellar. The sharecropper tenancy, with its built-in incentives for efficient and productive land use by the mezzadro family, required less labor supervision and land management by the absentee landowner.58 Contrary to the popular association between the mezzadria form of tenancy and mixed agriculture, during the Middle Ages the mezzadria contract initially provided for the intensive planting and tending of specialized vineyards, stipulating that the vines be trained on dry stakes and densely planted in tight rows.59 Their provisions detailed the requirements for systemizing old vineyards and planting new ones (often reserving the direct care, conduzione diretta, of the vineyard for the landowner and his salaried workers).60 The cultivation of tree crops and grain was contemplated for plots of land

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distinct from the vineyard. By the Renaissance, the culture of dedicated vineyards in many places had ceded ground to a different type of intensive agriculture, a polyculture called coltura promiscua (a form of intercropping with rows of vine-supporting trees alternating with rows of grain, olive trees, fruit trees—including mulberry, for silk—and herbaceous plants such as legumes). Given the mezzadro family’s requirement for self-sufficiency, this provided for almost all of its (and its animals’) sustenance. The diversity of crops grown by sharecroppers also provided for the self-sufficiency of the landlord’s family, by ensuring a balanced source of agricultural products and revenue. With the exception of select areas in Chianti (including the terraced vineyards in the high hills of Lamole and other high-elevation sites in the upper Pesa, Greve, and Arno River Valleys) and the personal vineyard gardens of estate owners (vigna padronale), dense rows of low-trained vines on stakes—and careful viticulture—largely disappeared from the landscape of central Tuscany until the last quarter of the twentieth century. While its story is not homogeneous throughout Tuscany, the mezzadria system over time became a hardened institution that ruled the region’s countryside for more than six centuries. As Florentines purchased more land for investment, they consolidated their landholdings in the contado as larger estates.61 Initially, sharecropper leases had five- or three-year fixed terms, subject to renewal by the landlord. Then the mezzadria contract (with the help of countless lawyers and notaries) became a boilerplate one-year renewable contract with patti aggiuntivi (additional terms) requiring that the tenant farmer and his family provide supplemental services and agricultural products (e.g., digging a specified distance of trenches for grapevine and olive tree plantings, transporting the landlord’s produce from the fields or to market, or “gifting” capons, eggs, or itemized produce from their kitchen garden) as further consideration for the lease of the podere (including occupancy of the casa colonica). The working capital advanced by landowners also substantially indebted mezzadri families, far outweighing their credits at yearend. (The double-entry accounting system that the Florentine merchant-bankers had perfected in the Middle Ages also proved useful in the countryside.) Meanwhile, unlike his artisan counterpart in Florence, the mezzadro was not educated or literate, making the mezzadria lease a contract of adhesion (i.e., take it or leave it) rather than a bilateral expression of mutual obligations and rights. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, isolated poderi were consolidated into estates (fattorie, the plural of fattoria). The Florentine landowner (or an intermediate fixed-rent tenant) hired a resident overseer (fattore) to manage the estate, its multiple poderi, and the resident mezzadri families. By all accounts, the fattore ruled with an iron fist on behalf of his padrone. Ultimately, the mezzadria tenancy provided the sharecropper family with the opportunity for mere subsistence rather than self-sufficiency. And although the fattore improved the administration of the estate and the transformation of its grapes to marketable wine, the mezzadria system effectively diminished the possibility of agricultural innovation. Many modern Chianti Classico producers have preserved the detailed accounting ledgers that each fattore kept (with meticulously scripted pages of credits and debits) and the

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watercolor cadastral maps (cabrei, the plural of cabreo) of the fattorie, commissioned by the estate owners, as testaments of this enduring institution, now called the mezzadria classica toscana. Given the importance that Florentines placed on contracts in all of their business and personal dealings, why did Florentine landowners not use their bargaining power to amend their mezzadria contracts to require the planting and tending of dedicated vineyards in order to produce higher-quality wine at any point prior to the mid-twentieth century? When, by the early seventeenth century, Florence had lost its dominance as a center of commerce and finance, Florentines understood that their primary wealth was grounded in agriculture—and that their secondary wealth flowed from its fruits (most importantly, wine). While erudite Florentines wrote dozens of learned agricultural treatises during these centuries, why did the Florentine landowner not return to the land “as a gentleman-farmer” to cultivate his estate directly (as occurred in France in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries)?62 When the esteemed English agriculturalist Arthur Young toured a natural history exhibit in a Florentine museum in the late eighteenth century, he was astonished that there was “no chamber for agriculture; no collection of machines, relative to that first of arts.”63 While Florentines recognized and debated the shortcomings of the mezzadria system and coltura promiscua for viticulture (and agricultural advancement in general) beginning in the mid-1700s, the landowners of Tuscany (and eventually Chianti) deeply believed that they had devised and perfected a system which represented the ideal balance between capital and labor in their countryside (especially when compared with the impoverished rural areas of southern Italy and Sicily). Their steadfast allegiance to this system had deep cultural roots. In the fourteenth century, Petrarch’s embrace of ancient Roman texts extolling the virtues of farming and country life had masked an underlying belief that agriculture was inferior to “the liberal and respected arts.”64 While throughout most of his life he “played the farmer”65 in his own gardens, he also revealed the latent ambivalence that Florentines (and indeed their Roman ancestors) harbored toward the ancient and practical (i.e., mechanical) art of agriculture. In the age of humanism, the poets and merchant-bankers of the Florentine Renaissance expressed respect for painters such as Simone Martini and their scientia et doctrina (knowledge and learning), the exact qualities that set the liberal arts apart from the mechanical ones (such as agriculture).66 The painter, sculptor, or builder in Renaissance Florence was an artist, not just a craftsman. The farmer or winegrower enjoyed no such honor. He remained a rustico (rustic) from the campagna (countryside). In seeking to understand the fundamental distinction between the culture of wine in Burgundy and that in Tuscany beginning in the proto-Renaissance, we can find no clearer voice than that of Petrarch. Throughout his life Petrarch penned letters to the political and thought leaders of his day. Between 1366 and 1368 he wrote to Pope Urban V about the imperative to move the seat of the papacy from Avignon back to the Eternal City, Rome. In this urgent appeal, Petrarch refuted one of the objections that the papal court proffered to any such return:

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Against my will I now speak at length about a lowly subject, foreign to my tastes, but the matter at hand forces me. I know what people are like. I have often heard them say that Italy does not have the wine of Burgundy. What a grievous scandal and a just reason for abandoning Italy! But does this not seem a childish boast to brag about a few jugs of common wine that some hill or other located on the transalpine side produces, and then to scorn so many different kinds of fine wines with which all of Italy overflows?67

While the lack of Burgundian wine in the papal wine cellar in Rome would hardly seem a legitimate reason for keeping the papacy in Avignon, Petrarch’s observation regarding the “childish boast” by Burgundians about a “common wine that some hill or other located on the transalpine side produces” reflected a fundamental devaluation of the art of agriculture and the French concept of terroir (territorialità in Italian). With all of the exalted cultural achievements that came to define the Florentine Renaissance, viticulture largely remained, in Petrarch’s words, “a lowly subject” and produced vastly more than “a few jugs of common wine” in Tuscany. The mezzadria system that Florentine landowners institutionalized in much of their countryside, while preserving agricultural tranquillity and economic security for centuries, proved more mediocris (mediocre) than aurea (golden) for the culture of wine in Tuscany.

TWO ROOMS WITH A VIEW

For the Florentine Republic, Chianti represented a remote frontier to defend and control. For the Sienese Republic, Chianti was the countryside of verdant hills rolling out just beyond its northern walls. After the medieval border was drawn between Florentine Chianti (Chianti Fiorentino) and Sienese Chianti (Chianti Senese), all that remained of Chianti for Siena was the butterfly-shaped area of present-day Castelnuovo Berardenga. This border also symbolized a cultural divide between the landowners of Chianti Fiorentino and those of Chianti Senese. Siena’s political and cultural influence culminated in the first half of the fourteenth century. The Republic of Siena embarked on an ambitious series of civil works projects in the late thirteenth century. By 1310 it had completed its new town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, on the fan-shaped Piazza del Campo. In 1337, the year before construction of the palazzo’s bell tower commenced, Siena’s governing Council of the Nine commissioned the Sienese artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti to paint a cycle of three frescoes inside its meeting room (Sala dei Nove), on the second floor of the Palazzo Pubblico. On the east wall, Lorenzetti painted an idealized vision of Siena as a city-republic governed by the virtues of Wisdom and Justice in fealty to the Common Good. These virtues (along with several other civic and theological virtues) and the Bene Comune (Common Good) are personified on the adjoining north wall in a fresco that has been labeled The Allegory (or Virtues) of Good Government. Yet for all of its complexity and symbolism, it is not the fresco on the north wall but that of the east wall (commonly referred to as The Effects of

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Good Government or Buon governo) that beckons and captivates the viewer. It is an urban and rural landscape rich with naturalistic detail and devoid of religious imagery. The left-hand side has Lorenzetti’s depiction of Siena as a vibrant city, where commerce and culture thrive. Peasants enter from the country, alongside their mules carrying bales of raw wool and wood to the arcade of workshops lining the main piazza. Next to the first bottega, where wine from a barrel is sold, stands a hall where a scholar lectures his attentive students. In the foreground, nine maidens clasp hands and dance in two intersecting circles to the music of the tenth maiden, who plays the tambourine. A wedding procession on horseback rides to the Duomo (whose greenish-black-and-white-striped bell tower rises in the background) while workers atop a scaffolded edifice in the middle ground build the city before the viewer’s eyes. The right-hand side of the east wall has Lorenzetti’s depiction of Siena’s countryside, where agriculture and culture flourish. The center point of the fresco is the red-brick city wall and tall gate, meant to divide but here uniting the comune and its contado. Projecting from the top of the gate is a sculpted shewolf with two suckling infants, Senius (the son of Remus, one of ancient Rome’s founding twins) and Aschius, the mythological founders of Siena. For this reason, the gate is believed to be Siena’s southern gate, called the Porta Romana. A parade of farmers, hunters, and pilgrims (and their animals) travels the road leading to and from it, moving freely between town and country. The vigna in the foreground hugging the city wall at the top of the hill is densely planted. Two olive trees are in the back corner where the wall meets the edge of the city gate. The alberello vines are staked to low single vertical canes (canne). Four hunters with crossbows and one standing guard are stalking the vineyard for the birds that have nestled among the thicket of shoots and leaves to feed on the ripe grapes. On the other side of the road is another vineyard, planted in tight parallel rows down the hillside (girapoggio, or crosswise to the slope, to avoid erosion from rainwater runoff ). From the viewer’s vantage, the scene encompasses the countryside surrounding Siena from the green Chianti hills (to the north) to the grayish-tan clayey hills (to the south) known as the Crete Senesi (Sienese clays). The Chianti hills as Lorenzetti has illustrated them are covered by a patchwork of low-staked vineyards bordered by trees and fields bounded by hedges. In the mustardcolored plains below, grain is both sown and harvested, to signify the complete agricultural cycle. In the distance there are farmhouses, villas, and castles. The villa with two crenellated towers to the northeast of Porta Romana has an arbor covered with leafy vines. This was a medieval estate of Chianti Senese. The river to the east of the city is likely the Arbia, flowing from its source in Chianti, north of the town of Castellina. Lorenzetti, the painter-philosopher of Siena, has left the world with a vivid (albeit idealized) image of the countryside surrounding Siena, including the Chianti hills at its northern doorstep. There can be no mistaking that before the mezzadria system became deeply rooted in the Florentine and Sienese countryside, there were specialized vineyards in Chianti. Lorenzetti’s depiction of Siena’s Buon Governo places agriculture on a level plane with commerce.

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Indeed, the merchant-bankers of Siena embraced agriculture following the collapse of their banking empires at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century.68 This early return to the land by leading Sienese families created a class of “rural gentry” that ruled Siena. As Siena’s tax records show, from 1316 through 1320 only three of the 120 merchant-bankers who served on the Council of the Nine did not own any land outside the city.69 In this same period, “the value of rural holdings was found to exceed the value of urban property” at every economic level in Siena (including among its painters).70 By contrast, at the time of the Florentine 1427 Catasto, the wealth of the top 1 percent of Florence’s wealthiest families was invested more in movable assets, such as public debt instruments, than in real estate.71 Siena’s ruling class, having embraced the land as the source of its wealth during the period of the Buon Governo, influenced the institutions and values of Siena to promote agriculture (albeit within the context of the mezzadria system). This may help to explain why prominent Sienese landholders in Chianti Senese, like the Del Taia, Bianchi Bandinelli, and Bindi Sergardi families, were actively managing their estates and exporting their Chianti wine by the early 1700s (in advance of many Florentine landowners with equally sizable properties in Chianti). Eight years after he completed the cycle of three frescoes in the Sala dei Nove, Lorenzetti, his wife, and three of their daughters (and his older brother, the accomplished artist Pietro Lorenzetti) all perished during the Black Death in 1348. His Buon governo, though, has survived, preserving a panorama of the Sienese Republic’s civic and agricultural ideals—and an exceptional view of Chianti Senese. Approximately forty-eight kilometers (thirty miles) north of Siena, Florence’s town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio, looms over the Piazza della Signoria. On its second floor, in a grand reception hall (Sala Grande), is a cycle of paintings that Florence’s second Medici duke, Cosimo I, commissioned to commemorate Florence’s conquest of the Republic of Siena in 1555 (and the marriage of his son Francesco to Austrian royalty in 1565). This hall is also named the Salone dei Cinquecento, in honor of the five-hundred-member Grand Council that had ruled the Florentine Republic in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, preceding the installation of Alessandro de’ Medici as Florence’s first duke by Europe’s papal and imperial powers in 1530. Two centuries after Lorenzetti depicted the Republic of Siena as the Buon Governo, Florence had become a hereditary principality. The artist Giorgio Vasari was charged with decorating the walls and ceiling of the Salone dei Cinquecento to glorify Cosimo I and his rule over the Duchy of Tuscany (which became a Grand Duchy in 1569). In each of the corners of the eighteen-meter (fifty-nine-foot) high ceiling there is a cluster of four coffered square panels depicting four ancient territories of the Duchy of Florence. Each cluster is geographically linked to one of the four administrative quadrants of the city of Florence.72 In the southwest corner of the room (aligned with Florence’s Santo Spirito quarter) is the cluster of four panels depicting the territories of Certaldo, Volterra, Colle Val d’Elsa with San Gimignano, and “Ager Clantius Et Eius Oppida” (the territory of Chianti and its towns). The year 1197 is inscribed in Roman numerals and heralded as the “Anno Salutis” (Year of salvation) on

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the gold frame of the Ager Clantius painting, signifying when the Florentines finally asserted their dominion over the Ricasoli-Firidolfi clan and hence Chianti. Vasari and his workshop of artists created perhaps the first visual image of Florentine Chianti. Given the vantage point of Cosimo I (depicted in the regalia of an ancient Roman emperor and seated on a throne in the ceiling’s central medallion) looking out over the domains of his duchy, it is a view of Chianti from the perspective of the city of Florence. The image is both an allegorical and a geographic representation of the region. Consistent with all of the imagery in the cycle of frescoes and other paintings in the room, it is a manneristic (as opposed to naturalistic) vision of Chianti, replete with triumphal classical symbols and decorative elements. Vasari, who was also an architect and author, wrote a manuscript explaining his cycle of paintings in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Vecchio, structured as a fictional dialogue between him and Prince Francesco de’ Medici, the son of his patron. Vasari briefly described how he had depicted Chianti with two rivers, the Pesa and the Elsa. While his identification of the Elsa River, which runs well to the west of Chianti, as one of its traditional borders may be questionable from a geographic perspective, his depiction of the two principal tributaries flowing north into the Arno is consistent with the spatial perspective of the Florentine viewer.73 Vasari represents each river flowing from an urn poised on either side of a mature Bacchus, the dominant figure in the foreground of the painting. The artist explained that he had chosen a Bacchus “of a more mature age for the excellent wines of that region.”74 His Bacchus is gray bearded but as chiseled as Michelangelo’s David. But this Bacchus looks as if he has consumed far too much Chianti! He sits barely upright, flushed and overcome by slumber. He leans heavily against the clutter of urns, cornucopia, and other figurative props in the middle ground of the scene. Rather than Bacchus, it is the youthful soldier standing behind and to the left of him who brings vitality to the image. He wears a billowing red cape, which is strapped to his shoulders in the manner of a Roman knight. Wearing a crown of vine wood adorned with grape bunches and leaves, he lifts a drinking bowl (shaped like an ancient Greek kylix) in his left hand and grips his carved oval shield with his right hand. This shield bears a tall black rooster set against a golden field, the emblem of the Lega del Chianti. Vasari confirmed that it is this “young man who represents Chianti.”75 In the background, set against rolling forest-green hills, are the oppida (towns) of Chianti. In his fictional dialogue, Vasari explained that “in the distance I have painted Castellina, Radda, and Brolio with their insignia.”76 He is reported to have sent his assistants to the field to draw each town’s architectural landmarks from life.77 The massive castle in the background on the left with its stepped towers and crenellated rectilinear walls strongly resembles Brolio Castle, the very symbol of Chianti and its founding feudal clan, the Ricasoli-Firidolfis.78 The town in the distant background in the middle is barely visible but could only be Radda, given its central location between Brolio and Castellina. The town perched on the hill in the background on the right is unmistakably Castellina, with its curved northern wall. The architectural clues combine with geography to identify

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the towns: viewing Chianti from the vantage point of Florence (i.e., looking south) means that Brolio Castle in Gaiole is on the left (to the east) and Castellina on the right (to the west). By representing Brolio Castle (instead of the town of Gaiole), Vasari portrayed Chianti not just as the three towns of Gaiole, Radda, and Castellina but as the entire territory historically under the dominion of the Ricasoli-Firidolfi clan that Florence had come to control by the end of the twelfth century. In contrast to Lorenzetti’s idealized agrarian vision of Chianti Senese from 225 years earlier, Vasari’s depiction of Chianti Fiorentino lacks any signs of agriculture. Instead, he displayed its abundant fruits and animal trophies in the foreground of his painting like the ancient booty of war and the bounty of “divine favor.”79 Vasari gave his patron, Cosimo I, an expansive and triumphant vision of Chianti—and a room with a view fit for a duke.

STEALING AND REVEALING BEAUTY

In the end, the story of Chianti is not one of physical plunder or ruin. While it served as a battlefield between Florence and Siena (and their shifting papal and imperial allies) on and off from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, it also survived as a place of pristine beauty. Any modern-day pilgrim traveling through Chianti bears witness to this enduring beauty. Undeniably, the stability of the mezzadria system for centuries and the wisdom of the Florentines and Sienese who safeguarded their countryside after the dissolution of the sharecropping system in the mid-twentieth century are responsible, in their own ways, for saving Chianti as a landscape. Nonetheless, the story of Chianti involves the plunder of a cherished intangible—the region’s very identity and reputation. The toponym Chianti, though mysterious in origin, connoted quality in wine long before Sangiovese was identified as its principal variety. Winegrowers in the high hills between Florence and Siena have produced wine known as Chianti since at least the fourteenth century. It was the rocky soils, faceted expositions, and cooler climate of their land, the elements of nature that distinguished the precious wine of the original Chianti. Long before technical advances in viticulture and enology (and the reputation of consulting enologists) conferred prestige on this appellation, it was the elemental beauty of Chianti and its wine that was appreciated, both near and far. As a wine region, Chianti evolved beyond its medieval military borders. The high-elevation sites of both the upper Greve River Valley and upper Pesa River Valley (and their liminal growing areas) have much in common with the traditional sites of Gaiole, Radda, and Castellina. Any student of Chianti and its wine will find historical references to place-names like Panzano, Lamole, Casole, Ruffoli, Lucolena, and Montescalari and estate names like Vignamaggio (in Greve), Monte Bernardi (in Panzano), and Arceno and San Felice (in Castelnuovo Berardenga). This evolution of Chianti as a wine region was natural. With time, the merchant-bankers of Florence and Tuscany understood the commercial value of the mythic name Chianti. And so began the use by wine merchants of the brand Chianti across Tuscany and eventually Italy and beyond (and with it, the loss of more than one hundred distinctive place-names

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of Tuscan wine origin established by the 1427 Classification). This devolution of Chianti as a wine region was man-made. The story of the original Chianti is complex. It cannot be truthfully told without laying its complexity bare. Ultimately, it is a story of the confrontation of culture and commerce. But at its heart, it is the story of a natural beauty that has long deserved to be known by its own name: Chianti.

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2 THE EVOLUTION OF CHIANTI THROUGH BETTINO RICASOLI The 1600s to the 1870s

During the second half of the seventeenth century, grain prices declined to such an extent that the Grand Duchy of Tuscany imposed higher duties on all overland imports of grain into its Florentine domain.1 As a result, there was increasing interest in expanding viticulture and commercializing the production and export of wine. Landholders already well understood that wine would garner a higher market price than other agricultural products. In Chianti, mezzadri grew wine grapes on their poderi and until the nineteenth century typically vinified them in primitive wine cellars at their case coloniche. This is confirmed by an architectural plan of the ideal casa colonica published in 1770. The author Ferdinando Morozzi’s blueprint incorporates a vat room (tinaia) with a capacity of many vats and an entryway large enough for oxen to deliver grapes or vats of must coming in from the fields.2 With time, the mezzadri and the padroni made arrangements that allowed the mezzadri to use some of the fattoria’s wine processing and storage facilities (cantine, the plural of cantina) for their own winemaking. Such arrangements were usually fee based. For example, a mezzadro could use the grape-crushing, winemaking, and storage facilities at the fattoria’s cantina in exchange for an extra 10 to 15 percent of his crop or production. By the nineteenth century, the fattore had typically taken over the winemaking, maturing, and wine sale activities of the fattoria and all of its poderi. After the primary alcoholic fermentation, wine was racked into barili of about fifty liters (thirteen gallons) or less and divided between the mezzadro and the padrone according to the provisions of their mezzadria contract. Typically, the mezzadro family consigned a portion of its wine to the fattoria (to offset its debts to the estate for working capital and other

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advances), kept the remaining portion for the family (primarily for sale), and took some of the press cake to make mezzo vino (also known as acquarello or vinello) for its daily consumption. The press cake was left over after the fattore had pressed the wine out of the skins in the fermentation tank. To make mezzo vino, the mezzadri soaked the press cake in water and then fermented the resulting juice, which produced a light but coarse wine for family use. Proprietors often owned their own vineyards, in addition to the land that their sharecroppers farmed. These, though, were usually quite small. Some landowners took pride in the quality of the wine made from their personal vineyards, serving it to guests at their country villas or urban palazzi. Because the fattore had more control over the growing and vinification of these grapes, the estate wines were of a higher quality than what the mezzadri made in their poderi. Some landholders sold a portion directly from their palaces in Florence via small arched doorways framed in stone, called buchetti (the plural of buchetto), finestrini (the plural of finestrino), or porticciole (the plural of porticciola), which were cut into a wall three or four feet above the ground. These points of sale were discreetly positioned, in the wall of a palace that fronted an alleyway rather than a main thoroughfare. This practice continued until the late eighteenth century. Some thirty to forty buchetti are still visible today in Florence, although they have been shuttered for centuries. The mezzadria system remained profitable and stable for landowners. Over centuries, they fine-tuned the social as well as contractual relationships at its foundation. The fattore was required to remain unmarried, while the principal housekeeper and manager of the casa padronale (owner’s home) was a woman called the fattoressa, who was typically married to the estate’s game warden, the guardia della caccia. By the late 1700s, the expression avere un podere in Chianti (to have a podere in Chianti) was a way of saying that one owned a cash cow. The profitability of owning poderi combined with the increase in Florence’s population during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries gave rise to a great expansion of land planted to vines in Chianti (although these were not specialized vineyards, given the widespread use of promiscuous agriculture in the mezzadria system).

F O U N D AT I O N A L W I N E T Y P E S

Before the 1700s, the red wines of the Florence environs were called vermigli (the plural of vermiglio, meaning “bright or intense red”) or, in export markets, by the name of the originating city, Florence. A bando (edict or decree) of August 6, 1611, prohibited the bottling in fiasco (flask) of low-quality vermigli, requiring that this wine type be sold only in barrels. Glass flasks were designated for higher-quality wine because glass was easier to clean than wood and therefore would allow the wine to age better. Sealed glass flasks were also more secure from a quality control perspective. Wine stored in large wooden barrels for transport and shipment was more easily subject to adulteration than wine in sealed

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flasks. The 1611 bando defined low-quality wine as that made from grapes on the fertile plains that extended from Florence to Empoli.3 This legislation evidences that the Medici rulers of the early seventeenth century already understood the connection between wine quality and origin. This idea eventually crystallized in the two bandi (the plural of bando) of 1716 that delimited four wine regions within the Florentine State and regulated the commerce of quality wine. According to Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, a botanist who wrote a treatise titled Oenologia toscana (Tuscan enology) in 1773, the wines of the territory of Chianti were principally red and made of Canaiolo with varying amounts of Sangiovese, Mammolo, and Marzemino. The region’s white wines were made primarily from Trebbiano and San Colombano.4 The San Colombano that Villifranchi mentions may have been what is now called San Colombana or Verdea. On its own, it made a delicate white wine, usually called Verdea. A sweet Trebbiano wine was acclaimed from the Valdarno di Sopra area near the town of San Giovanni, in the Arno River Valley between the Chianti and Pratomagno Mountains. Malvasia is also mentioned frequently. White wines, unlike red wines, often went by grape varietal names. The township of San Gimignano (west of the Elsa River Valley) was known for its Vernaccia, a local white variety. Just to the west of Florence, the red wines of Carmignano, particularly from the village of Artimino, had earned a reputation for quality. The town of Montalcino, south of Siena, was known for a highly prized sweet white wine, Moscadello. Vin santo was and remains a Tuscan (and Chianti) dried white grape wine with versions that range from dry to sweet. It has always been made in tiny quantities and served at special occasions or given as a gift.

T H E E X P O RT M A R K E T: S M A L L S U C C E S S E S , G R O W I N G P R O B L E M S

Chianti and other Tuscan wines were often shipped from Livorno (referred to by the English as Leghorn) or sent overland to other countries during the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. The historical record of this period has many references to the export of Chianti and Florence wine, principally to English merchants. In the early 1670s, Paolo Minucci of Radda wrote notes explaining the verse of the artist and poet Lorenzo Lippi. In them, he observed that merchants were in “possession of Chianti, which in those days in great quantities was sailing to faraway countries.”5 In 1673, a Medici cellar master shipped wines overseas, among them well-aged Chianti. He reported that the Chianti would reach buyers in satisfactory condition.6 A 1691 poem attributed to the Englishman Richard Ames celebrates wines available in London. It describes Florence wine, but not specifically Chianti wine, as being sold in “flasks” and tasting “very good” and “delicate.”7 Cosimo III de’ Medici in the late 1600s and early 1700s often gifted flasks of Chianti to other European sovereigns and members of their royal courts. As an ardent Anglophile, he sent annual shipments of a chest of Chianti wine to friends such as Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore.8 His activity helped open the English market to Chianti and stimulate interest in Tuscan wine.9 England’s Queen Anne (1665–1714) is reputed to have

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preferred Florence wine above all others. In 1805 an English commentator, while affirming Queen Anne’s preference for Chianti and acknowledging that the most esteemed Italian wines were the “Aliatico, Chianti, and Monte Pulciano,” expressed doubt that Florence wine would “please a palate accustomed to Claret, Champagne, and Burgundy. . . . That which you drink in England for Florence wine, is Chianti—even to this brandy is added at Leghorn to give it strength; no other will bear the sea.”10 The Florence wine being sold in London in the late 1690s was “bottled in flasks and packed in wicker hampers” and considered “a fashionable alternative” to the wines of Spain and Portugal, which were flooding the market during a period of hostilities between England and France.11 Henry St John, first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751), “was especially fond of ‘Florence wine,’ probably Chianti or Montepulciano.”12 In 1696, a large shipment of wine—fourteen barrels holding a total of 150 barili (about 6,837 liters), and six cases of fiaschi—was sent from Brolio Castle to a Florentine merchant-broker based in Amsterdam.13 Letters dated 1715, 1716, and 1717 in the Brolio archive further attest to exports of Chianti beyond the Alps and overseas during this period.14 In 1735, the Livorno trader David Sceriman wrote to the then-baron Ricasoli, “[Because I] suggested to a friend in London the precious wine of Brolio, it will be easy for you to resolve to give me a commission on an order of two hundred cases.”15 Although some accounts say the reputation of Tuscan wines was favorable during the seventeenth century, others say it had problems. Many of the unfavorable reports were related to instability during sea transport, though land transport must have been even worse, given the movement stress of barrels strapped to wagons traversing winding, unpaved roads. France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany had easier access to England by sea than Tuscany had. The Alps also made land routes difficult for Tuscan wine exports. Tuscan wines deteriorated during shipment, particularly in the warm months of the year. Charles Longland, an English merchant living in Livorno, wrote to Secretary of the English Admiralty Robert Blackborne on January 17, 1653, “I am sending the Florence wine to Marseilles, to be laden on an English ship there, because if it is not home [in England] before May, it will be spoiled.”16 For Florence wine (including Chianti), time apparently was of the essence. Tuscan merchants selling Chianti in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries confronted another challenge. Fraud and profiteering had tarnished the reputation of Chianti in the English wine trade as early as the first decade of the 1600s. Villifranchi, in his Oenologia toscana, traced the origin of this image problem back to a single episode. (An English botanist had previously and identically reported this in both a Swiss German and an English publication in the late eighteenth century.)17 The 1607 vintage for Chianti was disastrous in quality and volume of production. Given the high market demand for Chianti, profiteering merchants, whether Chiantigiani themselves (according to Villifranchi and his foreign sources) or Tuscan or English merchants working out of the port of Livorno, mixed inferior wine from other zones with the already weak Chianti wine and sold it as “Chianti” for a handsome profit on the English market. From that

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point on, Villifranchi claimed, the reputation of Chianti wine in the English market had paid the price for this original commercial sin. He described how a century later a similar episode plagued Chianti. The 1710 vintage was also a difficult one with low yields. As in 1607, there was systemic fraud in the trade of Chianti wine of that vintage in the English market.18 The situation was so problematic that merchants began shipping Chianti wine in small sealed glass flasks rather than large wooden casks.19 Villifranchi noted that the export of Chianti wine had held its own in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries but had decreased from 1725 to 1775, mostly due to continued fraud and competition from areas such as Burgundy that were making more delicate and stable wines.20 Sir Edward Barry, commenting from England in 1775, confirmed Villifranchi’s assessment: “We seldom meet with any good wines imported here from Italy. The Chianti was formerly much esteemed in England, but entirely lost its character; large quantities of the red Florence are still imported in flasks; but from the disagreeable roughness, and other qualities, seldom drank. They have a freshness, and beautiful deep colour, and are probably chiefly consumed in making artificial claret, or Burgundy Wines, or in giving more lightness and spirit to heavy vapid port.”21 The eighteenth-century Sienese economist Salustio Antonio Bandini reported that Chianti had been four or five times more expensive in the English market at the beginning of the 1700s than in the 1730s.22 Just as late nineteenth-century fraud in the French market was the stimulus for appellation control laws that were created in the twentieth century, the fraud related to the export of Chianti wine in the seventeenth century was the stimulus for Cosimo III’s 1716 decrees. The first of these two bandi, that of July 18, established a regulatory regime to govern the production and sale of designated areas’ prized wines to be shipped overseas.23 It covered four regions within the Florentine State in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, namely Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra, but did not delimit them. That was left to the second bando of 1716, which was issued on September 24. Together these two bandi created what are considered the first legal appellations of origin for wine in the world.24 Judging from the paucity of contemporaneous references to these decrees, it is reasonable to assume that they were not enforced. Peter Leopold, the HabsburgLorraine grand duke of Tuscany, noted the diminution of the export of Chianti wine to England during his tour of the Chianti region in 1773. He blamed merchants for fraudulent blending, which had degraded the quality and reputation of the wine. The harm was so great that it had also diminished investment in Chianti vineyards.25 Filippo Mazzei, an ancestor of the Mazzei family that now owns the Fonterutoli estate in Castellina, in 1760 wrote that he suspected the wine exported to England was not of the same quality as that which his family consumed at home. He concluded that this was due to the unethical behavior of merchants who sold the wine in England.26 In the early 1770s, having expertise and commercial connections, he opened a shop named Martini and Company in London, from which he sold wine and foodstuffs imported from Tuscany (including, undoubtedly, real Chianti).27

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A G R I C U LT U R E D U R I N G T H E L O R E N A P E R I O D

Italians refer to Lorraine as Lorena, which gives its name to the period ushered in by the arrival of the Habsburg-Lorraine rulers. Peter Leopold became the grand duke of Tuscany in 1765, inheriting the title from his father, the first Lorena grand duke of Tuscany. He made a practice of visiting all the areas of his duchy and chronicled his observations in his Relazioni sul governo della Toscana, including his inspections of Panzano, Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole (with stops at the “Amma” and “Broglio” estates) in historic Chianti in July 1773.28 The Lorena government supported more liberal trade policies to strengthen the economy of the grand duchy. It also favored the repopulation of rural areas to boost agricultural production, particularly of grain. The government encouraged this rural expansion during periodic famines, the most catastrophic of which occurred in 1764, just before Peter Leopold became the grand duke.29 It coincided with a population surge in the cities and towns of Tuscany.30 The coincidence of food shortages and the movement of populations from urban to rural areas set the stage during the last thirty years of the eighteenth century and the first thirty years of the nineteenth for the further expansion of the mezzadria system.31 Mixed plantings, dominated by vines, blanketed the fertile plains and crept farther up the Chianti hills. The population influx in the countryside led landowners to subdivide their poderi. This resulted in even more intensive farming to exploit every bit of land, so the training of vines became as much vertical as horizontal. Crops were grown at their base, principally cereals because of their essential nutritive value. The mezzadri ground the wheat they grew into flour so that they could make bread throughout the year. Bread, olive oil, and wine were the basis of their diet. Vines were increasingly planted using living trees as supports (sostegni vivi). The foliage of these trees served as food for oxen and other work animals, given that there was no meadowland set aside for forage crops. In the winter the trees were pruned back, providing firewood for heating and cooking. Low-trained vines on stakes were widely acknowledged to produce better, but less, fruit for wine production. Sharecroppers, however, were naturally more interested in quantity of production and the full range of agricultural products needed for their sustenance, and landholders found the mezzadria system too profitable to abandon. Despite the inability of promiscuous agriculture to produce wines that could compete on the export market, and despite Tuscany’s need to realize income from its principal product, wine, there was little appetite among landowners to move to a system of monoculture. Ignazio Malenotti, a priest and teacher of agricultural science living in San Gimignano in the early nineteenth century, voiced the Tuscan landowners’ reasoning: “And even given that the vine married to the hedge maple produces a wine inferior to that which derives from a low-trained vine, will not that defect be compensated by greater abundance, from saving the cost of the stakes, and many other benefits generally recognized by us and affirmed by all Tuscan landholders?”32 An Englishman who wrote a commercial report on Tuscany and other Italian regions during this same period offered a starkly

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different perspective on the culture of the vine in Tuscany: “In the countries which make superb wine, every other cultivation is subordinate to that of the grape; while in Tuscany, the vine is rarely given special attention; the great desire is for quantity, not quality.”33 Sharecroppers had to be clever farmers to support their families, given Chianti’s rocky terrain. It was imperative for mezzadri to produce the maximum quantity and diversity of crops from their land. They could not focus on viticulture alone, as was being done (and had been done) in other European agricultural regions, such as Burgundy or Bordeaux. Ultimately, this resulted in the mezzadri bringing in lower-quality fruit for making wine. The fattore who oversaw the production of the wine had only on-the-job experience with vinification. His commercial experience was limited to visits to urban markets, where he met with agents and merchants to arrange for the sale and transport of his fattoria’s wine. Low-quality grapes transformed by primitive methods could not yield quality wine. Tuscan agricultural treatises were, with few exceptions, written by intellectuals, not people with experience growing grapes or making wine. Meanwhile, in France and southern Germany, the agricultural sciences were advancing. Agriculture was more esteemed in these cultures than in Tuscany, and they were not dominated by sharecropping systems. Unlike ecclesiastical institutions in Tuscany, religious orders such as the Cistercians in France and Germany relied on their own monks and lay brothers to do their own farming. The careful monocultural practices of these farmers yielded better crops, particularly of wine grapes. Moreover, farmers in those countries tended to be more involved with wine production, so they could see the connection between good grapes and sound vinification practices. Hence, while the wine industries of France and southern Germany became more sophisticated, winemaking in Chianti saw very few innovations as the mezzadria system solidified its grip on agriculture. Change had to wait for the early nineteenth century, when viticultural and winemaking expertise began to be applied in Tuscany. On the more fertile lands outside Chianti, vines were almost universally strung up individual trees or strewn between them. In the rockier and higher-elevation areas of Chianti, such as Lamole, the tendency was to train them lower and on stakes, though there were olive trees sprinkled here and there among the staked vines. Such dry and low-fertility soils, combined with low training, produced higher-quality grapes for winemaking. For this reason, Chianti wine was traditionally recognized as of higher quality than other red Tuscan wines. In the Florence market of April 1830, for instance, Chianti was selling for thirty-two to thirty-six lire per barrel, while wines from the Tuscan plains sold for twenty to twenty-two.34 Only the wines of Carmignano and Montepulciano were as highly regarded as Chianti. Genuine Chianti was also acknowledged to withstand the stresses of transport better than most other Tuscan wines. Nonetheless, because merchants consolidated wines from throughout Tuscany for shipment and continued to pass off such blends as Chianti, it was impossible for real Chianti to distinguish itself from the mass of mediocre Tuscan wine in the export market. Exports of Tuscan wine deteriorated in the last decades of the 1700s, but the region produced more wine than could be consumed domestically.35 The Lorena rulers

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understood that it needed an export market for its wines. The prized targets remained the wealthy English and German markets.36 Peter Leopold was a liberal reformer in a fiercely conservative Tuscany. Among his many innovations relevant to the trade of wine were the lowering of export duties and the improvement of road networks. The timing for exporting wine was favorable because overall the value of wine was increasing in the late 1700s.37 Tuscan producers, however, were still in the shadow of the high-profile and established French wine industry while they competed for market share with lowerpriced Spanish and Portuguese wine in the English and German markets.38 The negative reputation of Tuscan wines continued to plague Tuscan and Chianti wine producers, who increasingly recognized the importance of these export markets for improving the profitability of their agricultural production.

THE GEORGOFILI ACADEMY

The Accademia dei Georgofili (Georgofili—a word of Greek origin meaning “lovers of the land”—Academy) was born in Florence in 1753. It was a body of thought leaders in the field of agriculture. Its model was the Florentine Accademia del Cimento (Experiment Academy), dedicated to scientific research, which became most well known for the work of Galileo Galilei. The Georgofili’s strength was its focus on agronomy. Among its ranks were not only members of the intelligentsia but also large landholders who managed their properties using the mezzadria system. The Georgofili was a forum not only for local agricultural issues: it sought out the most current agricultural research in Europe for discussion and debate. It also held competitions, publicly announced, on topics often relating to a pressing agricultural problem. The Georgofili’s jury was responsible for determining the best manuscript, and it would not award any prize if it did not find a worthy submission. Winning a competition was prestigious, given the jury’s composition and high standards. The Georgofili, recognizing the export crisis in the late 1700s, focused on the task of improving the durability of Tuscan wine during shipment so as to rectify its negative image in the export markets. In 1771 it sponsored a competition in which participants had to answer the question “What should be the concern of government, what should be the responsibility and the work of property owners, to increase, expand, and maintain the export market for Tuscan wines?” Villifranchi’s submission “Oenologia toscana,” subsequently published, won the award. In his manuscript, Villifranchi advised that to increase their share of the export market, Tuscans would have to improve the whole chain of wine production, from the growing of the grapes through the making of the wine to its commercialization. A year later, Ferdinando Paoletti published his manual L’arte di fare il vino perfetto e durevole da poter servire al commercio estero (The art of making wine perfect and durable so as to service the export market). In it he noted that French wines, unlike Tuscan ones, were transported freely around Europe without compromising their quality. This was due, he asserted, to French care and industry. “The French in Paris laugh at the Tuscans and claim that if

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they were to have the Tuscan climate they could make higher-priced wines than their own.”39 A member of the Georgofili Academy, Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, in his contemporaneous treatise Riflessioni sopra la poca durata dei moderni vini di Toscana (Reflections on the lack of durability of modern-day Tuscan wines), concurred with Villifranchi and Paoletti about the shortcomings of Tuscan wine, concluding: “The one defect of the modern wines of Tuscany is that they have too brief a shelf life.”40 He asserted that only when Chianti was pure and well made could it withstand degradation during extensive sea transport.41 Moreover, Targioni Tozzetti concluded that this brief shelf life forced producers to sell the wine soon after production, thus making it difficult for them to maintain stable pricing from year to year.42 In 1824, Paolo Betti informed the Georgofili Academy about successful exports of Tuscan wine to the United States, including Boston.43 Lapo de’ Ricci, the owner of a wine estate in Castellina in Chianti and an engaged member of the Georgofili, also tested the ability of his wines to travel long distances without degradation.44 He reported on a similar experiment that he conducted in 1825 with an American, Benjamin Tibbits. Ricci shipped barrels and bottles to New York to see if his Chianti could arrive there in the same condition as when it left. After it arrived, Tibbits was impressed by the wine and bought some. He shipped the rest back to Ricci, whose friends in Florence preferred the taste of this Chianti to wine that had not traveled at all. Ricci conducted additional experiments, shipping wine to and from England, Scotland, Denmark, Egypt, and Antigua, among other places. He showed that Chianti could be successfully shipped long distances, if it were sent in barrels containing the equivalent of six hundred bottles of wine (as was customary for shipments of French wines from France).45 To ensure the durability of exported Tuscan wine, the Georgofili Academy in 1835 proposed that a Società Enologica (Enological company) be established at Livorno, the port of exit for most Tuscan wine. It would house a depository where wines could be assessed for quality. Those not fit for export would be distilled and sold off as spirits.46 Cosimo Ridolfi, then the vice president of the Georgofili, set up a commission to organize this company. According to him, a quality Tuscan wine should exhibit “perfect transparency, stability, durability, indeed the ability to improve over time, and to maintain its color; taste which one identifies as dry, and similar in every way to the wine of every year.”47 During the Lorena period, he was Tuscany’s leading thinker (and practitioner) in the field of agricultural research. Northwest of Chianti, at his family farm of Meleto in Castelfiorentino (not to be confused with Meleto Castle in Gaiole), he had set up an agricultural school designed to introduce novel techniques. With two other influential agricultural specialists of his day, Giovan Pietro Vieusseux and Raffaelo Lambruschini, he created a literary vehicle, Giornale agrario della Toscana, to promulgate innovations in agriculture. Ridolfi asked Bettino Ricasoli, then a twenty-five-year-old Florentine noble who had just become a member of the Georgofili, to head the Società Enologica. Ricasoli, though hailing from Chianti’s most storied family, was an unusual choice, because of his lack of experience in the wine business. The then–grand duke of Tuscany, Leopold II

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(the grandson of Peter Leopold), had already named the youthful Baron Ricasoli, orphaned along with his younger brothers at the age of eighteen, as their legal guardian. The Società Enologica, however, did not come of age. The Georgofili organizers could not raise sufficient capital or assemble enough collaborators to support this initiative.48 Ricasoli, whose family’s assets were burdened by debts, set out to reverse the family’s fortunes. Though the Tuscan nobility considered agriculture less prestigious than other pursuits, as a young man he “retired” to Brolio, in Gaiole, to revitalize the production of his ancient family’s many estates. In 1824 there had been a sudden drop in the price of grain, which alarmed Florentine landowners. By the 1830s the price of wine had also decreased, threatening the economy of Tuscany. In April 1833, in the open arena of the Georgofili Academy, there began a debate “on the advantages and disadvantages whether moral or economic of the mezzadria system.” The idea that this system was at the root of Tuscany’s economic woes was beginning to germinate. However, by this time Tuscany’s social order depended on the stability ensured by the mezzadria system. Gino Capponi, hailing from one of Florence’s leading noble families, described this reality without equivocation: “The system is essentially connected with our existence; it is the absolute condition of our being, the physiologic necessity of our country.”49 The powerful landholders of Tuscany, many of whom were members of the Georgofili, were not prepared to embrace any change that would undermine the mezzadria system and their collective agricultural security. Despite the openness of the Georgofili as a forum for intellectual debate and discussion, few tangible improvements were made in the viticultural practices of Tuscan (and Chianti) estates. Mezzadri were wed to mixed agriculture because it both met their needs for self-sufficiency and had the potential for added income from bigger grape harvests (given that tree-trained vines in mixed agriculture each produced more bunches than low-staked vines). Florentine landowners still largely believed that the mezzadro lacked the intelligence and industry of a landholder and thus had little interest in changing how he worked. Modern economic theorists have a different perspective on why the mezzadria system was incapable of supporting innovation and investment. They reason that within a “property-rights framework”50 and based on the standard terms and conditions of the mezzadria contract, the mezzadro was loathe to make any improvements, given that he would be required to share 50 percent of any incremental return with the landholder, who, for his part, was loathe to make further capital investments, since he would be compelled to credit the mezzadro with 50 percent of any return on them. Over time, stability became stasis for both landowner and mezzadro—and compromised the quality of their wine. Ridolfi’s agricultural school at Meleto, however, was designed to educate mezzadri and fattori (the plural of fattore). In 1875, Sidney Sonnino, an Italian politician and Chianti estate owner, in his nuanced defense of the mezzadria system, particularly for arboreal agriculture (e.g., grapevines and olive trees), argued that the problem was not the incapacity or unwillingness of the mezzadri to learn but the unwillingness of the disinterested landowners to teach them: “It is unjust to accuse the farmer of opposing

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any improvement in the manner in which he farms. When the farmer has become convinced of the superiority of a new method, he is the first to want to change.”51 Sadly for Chianti and its wine, Ridolfi’s teachings and Sonnino’s writings failed to inspire more Florentine landowners to educate and encourage their mezzadri to improve viticultural practices.

BETTINO RICASOLI: CHIANTI HAS ITS BEACON

With roots from the Valdarno di Sopra area to the east of Chianti, the Ricasoli family has likely been producing wine since the eleventh century. It has ruled Castello di Brolio in the township of Gaiole since 1141. Already at the end of the 1600s, the family was exporting wine to Amsterdam and England. At the end of the 1700s, it owned three fattorie comprising two thousand hectares (4,942 acres, or 7.7 square miles) in Chianti, including Brolio, and one fattoria, Terranuova, of three hundred hectares (741 acres) in Valdarno di Sopra. In his efforts to restore the family fortune, Bettino Ricasoli sold a fattoria just outside the city of Florence. Then, in 1830, he married Anna di Filippo Bonaccorsi, which brought more liquid wealth. In 1838 he moved his family to Brolio from Florence to manage his estates and reduce expenses. This must have shocked Florentine society: except for hunting excursions, owners rarely visited their estates, instead leaving the fattori to oversee their property and the mezzadri in all respects. Known as the Iron Baron for his strong will, Ricasoli directly supervised his fattori (one for each fattoria) and through them the mezzadri on all the poderi on his lands. In this way, he broke through many of the inefficient and unregulated practices that had developed within the mezzadria system. He so believed in this system that in the mid-nineteenth century he introduced it on family property in the Maremma,52 the main area beside Pisa in Tuscany where it was not common.53 Ricasoli focused on more than just grapes and wine. His lands had many other crops, such as olives and wheat. He also pioneered the growing of tobacco in Tuscany.54 Because the land at Terranuova was less suitable for wine grapes or olive oil production, he focused on raising silkworms (through the planting of mulberry trees) there.55 Ricasoli’s direct management of his fattorie had profitable results. From 1840 to 1870 the agrarian income increased almost 75 percent at Brolio and more than 100 percent at Terranuova.56 Ricasoli steered a course between respecting tradition and Tuscan culture and making improvements grounded in scientific study and experimentation. From 1840 to 1847 he noted in a personal diary what was happening in both the vineyard and the winery at Brolio.57 In 1840 he began to grow different vine varieties separately and to make experimental vinifications of each to understand their individual characteristics.58 He emphasized the low training of staked vines, a practice well known to produce higher-quality wines, and the establishment of a consistent identity for Chianti wine. His working notes evidence that he understood the physiology of vine growth, including how to control the energy of the plant throughout its growing cycle. During vinifications, he was in frequent

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contact with his friend Cesare Studiati, a professor at the University of Pisa who was trained in the chemical analysis of grapes, must, and wine. In contrast with the traditional Tuscan practice of open vat fermentation and skin contact lasting weeks, as of 1848 Ricasoli preferred fermenting in sealed vats and five to six days of skin contact.59 Most important, he made the then-revolutionary decision to base his “recipe” for Chianti on Sangiovese, considered a minor variety (behind Canaiolo) in the Chianti blend. He retained Canaiolo to soften Sangiovese’s harder edge, but in a smaller proportion. For a lighter, everyday Chianti, he prescribed adding a small proportion of the white Malvasia.60 In subsequent years, Tuscan producers adopted this adjustment. In addition, they increasingly substituted the easier to grow, less aromatic, and less easily oxidized Trebbiano for Malvasia. Their rendition of the “Ricasoli” recipe was a mischaracterization of Ricasoli’s formula. While intensively engaged in improving his estates’ agricultural production, Ricasoli set out to learn more about French winemaking. In 1844 he took his family to the French Industrial Exposition in Paris. During this stay in France, he briefly toured Burgundy and Bordeaux to learn firsthand about French viticulture and vinification.61 In the autumn of 1851 he visited more vineyards and wineries in Bordeaux, Beaujolais, Burgundy, and Languedoc. The significance of this journey to Ricasoli’s evolution as a winegrower cannot be overestimated. Before the end of this trip, he wrote to his brother Vincenzo about the importance of his travels to France’s prized winemaking zones, “I am truly satisfied to have done it, but mortified for having done it so late; I have lost almost 20 years; it will take at least another ten [years] to see the resulting new products from the knowledge which I have acquired.”62 Ricasoli kept notes of his visits and experiments until 1876.63 After the death of Camillo Benso di Cavour, Italy’s first prime minister, Ricasoli became the prime minister, from 1861 to 1862 and then again from 1866 to 1867. Despite his increasing political activity, he never forgot his goal of making Castello di Brolio a wine noted internationally for its quality. He began experiments similar to those conducted by Ricci in 1824 to test the durability of his wines during transport. In 1868 he sent five small barrels to South America. The wine was sent back to him in 1870. He sampled it and found that, on the whole, it had returned in good condition.64 Observations about Ricasoli and his wines after 1870 show his singular impact on the Italian wine world, not just Tuscany. Though many producers in Italy indiscriminately used the label Chianti, there was special reverence for Ricasoli and his Brolio Chianti. This wine was packaged in a Bordeaux-style bottle, not the traditional straw-covered glass flask widely associated with Tuscan wine. Ricasoli’s wines frequently won awards in competitions in Italy, such as at Siena in 1870, Rome in 1876, and Turin in 1877. At the Rome wine competition, Augusto Fortuna, the president of the Section of Viticulture and Enology of a provincial agricultural commission and a published author on the subject, justified the award of the gold medal to the Brolio Chianti of Baron Ricasoli because the quality of the three vintages submitted (1864, 1866, and 1873) increased with bottle age.65 The Ricasoli company even entered wines in the Midwinter Fair held in San Francisco

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in the winter of 1893–94, winning a gold medal in the category of Italian wines.66 A few other estate owners from the Chianti area also received recognition for their wines. Ferdinando Strozzi’s 1867 Fattoria di Vistarenni (Gaiole) won at the 1870 Fiera Italiana di Prodotti Agrari e Industriali (Italian fair for agrarian and industrial products) held in Florence. His 1865 vintage was awarded a medal at the Esposizione Provinciale Senese di Arti Belle, Industrie e Agraria (Sienese provincial exposition on the fine, industrial and agrarian arts) in Siena, August 1870. Giovanni Camaiori of Tenuta di Arceno, at Castelnuovo Berardenga in the present denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG) of Chianti Classico, won in Siena with his 1868 wine. Ricasoli also received numerous awards at the Siena event. It is telling that owners of estates in or close to what was considered historic Chianti refrained from calling their wines Chianti but used the names of their own estates in such competitions. In the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, Henry Vizetelly, a British publisher and wine writer, described Ricasoli’s Brolio Chianti as follows: “The best specimens of Tuscan wine submitted to the jury were the Chianti of Baron Ricasoli, from his Brolio vineyards in the vicinity of Sienna, and to whom a medal for progress was awarded. . . . The veritable wine, which possesses remarkable finesse and an agreeable subacidity, is not unlike the best Beaujolais growths with, however, more colour, body, and force. Chianti is in its prime in its fifth or sixth year, but can be drunk when from two to three years old.”67 Vizetelly used the adjective veritable to identify Brolio as true Chianti, as distinct from the many other versions of “Chianti” he encountered. A report for the United States government on the Universal Exposition of 1889 in Paris succinctly described the late nineteenth-century view of Chianti: “It is necessary to go [to Chianti] to drink it, . . . both white and red, for, owing to defects of manufacture, they do not bear transportation well. The best of these wines are the Chiantis of Broglio, near Siena, for which reason wine dealers generally call all Tuscan wines ‘Chianti.’ ”68 Referring to this mischaracterization, Vizetelly mentioned, “In this part of Italy as elsewhere there is a great tendency to extend to a whole region the name of the produce of some favoured locality, and in the same manner as almost every glass of good wine from Piedmont is described as Barolo, so every flask of a superior kind in the ancient duchy of the Medici goes by the name Chianti.”69 Subsequent reports consistently made the same observation. For example, thirty years later a British parliamentary report noted, “The general type of [Tuscan] wine is the so-called ‘vino da pasto’ or table wine, usually known and sold throughout Italy under the name of Chianti, though not produced in Chianti.”70 It was also common for Italian merchants to export wine identified by the vague description vino all’uso di Chianti (wine in the style of Chianti). As a result, by the late nineteenth century Chianti had a clouded reputation in Europe and the United States. Though Ricasoli was internationally recognized for his role in the development of Chianti wines, and though his wines fared well in national and international competitions, he struggled to achieve success in export markets, principally the English market. In April 1847, he expressed his regrets to his younger brother Vincenzo for not being able

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to attend a luncheon given in honor of a well-known Englishman. In that note, he mentioned both his attachment to Brolio wine and his desire to see it on dinner tables in England. Ricasoli recognized that England was the most sophisticated wine market in the world and that its merchants controlled the wine trade. Italian wines in this period had minimal presence in the English market, which preferred all qualities of French wine and inexpensive Spanish and Portuguese wine. Ricasoli had sent his wines to England in 1863 and 1864, and in 1865 to Prussia, the United States, and England again. These attempts to establish a presence in foreign markets had limited success.71 On the morning of the day he died, October 23, 1880, he wrote a letter to a well-known Italian exporter offering to sell him his highest-quality wines, in the hope that they would gain the attention of English connoisseurs.72 Ricasoli’s grandson Giovanni Ricasoli Firidolfi, through marriage at the beginning of the twentieth century, reunited three branches of the Ricasoli-Firidolfi family that had been separate since the twelfth.73 Because of this reunification, the Ricasoli farms as of 1909 encompassed seven fattorie: Brolio, Castagnoli, Meleto, Cacchiano, Spaltenna, San Giusto alle Monache, and San Polo.74 Their surface area was an enormous six thousand hectares (14,826 acres, or thirty-nine square miles),75 roughly the size of the modern-day township of Gaiole. The Ricasoli-Firidolfis built a vast wine cellar, with a capacity of twenty thousand hectoliters (528,344 gallons).76 Their wines continued to win recognition in international competitions. Brolio Castle and its wine were recognized as the standard-bearers of true Chianti well into the twentieth century.

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3 THE BIRTH OF CHIANTI CLASSICO AND EXTERNAL CHIANTI The 1870s to 1945

COMMERCIALIZING “CHIANTI”

During the same period when Bettino Ricasoli was putting Brolio and quality Chianti wine on the enological map, the wine merchants of Florence and Tuscany were beginning to industrialize the production and commercialization of red wine branded as Chianti in Italy and abroad. In contrast with the genuine Chianti estates Vistarenni and Arceno (in Gaiole and Castelnuovo Berardenga, respectively), which had used their estate names rather than Chianti on their wine competition submissions in 1870, this new breed of merchant uniformly adopted the name Chianti for mass-market value red wine. The Melini family of Florence, with property near Pontassieve to the east of Florence and north of the Arno River, was already well established in the wine business. During the eighteenth century it had produced vermiglio, which it sold in barrels. In 1860, Adolfo Laborel Melini began to use the new flasks (fiaschi, the plural of fiasco) that the glassmaker Paolo Carrai had invented.1 They were flat bottomed and fabricated with a mold instead of being hand blown. This made it possible to mass-produce glass flasks. In addition, the use of stronger glass cut down on breakages. Before 1860, the Melini’s company had sold most of its wine locally. Soon after it developed the stamped-glass fiasco, it began exporting the mass-produced flasks filled with wine labeled as Chianti. These were still wrapped in the traditional sala (reed) that is indigenous to the Elsa and Arno River Valleys. The flask dressers (fiascaie) who covered each glass flask with reed were peasant women who took in this piecework to earn a little spiccioli (change) from home.2 Each flask, once filled with wine, was “sealed” with a layer of olive oil and then a piece of parchment secured 35

with a long woven string of reed. The flask maintained the potbellied profile and handwoven reed basket of the classic fiasco toscano (which dated from the fourteenth century). By 1877 the glass of the neck had been reinforced, enabling assembly-line machines to insert corks. The Florence Chamber of Commerce in 1877 awarded the Melini company for “having set up and established the most extensive and assured commercial network for Tuscan wine in foreign markets.”3 The use of the name Chianti on wines submitted to competitions and exhibitions became common after 1880. After winning awards at the Milan Exhibitions of 1881 and 1894, Melini’s “Chianti” went global. Competing in exhibitions from Melbourne and London to San Francisco and Buenos Aires, the company aggressively extended the Chianti brand internationally. It even had an importer in Boston by 1889. The branding power of the fiasco helped Melini extend its reach into these foreign markets. But it was not alone. Unlike Coca-Cola’s distinctively shaped glass bottle, the Melini flask was not a unique package protected as a form of “trade dress” under national or international trademark laws. It was an improved version of the generic Tuscan (soon to be Italian) fiasco. As a result, any Italian or other wine company was free to use the flask as packaging, and many did. The I. L. Ruffino firm (the initials being those of the cousins Ilario and Leopoldo Ruffino) was registered in 1877 with offices in Florence and cellars at Pontassieve (like Melini). By the late 1890s it had earned its share of international medals and awards for its Pontassieve “Chianti.” In addition, it went upmarket with a Riserva Ducale “Chianti” in a Bordeaux-style bottle. The explosion of Melini’s and Ruffino’s exports in the international marketplace made Chianti’s transition from a place wine linked to the actual territory to a wine made in the territory’s style irreversible from both a commercial and a political point of view. Other Tuscan and Italian wine merchants (virtually all on major railways or other transport routes) followed suit and adopted the fiasco as their “Chianti” calling card, including Toscanelli e Cassuto (Pisa), Raffaello Caselli (Rufina), Emilio Prosperi (Florence), and F. Nencioni (Pisa). By the end of the nineteenth century, California wine producers were making Californian “Chianti.”4 Italian emigrants and foreign customers did not need to read the labels on these flasks to understand that this was “Chianti” wine.

T H E A N T I N O R I FA M I LY A N D S A N C A S C I A N O

The Antinori family is the oldest surviving Tuscan wine merchant family in Florence. In 1850 it bought several properties, including forty-seven hectares (120 acres) at Tignanello in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa. Sourcing grapes from its estate vineyards just northwest of the traditional Chianti region, the family had closer ties than Melini or Ruffino to the Chianti region (geographically and commercially). However, a diploma that the Antinori family received at the 1873 Vienna World Fair does not indicate whether the word Chianti was on the label of their prized wine. By the late nineteenth century, they owned the Poggio Torselli, Casa Vecchia, and Cigliano fattorie in San Casciano Val di Pesa. In 1895 the

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brothers Lodovico and Piero Antinori and their stepbrother Guglielmo Guerrini established the firm that officially became Marchesi L. and P. Antinori in 1898. By the end of the nineteenth century it was exporting wines to New York, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, and San Paolo. In 1898 the company built cellars at San Casciano near its Cigliano fattoria. They began operation in 1900. They were enormous for their day, with a capacity of eight to ten thousand hectoliters (211,337 to 264,172 gallons), and were outfitted with the latest vinification equipment. Because of the quality of its wines, its responsible business practices, and its noble origins, the Antinori family was well positioned to commercialize its wines. The Antinori firm was the official vendor to the royal house of the king of Italy, the duke of Aosta, the duke of Apulia, and foreign kings.5

CHIANTI REMAINS A FRONTIER

The structure of the wine trade in Chianti remained largely unchanged until the 1950s. Merchants (mercanti, the plural of mercante) bought wine from the large fattorie that did not bottle or commercialize their own. There were also examples during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of mezzadri families who sold the wine they made (from their portion of the harvest) to merchants, through local agents. These merchants owned large cellars, where they amassed their purchased wine for sale. Because Tuscany had such a large per capita consumption of wine, most of these merchants were in Florence and sold their wine locally. Those involved in exporting wine, on the other hand, were in the port town of Livorno. Mediatori (the plural of mediatore) were the agents who facilitated the transactions between the fattorie (or the poderi that sold their wine) and the merchants. They were directly involved in the negotiations between sellers and buyers, which focused on tasting and pricing. The mediatori knew the wine’s availability, pricing, style, and quality, as well as the integrity of the participants. At the request of a merchant, one would bring various wine samples at multiple price points to his attention. The mediatore collected these either directly from fattorie or poderi or in the two wine markets held each week in the vicinity of Chianti. Siena’s market day was Wednesday. The most important market occurred on Fridays in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, in the shadow of the Palazzo Vecchio. The mediatori had to know many fattori and mercanti, and for their efforts they typically received a commission on the sale price from the purchaser.6 The farm overseers, or fattori, from throughout Chianti attended Florence’s Friday market to gauge what was happening in the wine market and to contact mediatori about their fattorie’s pending wine business. While in Florence, a fattore would be required to meet with his padrone’s administrator (amministratore), who kept track of the financial performance of the landowner’s various fattorie and was also called the maestro di casa, or master of the house.7 For many a fattore, accounting to the amministratore must have been the one time each week when he no longer felt like the lord of the manor. The bachelor fattore was permitted a weekly meal at one of Florence’s trattorias and, by some

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accounts, a weekly visit to one of the city’s bordellos. By the late nineteenth century, the classic Tuscan mezzadria system was tutto organizzato! Because there were no navigable rivers from Chianti to Florence, wine continued to be transported between them by wagon in the late nineteenth century. These wagons had to negotiate torturously winding dirt roads and paths up and down steep hills. Each carried about one to two hectoliters (26.4 to 52.8 gallons) of wine. If the wine was sold to merchants for further blending, then it would be delivered to them in barrel. If it was sold to a purveyor who could sell it directly, then it was more likely to be transported in fiaschi. The traditional barrel volume was 45.58 liters (twelve gallons). A fiasco contained about 2.27 liters (2.4 quarts).8 Barrocci (the plural of barroccio) were wagons piled high with fiaschi artfully bound together to create a pyramid of wine. They carried from six hundred to eight hundred bottles. The striking appearance of these carts helped attract attention and sales. Before the 1800s, most of the roads in Chianti had moved along ridges, linking hill towns. During the nineteenth century, wider and more level roads were built in the valleys. In 1843, through the efforts of Bettino Ricasoli, a road called the Chiantigiana was constructed.9 It linked Gaiole, through Radda and then Greve, to Florence in the north. It did not include that part of today’s Strada Regionale 222 (Nuova Chiantigiana) which runs south from Panzano to Siena through Castellina. In contrast, the old, or vecchia, Chiantigiana connected the area of historic Chianti in Gaiole where the Barone Ricasoli estate is located to Siena in the south via Pianella.10 Turning to the east off the old Chiantigiana at Gaiole, a road led through the Chianti Mountains to the market town of Montevarchi in Valdarno di Sopra, near where the Ricasoli family had its ancestral roots. Bigger roads (i.e., easier transport routes) from Montevarchi running north along the Arno River connected Valdarno di Sopra to Florence. By 1850 a railway connected Siena to Poggibonsi and Empoli. In the 1860s, another railroad linked Pontassieve (the headquarters of both the Melini and the Ruffino wine companies) to Florence and Rome. These lines were soon tied to the major port for Tuscany, Livorno. It is no accident that the commercialization of Chianti-branded wine began at railroad junctions such as Pontassieve and Poggibonsi, which directly served major urban markets and seaports. A web of lines quickly linked these railroads to other major Italian cities. By the mid-1880s the Fréjus tunnel to France and the St. Gotthard tunnel to Switzerland allowed trains carrying freight to reach the major cities of Europe. Like the principal north-south and east-west roadways of ancient Rome, the major rail lines all bypassed Chianti. During the 1890s, minor internal railroads began to be constructed in Tuscany, rendering considerable savings for the transport of goods.11 Two steam-powered small tramway lines called the Tranvia del Chianti linked Florence directly to San Casciano and Greve in Chianti. Its Florence station was also on the Strada Ferrata Aretina (Arezzo railway line), the main railroad joining Florence to both Milan and Rome. The Tranvia line to San Casciano became fully operational in 1891, the line to Greve in 1893. Piero Antinori, the current head of the Marchesi Antinori company, has

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conducted research in the municipal archives of San Casciano. It has revealed that one of the principal motivations for the Tranvia service was promoting the commerce of Chianti wine, “linked primarily to the Antinori family.” The Antinori wine company’s decision to construct its massive cellars in San Casciano in 1898 was likely based on the completion of this tramway. The Tranvia also must have been a stimulus for the construction of a large wine cellar in Greve in 1893. In 1906, this cellar became the home of the Unione Produttori Vino Chianti (UPVC). Its members, large fattorie in Greve such as Uzzano, Tizzano, Calcinaia, and Vignamaggio, used the cellar to facilitate the logistics of bottling and the commercialization of Chianti wine.12 The worldwide boom in Chianti flask sales (and the absence of powerful wine merchants in Chianti itself ) attracted Piedmontese merchants to Greve. In 1913, Conti Mirafiori of Alba, the owner of Fontanafredda in Barbaresco, bought the UPVC cellar, which became Cantine Mirafiori, only to sell it in 1932 to Fratelli Gancia of Canelli, a Piedmontese producer of sparkling wine. Though the Tranvia del Chianti was intended to carry both people and freight, most extant photographs of it show small cars transporting people. Only a few capture a flat car carrying freight, probably merchandise, covered by a tarpaulin. The tracks of the tramway lines likely were too narrow for the transport of substantial freight. They also would not have allowed the direct transfer of freight cars to the wider Strada Ferrata Aretina. In 1896, Porta alla Croce, the Florence station near Piazza Beccaria, where the Tranvia del Chianti had met the Strada Ferrata Aretina, was demolished. The Strada Ferrata Aretina moved its terminal to the present main railway station at Campo di Marte, becoming part of the massive Ferrovia Centrale Toscana (Central Tuscan railroad) and leaving the Tranvia del Chianti (whose remaining Florence stop was eight kilometers—five miles—away at Porta Romana to the south of the Arno River) cut off from any junction with major freight routes. These factors and the subsequent growth in the use of trucks, buses, and automobiles led to the discontinuation of the Tranvia del Chianti in 1935. And so, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as a vast railroad network was built to carry heavy freight and merchandise from Tuscany to ports throughout Italy and to European overland destinations, Chianti remained a hinterland. Without any railway stations for loading wine within Chianti, merchants outside the region came to dominate the trade of Chianti-branded wine. At the same time, large landholders in Chianti, instead of bottling and commercializing their own wine under the name Chianti, sold it to these outside merchants, effectively allowing them to control Chianti’s fate. This destroyed Chianti as a meaningful origin for wine and encouraged the perception that “Chianti” was only a wine type that emanated from merchant houses throughout Tuscany. Given the distance of the Barone Ricasoli firm from major roadways and railroads, it is remarkable how dominant this company was from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1950s. Ricasoli wines had to travel by either wagon or, as they developed more in the beginning of the twentieth century, lorry to railroad hubs where freight could be loaded onto trains. It took the efforts of an iron-willed baron to bring quality Chianti wine to the

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larger world. Chianti would have benefited if other noble and mercantile landowners had followed his example.

T H E “ C H I A N T I ” L A B E L E X PA N D S

From at least the seventeenth century, Tuscan merchants (undoubtedly like those in other places) blended wines to the point where their place-names in commerce were not reliable. France’s phylloxera crisis of the late nineteenth century created new commercial opportunities for this practice. From 1880 to 1887, the vine louse called phylloxera ravaged French vineyards, so French merchants looking for wine went to Italy. Most of what they purchased came from Sicily and Apulia. It tended to be freshly vinified wine or juice in vinification, which they finished in their French cellars. During this period, British merchants went to Italy for finished wine. Tuscan merchants sold them bulk wines in barrel that were not from Chianti but were identified as “vino all’uso di Chianti” (wine in the style of Chianti). After 1887, the French wine industry’s recovery reduced this British trade considerably. During the late nineteenth century, a variant of vino all’uso di Chianti began to appear on the labels of wine bottled in the traditional flask. The generic phrase vino tipo di Chianti (wine of the Chianti type) was frequently employed in competition listings as a means of classifying wines according to style. Tuscan and other Italian wine merchants increasingly used the descriptor tipo, a root of the word tipico (typical), to signal that their wines made no claim to a specific place of origin but had been adjusted in the cellar to match the appearance and flavor parameters of established wine styles—in this case, the style associated with Chianti wines made in that territory. It is easy to imagine that after several years of usage, the words vino tipo di would be conveniently omitted, completing the devolution of Chianti from the name of the red wine made in that region to the name of a red wine made anywhere in Tuscany in the style of Chianti. The “Chianti” tidal wave overwhelmed another of Tuscany’s most promising wines of place. During the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon to see wines from the area of Rufina (east of Florence and bordering Pontassieve) labeled as Rufina in competitions. Giuseppe Liccioli, the owner of Poggio Reale, in particular, won prestigious medals for his Pomino Rufina Rosso.13 At the 1896 Esposizione Vinicola Italiana in Buenos Aires, Paolo Tilli also labeled his wine as Rufina. Wines so labeled were frequently seen on the lists of medal winners at competitions early in the twentieth century as well. However, following the commercial success of powerful wine merchants like the Melini and Ruffino firms, attitudes toward labeling and place of origin began to change in Rufina. At the 1894 Esposizione di Milano, Raffaello Caselli, a merchant with offices in Rome and facilities at Pontassieve, won an award for a wine labeled Rufina, but at foreign venues he presented his wines with the name Chianti.14 The devolution of Rufina as an important place of origin had begun. Beyond Rufina, the embrace of the “Chianti” brand on labels was even more accelerated. At the same 1894 Milan Exposition, merchants

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from less well-known wine zones in Tuscany entered their wines as “Chianti,” such as Arturo Bindi from Sesto Fiorentino and Enrico Cogliati from Empoli.15 In a commercial manual for merchants of genuine Chianti wine published in 1909, the author, Torquato Guarducci, provided a blunt assessment of the then-current (and dismal) state of affairs: “Consider now that it has almost become universal in Tuscany to resort to using the name of Chianti to give value to a wine’s production and to facilitate its sale. Neither does it matter if such wines named ‘Chianti’ do not have much body, finesse, and aroma, as would genuine Chianti; it does not matter (I mean) to speculators [merchants]. They just use the name as a passport or calling card for wines that are very often mediocre or common, for wines that they want to sell off.”16 By this time, however, the problem was national. “Chianti” was being made in Naples, Genoa, Sicily, and everywhere else in Italy. By some estimates, at the beginning of the twentieth century more than half of Italy’s wine production was being sold “by use of this classic name” of Chianti, even though it had “little in common with the genuine article.”17 This fact was not lost on important export markets. Switzerland, Italy’s most important export market for wine in the mid-to-late 1920s, was a particularly sensitive barometer of the misuse of the word Chianti on labels and in bulk transactions between merchants. In the early twentieth century, there were eighty companies selling “Chianti” in Switzerland.18 Swiss journalists cited the unethical nature of this trade. Hoteliers and merchants were equally aggrieved. The Cantonal Chemical Laboratory of Fribourg stated in a letter dated June 4, 1926, to the director of the first consortium of Chianti producers (formed in 1924), “This system of giving the name of Chianti to any of the wines of Tuscany deceives the consumer and harms the reputation of Chianti.”19 In a sentence handed down that year, a Swiss judge in the criminal division of the Bern Supreme Court found the defendant wine merchant guilty of “having marketed Italian red wine under the name of Chianti, contrary to the truth and to cause deception.” While the court heard expert testimony that “wine produced in the classic Chianti zone—including the townships of Gaiole, Castellina, Radda and Greve” was not the only wine called Chianti in the trade, the judge held that the wine in question had no right to use the Chianti denomination under applicable Swiss law.20 Swiss jurisprudence, however, had almost no impact on the Italian wine merchants selling false Chianti. In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States, by contrast, Italian wine had yet to make great inroads. “Chianti,” Marsala, Moscato d’Asti, Barbera, and Vermouth were the first types to insert themselves into the market.21 The power of the name Chianti had become so clear in the U.S. market that California producers incorporated it in their own branding. In the early 1900s, the Italian Swiss Colony winery became a major producer of California table wine. One of its most popular brands was labeled Tipo Chianti and came in a flask.22 In California, wines labeled Tipo di Chianti fetched higher prices than Italian Chianti (whether real or just branded “Chianti”), whose reputation (regardless of its provenance) illegal blending and other types of tampering had already tarnished.23

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Did the Italian government or judiciary take any steps to enjoin the use (and inevitable dilution) of the name Chianti by anyone (anywhere)? Within Italy there was little official resistance to the name’s expanded use, because the sheer volume of Chianti-branded wine sold nationally and abroad was an important driver of the rapidly developing Italian economy. The “Chianti” flask reached every corner of Italy. Moreover, it had worldwide appeal, which increased with Italian emigration. The business of making wine called Chianti had become a national industry and source of national pride in Italy. The lack of a mercantile hub within Chianti (due in no small measure to the deficit of commercial zeal on the part of its large landowners), the nonexistence of railways and well-built roads suitable for the transport of wine, and the absence of any legal definition of Chianti as a geographic zone permitted the misappropriation of its name by powerful merchant firms surrounding the territory. Why would they source higher-quality, more expensive, and difficult-to-transport wine from within Chianti when they could get cheaper wine from elsewhere to blend in their cellars to approximate the flavor of real Chianti? The commercial producers of Chianti-branded wine knew their market. Their customers sought a light, inexpensive wine bottled in a fiasco. Most did not know that Chianti was a place. These merchants created a sizable market for the wine grapes of Tuscany’s fattorie and poderi and, in so doing, helped to keep the mezzadria system alive. They came to power at a time when socialist and communist sentiments in northern Italy and continental Europe were on the rise, sentiments that threatened the stability of an agricultural system which had supported the large landholders of Tuscany for centuries. Thus, in Italy’s fledgling democracy, the merchant trade that made “Chianti” developed enormous political power at both the regional and the national level. There remained proud winegrowers in the Chianti region (be they landowners or sharecroppers), but they lacked any such political or commercial power. However, their rightful claims to the name Chianti for both the territory and its wine were not silenced for long.

F R A N C E P U R S U E S P L A C E O F O R I G I N P R OT E C T I O N

The misleading use of place-names was just one of the issues facing European nations engaging in international trade in the late nineteenth century. A larger concern was the defense of trademarks, trade names, and the brands that they were designed to protect. In 1883, France hosted delegates from ten other countries, including Italy, at a conference that resulted in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. Article 1 recognizes “indications of source or appellations of origin” as a class of industrial property rights that should be legally protected. Article 10 indicates that products bearing “false indication of source,” a term that is construed to include appellations of origin, are subject to seizure.24 The Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods of 1891 evolved out of Article 19 of the Paris Convention, which reserves “to the countries of the Union . . . the right to make separately between themselves special agreements for the protection of industrial property.”25 Article 4 of the

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Madrid Agreement singles out for protection “regional appellations concerning the source of products of the vine.”26 Tellingly, Italy was not a signatory to the provisions of the Madrid Agreement regarding “indications of source” until 1951. The pressure to protect place-names was particularly strong in France, which had been rocked by pervasive wine fraud in the wake of the phylloxera infestation. This fraud involved mislabeling, which effectively misappropriated the reputations that various French regions had developed for quality wine. A systematic effort to address the problem began with a French statute of August 1, 1905.27 Article 1 prescribed punishments for deception in the use of place-names. A French executive decree of September 3, 1907, which prescribed regulations to enforce the 1905 statute, specifically protected the placenames of French wine. Frank H. Mason, the U.S. consul general in Paris, explained to Congress in 1908 that the aim of the French law was to suppress the production and sale of falsified wines, liqueurs, and other alimentary products. In his report, he translated relevant sections that expressly “provide for the absolute protection of the recognized and established names of wines, based on the chateau, vineyard, or district from which they are derived.”28 A French law of May 6, 1919, replaced the law of 1905. Besides presenting a more complex means of determining place of origin, it shifted the decision-making power from administrative bodies to judicial ones. In addition, the law stipulated that “usages locaux, loyaux et constants” (“local, honest and constant usage[s]”) were to be integrated into appellation identification.29 In 1924, Pierre Le Roy de Boiseaumarié created the Syndicat des Vignerons de Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Winegrowers association of Châteauneuf-du-Pape). Its members adhered to self-imposed regulations on production protocols such as alcohol content and yield limits. Le Roy de Boiseaumarié skillfully used the judicial process to obtain a legally defined and delimited appellation for Châteauneufdu-Pape. This became a model for the French law of July 22, 1927, that officially integrated quality control regulations within the legal definitions of appellations, leading to the sweeping law of July 30, 1935, that set up France’s system of appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC). At least in France, the culture of wine was evolving to protect place of origin.

WILL TUSCANS HONOR PLACE OF ORIGIN?

In 1883 the Comizio Agrario di Siena (Agrarian assembly of Siena) took steps to organize a Cantina Sociale Senese (Sienese cooperative winery), which would address the need for a defined and consistent product (tipo costante) named Chianti, suitable for export. The Comizio Agrario described the objective as providing a more efficient boost to the “exportation of wine from an extended zone of the province [Siena] already known and sought after at home and abroad under the name ‘Chianti.’ ” The mention of “an extended zone” aligned the Comizio Agrario with the commercial realities of that period, particularly the use of the name Chianti for red wines made in the style of Chianti regardless of provenance. Since the unification of Italy in 1861, the Province of Siena has encompassed not

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only the traditional region of Chianti but also most of the Elsa River Valley (including the town of Poggibonsi, where important “Chianti” merchants were headquartered). At this stage, the Comizio Agrario was not focused on delimiting the region of Chianti too narrowly. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the New York Chamber of Commerce sent it a letter denouncing the gross abuses in the trade of “Chianti” wine and proposing that the exporters of “true Chianti” affix a seal to their fiaschi to prevent tampering. This letter provoked the leading agrarian organizations of both Siena and Florence to act. In 1903 the Comizio Agrario and Cattedra Ambulante (Agrarian field school) of each of Siena and Florence together established a committee to create a Sindacato Enologico Chiantigiano (Chianti enological association) to protect the denomination Vino del Chianti (Wine of Chianti) with a special brand or more effective means, “according to the law on the protection of industrial property rights.” The organizers of this effort (including each city’s mayor and chamber of commerce) expressly recognized that it would require them to define the region of Chianti as comprising areas within the provinces of both Florence and Siena. They unanimously approved a delimitation of the zone to include the five townships of Greve, Radda, Gaiole, Castellina, and Castelnuovo Berardenga. They also proposed a technical committee to assess whether wine producers in “neighboring areas” would be permitted to join the Sindacato Enologico Chiantigiano if their wines met its standards.30 It was a promising start for the protection of Chianti as a distinct place of wine origin. In the protection of place of wine origin, Italy’s Piedmont region had made the first move. The Sindacato Vinicolo Piemontese (Piedmontese winegrowers association), the first consortium of producers whose mission was to defend the regional appellations of Piedmont, was created in 1902.31 In 1909 Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce organized a convention at Alba in Piedmont to discuss the protection of denominations of origin. It resulted in a recommendation that the Italian national government create a commission to study the delimitation of wine regions. This intensified the debate in Tuscany over the delimitation of the Chianti region.32 Chiantigiani began to mobilize in Greve. Italo De Lucchi, then the mayor of Greve, was concerned about how the wine trade was fraudulently using the name Chianti. Though he had failed to put together a delegation to attend the meeting in Alba, in subsequent months he created the Commissione per la Tutela del Chianti (Commision for the protection of Chianti), which he headed and which met at Greve in December 1909 and February 1910. Its Chiantigiani members maintained that Poggibonsi producers should be prohibited from using the word Chianti on their labels and excluded them from these meetings. Giulio Brini, an attorney representing the Poggibonsi producers, published an article in March 1910 rebutting the Chiantigiani. He argued that wines labeled Chianti from the historic Chianti territory did not have a consistent style, and he proposed that “Chianti” be a generic category followed by the name of the township of origin, in his case Poggibonsi.33 Also in 1910, a committee of representatives of the townships of Greve, Gaiole, Castellina, Radda, and Castelnuovo Berardenga met in Greve to discuss a mark of origin for

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Chianti wine. Arnaldo Strucchi, the director of the Sindacato Vinicolo Piemontese, also attended. The communal representatives voted to present their case for place protection to the prime minister and the agriculture minister of Italy. Following the meeting, Strucchi sent a letter to Arturo Marescalchi, the founder of the Associazione Enotecnici Italiani (Italian enotechnical association) and one of the most influential voices in the Italian wine industry (including in the halls of the Italian Parliament), forcefully explaining why a legal framework built on enological wine styles (under the label of vini tipici) would be a weak (and unacceptable) substitute for one that provided protection for place of origin:34 Regarding vini tipici, such an approach defeats our efforts to obtain a law that defines the production areas of special renown . . . and instead proposes a measure directed at protecting not a given area that produces a given typical wine, but a given typical wine whatever the location that produces it, as long as it has the characteristics of such typical wine. . . . It is a system that could make it easy for many producers and countries, but I do not believe that it could be recognized by the law of any state, nor could it succeed in being recognized by Italy itself, which has every interest in protecting the place of origin of its own Marsala [and other prestigious products of place in export markets].35

De Lucchi had counted on the support of Sidney Sonnino, the newly elected prime minister of Italy, who had strong ties to Chianti by virtue of his ownership of Vistarenni, a famous villa-fattoria in Gaiole. A delegation of the Commissione per la Tutela del Chianti traveled to Rome later in 1910 to make its case to the Italian government for the protection of Chianti as a place of wine origin. But political changes had weakened Prime Minister Sonnino’s clout, and the Italian government made no decision. World War I deferred the debate until the end of the next decade.36 It appeared that Chianti’s De Lucchi and Piedmont’s Strucchi had both seriously overestimated the wine wisdom of the Italian government.

W H E R E TO B E O R N OT TO B E , T H AT I S T H E P R O B L E M

To many merchants and producers of Tuscan wine, the urge to associate their wine with the place, wine, name, and brand of Chianti was irresistible. The fiasco had become an international symbol of Italian red wine, and “Chianti” was the name on the label, an essential selling point for Tuscan wine. As the place of origin legal debate was taking shape in the first decade of the 1900s, the underlying dispute over the borders of Chianti came out into the open. Notwithstanding the unambiguous (and unanimous) decision in 1903 by senior representatives of the leading agrarian, political, and commercial institutions of Siena and Florence to define the denomination of Chianti as encompassing the five townships of Greve, Radda, Gaiole, Castellina, and Castelnuovo Berardenga, the competing interests for Chianti’s name

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were marshaling their historical, commercial, and geological forces for the coming Guerra del Chianti. In 1905 Antonio Casabianca published a slim volume titled I confini storici del Chianti (The historic boundaries of Chianti). His thesis was simple, if his subject matter was not: the geographic boundaries of Chianti were identical with the geographic boundaries of the medieval Lega del Chianti. This Chianti storico, or historic version of Chianti, encompassed only the three townships of Radda, Gaiole, and Castellina (and their associated parish churches). The archtraditionalists of Chianti embraced this view. Two years earlier, Edoardo Ottavi and Marescalchi had published a handbook for merchants of wine (Vade-mecum del commerciante di uve e di vini in Italia), in which they had presented a more evolved map of enological Chianti. Their Carta (Map) XVI depicted “Chianti e regioni vicine” (Chianti and nearby regions) as limited in the north by the town of Mercatale in San Casciano, in the west by the towns of Barberino, Poggibonsi, and Monteriggioni, in the south by Bozzone (just north of Siena), and in the east by the towns of the upper Arno River Valley, including San Vincenti, San Gusmè, Montevarchi, and Figline.37 Ottavi and Marescalchi, as leading enologists of this period, showed Chianti as a wine region that encompassed Greve and the part of San Casciano southeast of Mercatale. The growing debate over the borders of Chianti prompted the Georgofili Academy to sponsor a competition in 1906 for a practical manual or handbook (vade-mecum) for the “commerciante di vino nella regione del Chianti” (wine merchant in the region of Chianti). Torquato Guarducci, an engineer by training, won the prize for his manuscript Il Chianti vinicolo (The enological Chianti), which was published in 1909. He found historic support for his expanded delimitation of Chianti in Emanuele Repetti’s encyclopedic Dizionario geografico, fisico e storico della Toscana (Geographic, natural and historical dictionary of Tuscany), which was published in several volumes between 1833 and 1846. Repetti’s definition of “Chianti,” commonly referred to as Chianti geografico, relied on climatic and soil factors as well as historical ones and expressly incorporated the part of Sienese Chianti with Castelnuovo Berardenga and the part of Florentine Chianti with Greve, together with selected areas of Barberino Val d’Elsa and Poggibonsi. In Il Chianti vinicolo Guarducci notably defined Chianti as the area consisting of the township of Greve and extending south to the three historic towns Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole. This delimitation, like that of Ottavi and Marescalchi, included localities in the upper Greve River Valley such as Vicchiomaggio, Querceto, Lucolena, Montefioralle, Panzano, Le Corti, Casole, Lamole, and Stinche, which had been identified with the wines of Chianti since at least the sixteenth century. The only other entrant in this Georgofili competition was Casabianca. His manuscript, a more detailed version of his 1905 volume The Historic Boundaries of Chianti, maintained that enological and historical Chianti (i.e., the Lega) were one and the same. His volume, Guida storica del Chianti, was published in 1908. At least for the informed jury of the Georgofili Academy, Guarducci’s evolved understanding of enological Chianti won the day. After 1909, the debate over Chianti’s boundaries turned to geology. There was much discussion of an article by Professor Vittorio Racah, the director of the Cattedra Ambulante

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of Siena, published in that year in Agricoltura senese, in which he proposed geological rationales for identifying the borders of Chianti. Racah’s theory came to be known as Chianti geologico. The primary criterion he specified was that the soil derive from the Eocene epoch. On this basis, he proposed that Chianti included the townships of Greve, Gaiole, and Radda, all but a small section of the township of Castellina, parts of the townships of San Casciano and Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, and small parts of the townships of Barberino Val d’Elsa and Poggibonsi. Racah erroneously included small parts of the towns of Colle and Siena, based on a misunderstanding of their geologic origin.38 His delimitation of Chianti helped to shape its statutory definition by the consortium of Chianti wine producers that was organized after the First World War. The debate over Chianti’s borders was still in its early rounds.

THE MARCH TO VINO TIPICO

The Italian word tipico means “typical.” It derives from tipo, “type.” The concept of vino tipico has a long history in Tuscany, and it has complicated the world of Italian wine, particularly Chianti. While the Piedmontese, perhaps because of their geographic proximity to France, historical connections to the viticultural areas of eastern France, and more sensitive agrarian values, unequivocally supported the concept of the denomination of origin for wine, Tuscans embraced the concept of vino tipico, because of the influence of their strong mercantile traditions and lack of esteem for agriculture. In his Trattato di agricoltura, which he wrote between 1710 and 1719, Domenico Falchini, the fattore of the Medici’s Lappeggi estate south of Florence, revealed how embedded vino tipico was in Tuscan culture. He presented a recipe for making Chianti red wine “in Chianti or in other mountainous places where the season is cool” and put a more generic recipe for Chianti wine under the following caption: “The Method and instruction regarding how to make a fine and ordinary red wine, at your option, as is customary in Chianti [all’usanza di Chianti] and other areas.”39 Falchini’s “all’usanza di Chianti” is a precursor of the “all’uso di Chianti” of late nineteenth-century Tuscan wine merchants, both describing a “Chianti” that looked and tasted like Chianti but was not from Chianti. The phrase “tipo di” was also used in the late nineteenth century, to aggregate wines of a certain style in wine competitions. These descriptors reveal the development of the concept of enological types, wines that are defined not by their place but by how they can mimic place through the application of enological processes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Italy started to develop a legal wine classification system around the construct of vino tipico. By 1910, merchant-producers and politicians had pushed the legal meaning of vino tipico away from the connection to place as a means of expanding the borders of Chianti. In 1920, following the First World War, Italy’s minister of agriculture appointed a commission, naming Marescalchi as its president, to study the question of legal protection for delimitations of wine origin.40 The Italian Parliament finally addressed the topic with its Law 497 of March 7, 1924, titled “Disposizioni per la difesa dei vini tipici”

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(Provisions for the defense of typical wines).41 Known as the Marescalchi Law, it gave precedence to the concept of wine types, vini tipici, over that of wines from delimited areas. It was the by-product of a four-year legislative odyssey. In a 1925 speech to the newly organized consortium of Chianti wine producers, Marescalchi declared that in the version of the law that his commission had recommended to the Italian Parliament (which he claimed an “interested minister” had changed right before passage), the term vino tipico was based on “the vine variety, the place, the method of production and its permanent character” (italics added).42 Notwithstanding this ex post facto characterization, the final draft of the law proposed by Marescalchi’s commission contained no such conjunctive test for the definition of vino tipico. Instead, it incorporated a disjunctive test, stipulating that a vino tipico was based on “the vine variety, the place of production or the methods of production” (italics added).43 In other words, place of origin was not legally an integral requirement of vino tipico, just an optional element. As if this dilution of place were not significant enough, the definition was removed from the final law. In its place was a statement that a subsequent decree would define the “special characteristics” of vini tipici. The flask was kicked farther down the road. At this point, Italian wine legislation clearly diverged from the French model, which emphasized place or zone of origin, to a Tuscan model, which valued enological typicity. The march to vini tipici had been subtle and insidious. Thirty-five years earlier, Italy had not signed on to the provisions of the Madrid Agreement of 1891 regarding protections of “indications of source,” because it had refused to give up the use of such terms as Champagne and Cognac on Italian wine labels. It could thus not object when California wine producers used the term Chianti for wines made in the United States.44 This early refusal to honor French appellation names was a sign of what was to emerge during the 1920s and 1930s in Italy. By failing to recognize place as the primary determinant of a wine’s identity, Italy’s Fascist government (and its many loyal supporters) disfigured the legal framework for protecting place of origin names such as Chianti and sacrificed the interests of grower-bottlers in some of Italy’s most storied wine regions. Italian wine would pay the price.

A BLACK ROOSTER IS BORN

As soon as the text of the Marescalchi Law was published in March 1924, the Chiantigiani fought back. Italo De Lucchi, the former mayor of Greve and founder of the 1909 Commissione per la Tutela del Chianti, was also a grower of wine grapes with a farm in Panzano in Chianti. He understood that the inconclusive nature of the Marescalchi Law opened the door for wine producers outside geographic Chianti to lobby for the legal right to use the name Chianti and therefore that it was imperative for Chiantigiani to create a voluntary association, a consortium that would define, valorize, and protect the territory of Chianti, its winegrowers, and its wine. He resorted to a combination of public relations, marketing, and community activism to mobilize his fellow Chianti winegrowers.

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Just two months after the promulgation of the Marescalchi Law, De Lucchi orchestrated a meeting of growers and grower-bottlers on May 14, 1924, in Radda, the historic headquarters of the Lega del Chianti, in the fourteenth-century Palazzo del Podestà (town hall) in the central piazza. Its objective was to create the first-of-its-kind consortium of Chianti winegrowers. In advance of the meeting, De Lucchi had sent out word that the bylaws or articles of the constitution (Statuto) of a new consortium (consorzio) of Chianti growers and merchants would be presented for signature by the founding members, who would agree to be bound by its provisions. He arranged for interested parties to pledge their support by sending notarized letters of their commitment in advance of the meeting. One such grower-bottler was Luigi Ricasoli of Castello di Brolio. The May 14 organizational meeting of the Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico del Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine (Consortium for the defense of the typical wine of Chianti and its mark of origin) was staged at Radda with history in mind. The notary Baldassarre Pianigiani played a central role in the deliberations, as did De Lucchi and Alberto Oliva, a professor of agronomy and Ricasoli’s personal representative at the meeting. In an impassioned but reasoned speech, Oliva explained what was at stake for the Chiantigiani winegrowers: There is no doubt that Chianti must stake its reputation above all on viticulture, but that will happen only if all together we wage, without illusions, a difficult, long and expensive fight, the only one that in this moment can guarantee to the Chiantigiani a real hope of survival. . . . It is essential to strictly link the fame of the products of Chianti to that of their celebrated territory of production, and in the end we must fight all together, with great energy and resolve, to obtain from our government, as soon as possible, the famous laws that other wine-producing countries already have had in place for some time, in order to enable us to compete fiercely in foreign markets. . . . For this reason, it is imperative now for us to join the battle together and without haste, dedicating all of our force to finally obtain a just law, which governs denominations, forever linking them to the name of their territory of origin.45

After Oliva and De Lucchi finished their speeches, thirty-three winegrowers of Chianti became the charter members of the consortium. Pursuant to Article 1 of the Statuto, all of the produttori (growers) and industriali (merchants) resident within Chianti “classico” (the word classic ultimately came to identify this appellation) were eligible for membership. Article 1 defined “Chianti classico” as encompassing the townships of “Castellina in Chianti, Gaiole in Chianti, Greve, and Radda in Chianti and the hamlets of S. Gusmè and Vagliagli in the township of Castelnuovo Berardenga.”46 (The Italian government had permitted the townships of Castellina, Gaiole, and Radda to add the suffix “in Chianti” to their names in 1911 and had rejected Greve’s application to do so in 1913. Greve finally obtained that right in 1972.) Article 2 of the Statuto, however, provided that areas in the vicinity of these townships and hamlets could apply to join if their lands had

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suitable terrain, exposition, and vine varieties as determined by a technical representative of the consortium. While Article 4 allowed for both red and white wines, it required that the grapes or must had to come from the listed townships and hamlets. Vinification, maturation, and bottling, therefore, could occur outside “Chianti classico.” This was an accommodation for merchants (both inside and outside Chianti). The grape varieties listed, Sangioveto, Canaiolo, Malvasia, and Trebbiano, were required to be used “in prevalenza” (predominantly), which opened the door for other varieties. Since the vineyards of Chianti had a chaotic mix of varieties, prevalenza was an appropriate and necessary standard. The grapes had to be “cultivated in hilly areas or land in places geologically formed and derived from galestro, alberese, and arenaria” (see ch. 6 for a description of these distinctive rocks of Chianti). The winter after it was founded, in December 1924, the consortium chose as its marca di origine (mark of origin) a black rooster on a field of gold, the emblem of the medieval Lega del Chianti. It filed for trademark protection in March 1925.47 Almost immediately, Tuscans referred to the consortium with the soprannome (nickname) Consorzio del Gallo (Rooster consortium). The consortium’s first year was fraught with heated internal meetings over the balance of geographical representation on its Consiglio di Amministrazione (Board of directors). The divisions were between certain traditionalists from Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole on the one hand and the representatives from Greve (Grevigiani) on the other hand. There were also internal conflicts about who was in Chianti and who was out. In March 1925 there was an early sign of revolution outside Chianti. The mayor of Poggibonsi, Francesco Brini, issued a report recommending that his township “start selling its products under the denomination Chianti di Poggibonsi.”48 He proposed the extension of Chianti to include all townships that contained parts of the Consorzio del Gallo zone. In May 1925 the Consorzio del Gallo decided not to enlarge its statutory definition of the Chianti zone. Interestingly, there is no evidence that it publicly defined its geographic limits by issuing a map indicating its borders at the time of its founding in 1924. Rather, it relied on Articles 1 and 2 of its Statuto, which left the door open to conditional geographic extensions (much as the Comizio Agrario of Siena had done in delimiting Chianti for the purpose of organizing the Sindacato Enologico Chiantigiano in 1903).

THE ROOSTER CROWS

The Consorzio del Gallo made a big impression at the Milan Fair of 1925, which also boosted the sales of its members.49 While Ricasoli’s membership conferred prestige on the Consorzio del Gallo, Gino Sarrocchi conferred credibility. Within two months of the consortium’s first meeting, Sarrocchi (one of Italy’s most respected lawyers) had become the minister of public works in Benito Mussolini’s national government. With these early successes, the consortium grew to 189 members within six months of its organization.50 After De Lucchi’s two-year term at the helm, Sarrocchi became the president. He and

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Ricasoli both had high-profile roles within the Fascist Party, which was particularly strong in Florence. This gave the young consortium a loud voice. The Fascist Party presented itself as a force that could lift Italy out of the torpor in which it found itself after the close of World War I. The large landholders of Tuscany almost unanimously looked to it to restore order to Italy and prevent the rise of communism, a force that threatened the mezzadria system, on which their livelihoods and lifestyle depended. The Consorzio del Gallo’s initial triumphs did not go unnoticed. The merchants of Chianti-branded wine understood that the fledgling consortium of Chiantigiani growers and merchants was intent on securing a legal monopoly on the name Chianti. In July 1925 the producers of San Casciano created their own consortium, the Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico Chianti di San Casciano Val di Pesa e della Sua Marca di Origine (Consortium for the defense of the typical Chianti wine of San Casciano Val di Pesa and its mark of origin). It argued that there were many distinct “types of Chianti [tipi del Chianti], including Carmignano, Rufina, Pomino, ‘the Pontassieve type, the Nipozzano type, that of Montepulciano, the Elba types.’ ” The San Casciano winegrowers contended that their land was geologically “not dissimilar in nature from that of the so-called historic Chianti.”51 They also asserted that their wine, which used the same vine varieties and comparable methods of vinification as Chianti, was a typical Chianti “par excellence.”52 At the same time, Niccolò Antinori was pursuing alternative strategies for the Marchesi Antinori company and his fellow San Casciano grower-bottlers. One option was securing the inclusion of San Casciano in the Consorzio del Gallo. In October 1926 the office of the Italian minister of the national economy, Giuseppe Belluzzo, mediated an agreement between the two consortia. By another account, Ricasoli and Antinori arranged the deal in an effort to defeat the politically powerful merchant-producers of larger Tuscany, and specifically the Frescobaldi family, according to Gualtiero Armando Nunzi, the president of the Consorzio del Gallo from 1994 to 1997.53 In either case, it allowed producers and farmers from San Casciano into the Consorzio del Gallo, provided their vines grew on soil “composed predominantly of galestro and round alberese stones, but not of sandstone.”54 It was a first step toward building the modern Chianti Classico wine region.

A P U T TO C O N F R O N T S T H E R O O S T E R

The Consorzio del Gallo soon had a more formidable nemesis. In February 1927 a group of wine merchants, grower-bottlers, and growers principally from Montalbano, Rufina, and the hills south of the city of Florence banded together to form a lobby, named Consorzio del Vino Chianti (Chianti wine consortium). They chose as their trademark a putto, a nude baby boy or cherub often portrayed in Italian mythological and religious art. Their putto was referred to as Bacchino, or “little Bacchus,” which gave rise to the nickname Consorzio del Bacchino. After World War II it was generally known as the Consorzio del Putto. This consortium aggressively promoted the concept that Chianti was a wine style

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already recognized as distinct by the trade and the public. Its message could not have been clearer: “Chianti is not the name of a wine of a certain zone, namely historic Chianti, but rather the generic name of a certain type of wine. . . . Therefore this denomination must be extended to the wines produced in the zones of San Casciano, Carmignano, Montalbano, Colli Fiorentini, Pomino, Rufina, etc., because they are wines of exquisite finesse and particular organoleptic and commercial characteristics and because they have been marked since time immemorial both locally and abroad with the name Chianti.”55 For this reason, the Consorzio del Putto’s conception of Chianti was characterized as espansionista (expansionist) and estensionista (extentionist). First and foremost, its organizers pleaded the economic case, painting a grim picture. The loss of the Chianti name— and thus access to its worldwide markets—would harm not only Tuscan and other Italian merchants but also countless farmers “who with a truly patriotic spirit [had] contributed, with no small financial sacrifice, to the rapid reconstruction of the vines destroyed by phylloxera.” Like Giulio Brini in 1910, the Consorzio del Putto proposed that the denomination Chianti be prefixed to the geographic place of origin, as in Chianti Rufina or Chianti Carmignano.56 These arguments must have been persuasive, inasmuch as within four months of signing their agreement with the Consorzio del Gallo, San Casciano’s winegrowers (including Lodovico Antinori, one of the three founders of the Marchesi Antinori company) became founding members of the Consorzio del Putto and repudiated their relationship with the Black Rooster. This little Bacchus was one tough putto. While the consortia of the Gallo and the Putto were forming their battle lines, the Ministry of the National Economy promulgated Regulatory Decree (RD) 1440 in June 1927 to implement the March 1924 legislation on vini tipici. This required a consortium identifying itself by a geographic denomination to define the zone of production of its vino tipico, not just the wine’s organoleptic characteristics. In effect, this decree supported the Consorzio del Gallo’s fundamental contention, that place of origin was an essential component of any vino tipico denomination. In September 1927 the Consorzio del Gallo amended its Statuto to revise the delimitation of Chianti to include the entire townships of Castellina in Chianti, Gaiole in Chianti, Greve, and Radda in Chianti, the localities of San Gusmè and Vagliagli in the township of Castelnuovo Berardenga, and sections of the townships of Barberino Val d’Elsa, Poggibonsi, San Casciano Val di Pesa, and Tavarnelle Val di Pesa.57 Attached to the amended Statuto was a map of the revised delimitation. To our knowledge, it is the Consorzio del Gallo’s first map of Chianti “classico.” The Consorzio del Putto had a bigger map of Chianti in its back pocket. The legislating and negotiating were just beginning.

T H E R O A D N OT TA K E N

In October 1927, Minister of the National Economy Belluzzo summoned members of the Gallo and Putto consortia to Rome to resolve the Chianti question. The national Fascist government had political and economic interests in reconciling the warring

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factions in Tuscany and was being pressured to define other appellations nationwide. The Ministry of the National Economy proposed that Tuscany have one consortium to control all of its delimited zones, including Chianti. It would be named Consorzio dei Vini Toscani (Consortium of Tuscan wines). In addition to the consortia representatives, Tommaso Bisi, Belluzzo’s undersecretary, who presided over the meeting, invited mayors who wanted to propose denominations for the Tuscan-wide consortium. Following the meeting, the ministry persevered with its plan for a single regional Tuscan consortium and charged two agrarian federations, one each in Florence and Siena, with the task of defining the “zones of production of Chianti and the other typical Tuscan wines” in accordance with RD 1440 of 1927.58 Unfortunately, their negotiations broke down. Undeterred, Belluzzo, an engineer, not a politician by training, made an executive decision. In letters signed by Bisi and dated March 9, 1928, the ministry directed the Florentine and Sienese agrarian federations to create the statute for a consortium that would govern the six Tuscan vini tipici: Chianti, Montalbano, Rufina, Colli Fiorentini, Montepulciano, and Montalcino.59 These letters stipulated that each vino tipico must respect its geographic denomination.60 In other words, the Ministry of the National Economy had rejected the expansionist argument of the Consorzio del Putto based on enological typicity and instead recognized that Chianti and the other named wine types were the products of specific places of origin, each of which should have the exclusive right to the use of its geographic denomination. As a result, the wine zones in the Consorzio del Putto, namely Montalbano, Rufina, and Colli Fiorentini, were required to use their actual names of geographic indication and not “Chianti.” In the absence of an agreement between the agrarian federations regarding the delimitation of the production zone of each vino tipico, the Ministry of the National Economy established general delimitations for them. That of Chianti largely corresponded with the Consorzio del Gallo’s delimitation in its September 1927 Statuto but added a greater area of San Casciano (see map 1).61 The ministry’s inclusion of much of western San Casciano in the delimitation of Chianti created consternation among certain leaders of the Consorzio del Gallo, such as Giulio Straccali, who believed that it differed too much from Chianti.62 Certainly, the soil satisfied neither Racah’s 1909 definition of Chianti geologico, being of Pliocene origin, nor the description in the Consorzio del Gallo’s 1924 Statuto. This incorporation did, however, encompass the influential Antinori family (consistent with the 1926 agreement between the Consorzio del Gallo and the San Casciano consortium). When the news of San Casciano’s inclusion in Chianti through the intervention of the Ministry of the National Economy reached Niccolò Antinori by telegram from Rome, he was jubilant, according to his son Piero. He wasted little time in launching his flagship Chianti, Villa Antinori, made from grapes grown on the Antinori vineyards in San Casciano. The 1928 vintage proudly sported the black rooster seal. Having settled the delimitation of Chianti and the other zones, the Ministry of National Economy in its March 9 letters ordered the Florentine and Sienese agrarian federations to respond to its directive to establish a constitution for the Consorzio dei

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Pontassieve

Florence Bagno a Ripoli

Casellina e Torri

Rignano sull’Arno

Galluzzo

N W

Incisa Val d’Arno

San Casciano Val di Pesa

S 0 0

Montespertoli

E

3 miles 3 kilometers

Figline Val d’Arno Greve

Tavarnelle Val di Pesa Barberino Val d’Elsa

Monte Muro

San Donato in Poggio

Cavriglia Coltibuono

Poggibonsi

Castellina in Chianti

Montevarchi

Radda in Chianti

Bucine Gaiole in Chianti Monte Luco Montefienali

Vagliagli Cetamura Cerreto

Monteriggioni

Siena

San Gusmè

Castelnuovo Berardenga

Geographic Chianti, according to the definition of the mid-nineteenth century author Emanuele Repetti Historic Chianti The border of geographic-geologic Chianti, according to the Consorzio del Gallo Addition made by the Ministry of the National Economy in delimiting the zone of Chianti as a vino tipico of Tuscany [March 1928]

MAP 1 Borders and Administrative Division of the Chianti Zone, from G. Garavini, L’applicazione delle legge sui vini tipici in provincia di Siena (Siena: S. Bernardino, 1929), tav. III.

Vini Toscani no later than March 25. While the Sienese federation responded by the due date, the Florentine federation did not.63 This delimitation of the Chianti wine zone then faded away. As of July 1928, both Belluzzo and Bisi were no longer in their posts at the ministry. It does not stretch the imagination to surmise that their March 1928 letters won them few allies in Florence or Rome. The fact that the Florentine federation apparently refused to comply with the ministerial order speaks volumes about the influence of powerful wine merchants in Rome. The Fascist government prided itself on its ability to create order out of chaos. Under its rule, the Italian trains ran on time. However, it had yet to put Chianti squarely on the map.

THE FORNACIARI COMMISSION

Following the intransigence of Florence’s agrarian federation, Italy’s national government reexamined the Chianti question and took new steps to lay the groundwork for an appellation system based on vini tipici. In July 1930, Italian Law 1164 redefined the concept of vino tipico. Article 2 tightened the definition: it is a wine whose special character derives from its place of origin, soil, vine varietal composition, and method of production.64 The law also stipulated that only one consortium could be organized for each vino tipico.65 These legal developments gave the Consorzio del Gallo a foundation to hope that its cause was not lost. Later that year a related regulation classified vini tipici to include special wines, such as fortified and sweet wines (including Tuscan vin santo) and fine and superior table wines (vini da pasto). Fine wines had a constant character, while superior wines (the higher category) also acquired special and prestigious features after natural aging.66 In January 1931 the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Corporations jointly appointed a technical commission (referred to in these pages as the Fornaciari Commission, after its president, Julo Fornaciari, a deputy in the Italian Parliament) to recommend delimitations of the zone of production of Chianti and of the other Tuscan vini tipici.67 Giovanni Dalmasso, the director of the Research Center for Viticulture and Enology at Conegliano in the Veneto, was one of the three other members. As Italy’s most respected academic in the field, he brought instant credibility to the commission and is thought to have been the architect and principal author of its final relazione (report). In August 1932 the Ministry of Agriculture published Per la tutela del vino Chianti e degli altri vini tipici toscani (For the protection of Chianti wine and the other typical Tuscan wines), which reproduced the findings and recommendations of the Fornaciari Commission in its exhaustively researched report (referred to in these pages as the Fornaciari Commission report) and a ministerial decree dated July 31, 1932, on the “delimitation of the production zone of ‘Chianti’ vino tipico.”68 The news was not good for the Consorzio del Gallo on any front. Effectively overturning the Ministry of the National Economy’s March 1928 order, the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Corporations’ July 31 decree rejected the Consorzio del Gallo’s central argument, that Chianti should be protected as an individual vino tipico based on its geographic denomination, and instead created a

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Tuscan-wide Chianti appellation with seven subzones constituting a unified vino tipico zone. Per the recommendation of the Fornaciari Commission, Chianti Classico became one of these subzones. Its delimitation was set forth in the Map of the Production Zones of Typical Tuscan Wines inserted after the last page of the commission’s report in Per la tutela del vino Chianti and largely mirrored the Ministry of the National Economy’s 1928 delimitation of Chianti. In denying the Consorzio del Gallo’s claim to the exclusive use of the name Chianti, the Fornaciari Commission concluded that Chianti was generally a fine wine, in contrast with the superior wines of Montalcino and Montepulciano. Ironically, almost thirty years earlier, two of Italy’s leading enologists, Edoardo Ottavi and Arturo Marescalchi, had classified the Chianti wine from the towns of Radda, Gaiole, and Castellina as superior to the wines of Montepulciano and Montalcino, which had only recently achieved fame.69 The minister of agriculture who (together with the minister of corporations, Benito Mussolini) issued the decree implementing the Fornaciari Commission’s delimitation of Chianti was named Giacomo Acerbo. The Italian word acerbo means “harsh, rough, bitter, tart, sharp” and is often used to describe immature grapes and defective wine. For the Consorzio del Gallo, this minister and his 1932 decree were undoubtedly acerbissimi! The Fornaciari Commission took into account historical interpretations of Chianti, factors relating to soils, vine varieties, climate, and expositions, and the impacts that its decision would have on the local, regional, and national economies. Its members made extensive visits to viticultural areas, taking soil samples, tasting wines, and interviewing more than two hundred individuals.70 The commission observed that there were many ways to delimit Chianti: the historic one (presented by Casabianca), the geographic one (presented by Repetti and then elaborated by Guarducci), the classic one (proposed by the Consorzio del Gallo), and the commercial one (proposed by the Consorzio del Putto). It argued that the classic delimitation had no more validity than any of the others. In fact, the Consorzio del Gallo’s borders had already proved to be elastic, having been revised from those of the original Statuto to include portions of San Casciano, Barberino Val d’Elsa, Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, and Poggibonsi. The commission found that the style and quality of wine from within the area defined by the Consorzio del Gallo varied to such a great degree as not to justify a distinct geographic appellation. It also concluded that Chianti was a wine type common to all seven subzones. Furthermore, by extending the name Chianti beyond the confines of the Consorzio del Gallo, it was enabling, if not ensuring, the economic prosperity of a greater number of Tuscans and other Italians. In addition to Chianti Classico, the Fornaciari Commission report listed the following six subzones (collectively referred to in these pages as External Chianti) to be included in the Chianti appellation: Montalbano, Rufina, Colli Fiorentini, Colli Senesi, Colli Aretini, and Colline Pisane (colli means “hills” and colline “low hills”). The seven subzones spanned five provinces in the region of Tuscany. Several were not even contiguous with the others. One, Colline Pisane, was quite a distance from the others and less than sixteen kilometers (ten miles) from the Tyrrhenian Sea. The six subzones of External

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Chianti had a volume of wine production more than five times greater than that of the Consorzio del Gallo.71 The Consorzio del Putto had won this decisive battle. While the Fornaciari Commission did not propose or recommend production disciplines for each of Chianti’s delimited subzones, it did advise the creation of a consortium to unify them under a single governing body. On September 25, 1932, the Consorzio del Gallo met to discuss next steps. Its board feared that the proposed Chianti consortium would appropriate the Black Rooster emblem. As a result, the Consorzio del Gallo set itself up as a private company, in order to obtain the exclusive legal rights to this trademark.72 In the fall and winter of 1932 it weighed its legal options to challenge the July 31 ministerial decree. While its board of directors intensely debated filing an appeal with Italy’s Consiglio di Stato (Council of state), the time limit for such an appeal lapsed. So the Consorzio del Gallo instead filed a petition of appeal with Victor Emmanuel III, the king of Italy.73 Before it could receive any royal justice, however, the Italian Parliament once again changed the legal landscape for controlled appellations for wine. In June 1937, Italian Law 1266 was promulgated to govern viticulture. It defined a new class of vini pregiati di determinata origine (fine wines of specific origin) as a substitute for the vini tipici statutory construct. According to the Consorzio del Gallo’s president from 1927 to 1947, Gino Sarrocchi, and subsequent commentators on Italian wine law, Law 1266 abrogated Law 1164 of 1930 on vini tipici and thereby annulled the 1932 ministerial decree based on it.74 The new law also made moot the appeal that the Consorzio del Gallo had filed with the Italian king. Would the patriots of the Consorzio del Gallo have another day to fight for Chianti and its winegrowers? In the decades to follow, the producers and merchants of both Chianti Classico and External Chianti continued to wave Chianti’s flag. But Sarrocchi fought on, arguing that Chianti Classico wine alone deserved to be known by the name, “Chianti del Chianti.”

P H Y L L OX E R A A N D A R E A L WA R

After World War I, landowners and mezzadri in Tuscany had faced a common problem: phylloxera. Its spread was slower in Chianti than in other areas of Tuscany, reaching its peak during the 1920s and 1930s. Chianti’s dry and rocky soil helped, since phylloxera tends to prefer more humid, less stony, and more fertile soil. Given the system of mixed agriculture in Chianti, phylloxera affected vines one by one over a long period, but it still resulted in a marked decrease in production yields per plot. However, constraints on the capital of landowners and the inability to transform mixed agriculture into specialized viticulture without dismantling the entire mezzadria system meant that phylloxeraaffected fields were not replanted with specialized, low-trained vineyards as quickly in Chianti as in other areas of Tuscany. While the provinces of Tuscany wrangled in the late 1930s and early 1940s over the provisions set forth in the ministerial decree promulgated pursuant to the Fornaciari Commission report, the Consorzio del Gallo continued collecting data, testing wines,

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and distributing black rooster neck labels to wines that met its standards. With the onset of the Second World War, in order to stabilize pricing and availability and to set up a mechanism to supply the Italian army with wine, local leaders in Chianti were directed to consolidate the wine produced in their areas at local collection points. One such collection point was the Enopolio of Poggibonsi. It could stock a large volume of wine and was at an important junction on the Siena-Empoli railway line. Because of the instability of supply, demand, and pricing, the Italian government in 1942 issued a decree that set maximum prices for wines. It established three categories of vini pregiati, the first pertaining to wines of more than three years of age, of national fame, and from well-known companies, including Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. The decree placed the “Chianti” of both the Consorzio del Gallo and the Consorzio del Putto in the second category. Needless to say, this was another blow to the aspirations of the Consorzio del Gallo. By 1943, however, this classification was the least of Chianti’s problems. When Italy signed the armistice with the United States and the United Kingdom on September 8, 1943, the German forces, once Italy’s allies, now became enemies, and a large number were on Italian soil. German soldiers occupied many villas, fattorie, and poderi in Chianti. In the summer of 1944, the Allies fought the German army in the hills of Chianti. The battle took two to three weeks. Cities and railroad junctions just outside the area, such as Poggibonsi, were directly bombed. With all of the heated conflicts between Chianti Classico and External Chianti during the twentieth century, it must never be forgotten that the real Guerra del Chianti cost the lives of countless soldiers, partisans, and civilians. Listening to the stories of the few surviving Chiantigiani who lived through World War II poignantly reminds us of this fact. Visiting the Florence American Cemetery, just north of San Casciano at the entrance to Chianti, serves as a solemn reminder of the real sacrifices made to liberate this magnificent land.

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4 CHIANTI CLASSICO ENTERS THE GLOBAL MARKET 1945 to the Present

TO B E O R N OT TO B E

After the Second World War, the conflicts between Chianti Classico and External Chianti resumed almost immediately, complicated by the heightened jealousies and uncertainties that the July 1932 ministerial decree pronouncing the enlarged delimitation of Chianti had created. There was still no national appellation law to establish production disciplines or quality control regulations for the Chianti denomination (or its seven subzones). Because the Chianti Classico subzone had its own lobby, in the form of the Consorzio del Gallo, and because producers believed that the name Classico would add value to their wine, producers making Chianti from Chianti Classico grapes generally opted to put “Chianti Classico” instead of “Chianti” on the front label of their flasks and bottles. Meanwhile, producers in the Consorzio del Putto, with few exceptions, put only “Chianti” on their labels, often without any reference to the geographic subzone of origin (Montalbano, Rufina, Colli Fiorentini, Colli Senesi, Colli Aretini, or Colline Pisane). In fact, it was in the 1950s that the Consorzio del Putto first added the Latin motto Solum nobis, meaning “Only us” or “For us alone,” beneath its emblem on neck labels. This putto had thrown down yet another gauntlet to the gallo nero! World War II destroyed the economies of Italy and many other European countries. With the help of the Marshall Plan, followed by the establishment and growth of the European Economic Community, a precursor of the European Union (EU), Italy began to rebound during the 1950s. EU member governments adopted Keynesian social democratic policies and established socioeconomic programs to protect the well-being 59

and livelihoods of their respective citizens. The situation in the hills of Chianti, however, was deteriorating. In providing health care, income support, and other social benefits, the postwar Italian government weakened archaic socioeconomic structures such as the mezzadria system. The Tuscan sharecropping institution was based on the near-total dependence of the mezzadri on their padrone. A 1964 law forbade the signing of new mezzadria contracts in Italy beginning in 1974. While a subsequent law provided for the conversion of any existing mezzadria contract to one of direct cultivation at the request of either the mezzadro or the padrone, there were very few mezzadri left in Chianti by the 1970s. This was not a slow decline. It was as if after World War II the tens of thousands of mezzadri, whose ancestors had worked this land for centuries, awakened for the first time to a new world of possibility beyond their poderi and fattorie. They packed up their meager belongings and left their Chianti poderi en masse. They did not flee to the industrialized northern Italian cities, such as Milan and Turin. Instead, with their diverse trade skills and strong work ethic, mezzadri families made new lives for themselves in cities and towns just outside Chianti, such as Florence and Poggibonsi. The classic Tuscan mezzadria system, which had endured for seven centuries, dissolved in the span of a couple of decades. The exodus of the mezzadri drastically reduced the population of Chianti. Meanwhile, market demand for low-cost “Chianti” remained strong. In export markets, the branding of the Chianti fiasco moved beyond its Italian immigrant base. By one estimate, in 1957 there were 1.5 million hectoliters (39.6 million gallons) of wine exported as “Chianti,” of which only one-half was produced by the members of the consortia of Chianti Classico and External Chianti.1 To meet this demand, the merchants of External Chianti looked far and wide in Italy for great quantities of wine to make their “Chianti.” Phylloxera and the rupture of the mezzadria system had decimated production levels in Chianti.2 During the 1950s, the production of Chianti Classico was half of what it had been two decades earlier, and its 65 percent premium over the bulk price of External Chianti wine during the 1930s had diminished considerably.3 In fact, in the 1950s the bulk sale price of Chianti Classico (between seven and eight thousand lire per hectoliter) did not even cover the costs of its production (ten to sixteen thousand lire per hectoliter).4 Part of the reason for this low value was the increase in shipments, by railroad, of cheap southern Italian blending wine to Tuscany, which drove down the price of all Chianti. The Consorzio del Gallo was fighting an increasingly uphill battle. It had not, however, given up on trying to restrict the use of the name Chianti, and it continued to work for a new national law that would supersede the July 1932 ministerial decree and delimit a smaller Chianti. The consortium also continued to set quality control regulations for its members and tested their wines to assess whether or not they met those standards. Those that passed could use the coveted black rooster label, which the consortium provided, individually numbered for traceability. Though the word Classico had yet to gain wide market recognition, the black rooster became powerful branding, signifying both genuine and quality Chianti. In 1952, Britain’s foremost wine historian, André Louis

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Simon, observed, “One of the most reliable brands of Chianti is retailed under the name of Chianti classico, which bears the Marca Gallo, a black cock in a field of gold.”5 In essence, the oversight of the Consorzio del Gallo meant that wines bearing the Gallo Nero neck label were better on average than wines without the trademark. Besides the normal Chianti Classico, there were two other product levels: vecchio, for wines with two years of aging before release, and stravecchio, for wines with three years of aging before release. There was no Riserva category at this time. The Consorzio del Gallo’s efforts to build a quality reputation for its members’ wines, however, was increasingly threatened from beyond Tuscany. According to Ugo Bonacossi in 2001, even the railway station in Rome was selling a private label “Chianti” with the name Chianti Stazione Termini in the 1960s. The fraudulent use of the name Chianti, combined with the low-quality product in flasks so labeled, was negatively impacting Chianti’s general image, at home and abroad. This fact was lost on no one, including Alexis Lichine, one of the leading wine writers in the 1960s: “Chianti is one of the most abused names in the world of wine. Almost every wine-growing country has taken the name and applied it to almost any red wine as long as it is sold in straw-covered flasks.”6 Chianti was in crisis. Two conferences were organized to address the future of the territory. The first, Convegno del Chianti (Conference on Chianti), was sponsored by the Georgofili Academy and held in Florence and Siena in May 1957. It focused on a wide range of economic and agricultural issues. The Consorzio del Gallo sponsored the second conference, in Radda in December of the same year. It was more technical. At the Georgofili’s Convegno del Chianti, the future of Chianti literally hung in the balance. Several speakers, experts in their respective fields, debated whether it could survive as a vinicultural region. Some maintained that it should be used only for the pasturage of animals. Giovanni Dalmasso, the architect of the Fornaciari Commission’s 1932 delimitation of Chianti, was the enological expert for the convegno. His presence loomed large for the Chiantigiani. He gave a speech titled “The Problems of Chianti’s Enology,” which observed that the immediate and central problem facing the “Chianti originario” (original Chianti) was the imbalance between its wine’s high cost of production and low bulk sale price. Dalmasso concluded that this situation was unsustainable for many estates. For him, the original Chianti could not expect a law that would give it the exclusive right to “the prestigious name of Chianti.” The July 1932 ministerial decree (which influential Italian observers perceived as a Solomonic decision at the time)7 and the commercial realities that had precipitated it had ostensibly ended that debate. Dalmasso also concluded that Chianti Classico could not hope to realize a significant increase in the market price of its wines, in part because they did not have consistent quality or character. Instead, Chianti would have to substantially reduce its costs of production in order to survive. Dalmasso argued that its winegrowers could no longer afford to plant vines on steep hills at high elevations. Another problem was the reduced size of many farms. According to Dalmasso, 62.5 percent of the properties in the Chianti Classico zone comprised only a single podere, and more than 50 percent of these had fewer than six

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hectares (fifteen acres). This fragmentation reduced overall wine quality and economies of scale that were required to bring down the costs of production. Dalmasso maintained that only a minority of estates in Chianti were capable of surviving. The remaining fattorie and other properties would survive solely if they worked together to develop cantine sociali, or cooperatives.8 At the end of the third and last day of the conference in Florence, Luigi Ricasoli-Firidolfi, the president of the Consorzio del Gallo and the great-grandson of Bettino Ricasoli, rose to his feet to respond to Dalmasso’s pronouncements. Ser Lapo Mazzei, at the time a young member of the consortium’s board of directors, was present in the room and vividly recounted the showdown to us: “Only one man resisted this idea, Luigi Ricasoli-Firidolfi. He was a great man. Everybody was saying, ‘Chianti is finished. You should turn your vineyards into pasture.’ He said, ‘You say this, but I say no!’” Ricasoli-Firidolfi presented a vision of the true Chianti as a territory capable of producing wine of the highest quality and worthy of its own protected denomination of origin: But let it be clear that it is not the original zone of Chianti which should always be put on the witness stand as a defendant as if it were in the wrong, while other interests are considered to be in the right! This determination, I believe, will not be acceptable to the Chianti producers who intend to protect their name, their production, their interests, which are, in large part, their inalienable rights. . . . [These producers] are prepared to study the most opportune solutions to the problems that plague our zone, but they will not suffer acts of oppression or of clear injustice to their ancient and legitimate interests as Chianti producers and cannot allow themselves to sacrifice or be sacrificed for other interests, which are not always legitimate.9

The Iron Baron would have been proud.

L AW 9 3 0 A N D T H E 1 9 6 7 C H I A N T I D O C

With the development of the European Economic Community, there was a great need to organize the large wine industries of member countries such as France and Italy. Since the 1930s, France had had in place a comprehensive and functional wine regulation system that not only protected origin but also applied quality and style controls. In 1963 Italy promulgated Law 930, which laid the foundation for Italian denominations of origin and their regulation, a change from the laws of the 1920s and 1930s, which had emphasized vini tipici, or commercial styles of wines. Notably, Law 930 indicated that additions of must from outside a wine’s delimited zone would be regulated. While this provision must have alarmed politicians from the south of Italy who had lobbied for their regions’ bulk wine to be blended into the wines of the north, it raised the hopes of producers of Chianti Classico, who would now be somewhat protected against centuries-old unethical blending practices. Strikingly, inserted in the middle of this Italian national wine law,

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which established the denominations of origin pyramid, was a provision singling out the Chianti denomination and stipulating that the “zone of ‘Chianti classic’ was delimited by the July 31, 1932, ministerial decree.”10 In contrast with the laws governing France’s system of controlled appellations, Law 930, by citing this decree and expressly providing for the creation of other classico zones within similarly enlarged denominations of origin, rejected the legal principle that growers from a historic region such as Chianti (and later Soave and Valpolicella) possessed an exclusive and inalienable right to use its geographic name for their wine, based on its place of origin. Dalmasso, the enological expert for the Fornaciari Commission whose report resulted in the 1932 ministerial decree, was initially the president of the commission that devised the blueprint for Law 930, until he resigned his post to Paolo Desana, a senator, who is considered the primary architect of the law. Some of the other members of the commission were Pier Giovanni Garoglio, an enological expert who supported the Fornaciari Commission’s Chianti solution; Nino Folonari, representing the industrial wine interests; and Salvatore Migliorisi, representing mercantile ones. According to Guglielmo Anzilotti, the director of the Consorzio del Gallo beginning in 1963, Folonari (who was the director of Ruffino and a powerful force in finance) could pick up the phone and instantly speak to the president of the Italian Republic. With the possible exception of Desana (whom, Anzilotti reported, was unfamiliar with the geography of the original Chianti), these were not individuals who would have supported a more restrictive delimitation of Chianti based on either the Consorzio del Gallo’s 1927 Statuto or the minister of the national economy’s 1928 directive. As a general matter, Law 930 established two appellation levels, denominazione di origine controllata (controlled denomination of origin, or DOC) and the more stringent denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (controlled and guaranteed denomination of origin, or DOCG). A tasting examination of wines at bottling was the important requirement of the higher level. Any consortium that represented at least 20 percent of its denomination’s producers and volume of production could be authorized to conduct the prescribed quality controls for its members. In this sense, Law 930 created a selfregulatory appellation system that delegated compliance oversight and enforcement to private actors. It also destined Chianti Classico and External Chianti to be joined in one denomination of origin. However, it allowed for more than one consortium per denomination, thus ensuring the continuance of the Consorzio del Gallo. Nevertheless, because Chianti Classico did not account for at least 20 percent of the producers and volume of production of the unified Chianti denomination, Law 930 consigned it to be locked in protracted negotiations with External Chianti in the legal process to secure their shared DOC appellation. Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture had to approve the regulations for the Chianti DOC (the denomination encompassing both Chianti Classico and External Chianti). Given the historic division between the two principal Chianti consortia, the Consorzio del Gallo and the Consorzio del Putto, the proposal took more time to develop than anticipated.

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The Consorzio del Gallo became divided between two camps, the traditionalists, such as Ser Lapo Mazzei and Enrico d’Afflitto, who fought any concession to a shared appellation with External Chianti, and the moderates, such as Bettino Ricasoli and Gualtiero Armando Nunzi, who pressed for a faster and less fractious solution. (Luigi Ricasoli, an archtraditionalist, under pressure from the moderates had ceded the presidency of the Consorzio del Gallo to his son Bettino in 1958.) There were also external pressures on the Consorzio del Gallo to make peace with External Chianti in order to obtain the DOC designation. Chianti was the most important red wine of Italy. Yet the Frascati, Ischia, and Vernaccia di San Gimignano wine regions had moved ahead to become the first DOCs, in March 1966. Securing the DOC would finally protect the word Chianti within the EU. However, the most pressing incentive might have been the imminence of Italian and EU agricultural funding programs that targeted DOCs for support. In the end, the moderates prevailed. Negotiations between the Consorzio del Gallo and the Consorzio del Putto led to an agreement for a comprehensive Chianti DOC that a decree of the president of the Italian Republic legally recognized in August 1967. Like Law 930 of 1963, Article 1 of the 1967 Chianti DOC decree delimited Chianti (and each of its seven subzones) based on the July 1932 ministerial decree, as if it still had the force of law.11 Under the Chianti DOC, Chianti Classico was the territorial distinction of wines from the Classico area as determined by the Fornaciari Commission in 1932. Chianti’s six other subzones (constituting External Chianti) were also delimited in accordance with the 1932 ministerial decree. The DOC imposed lower maximum yields in Chianti Classico, 115 quintals (a quintal being 100 kilograms, or approximately 220 pounds) per hectare (5.1 tons per acre) as opposed to External Chianti’s 125 quintals per hectare (5.6 tons per acre). While Chianti Classico’s minimum alcohol level at commercial release was set at 12 percent, External Chianti’s was 11.5 percent. For both Chianti Classico and External Chianti, the limit for “correction” with must or wine from outside the denomination (the law did not restrict the sources to Italy) was capped at 15 percent of the finished wine. These additions allowed merchants and producers to enhance color, alcohol content, structure, vintage consistency, and their profit margins. This provision garnered the support of southern Italian politicians who were allied with the interests of large-scale wine merchants in central and northern Italy. A vecchio category for both Chianti Classico and External Chianti was specified for wines that were aged a minimum of two years in an unspecified container, while a Riserva category carried a minimum age of three years. The name of one of the six External Chianti subzones could be used if the grapes and wine originated from that zone as delimited in 1932. The law required that vinification, maturation, and storage occur in the zone. Whether the legal distinctions that the Chianti DOC disciplinare (discipline) made between the original Chianti zone and the six subzones of External Chianti would distinguish Chianti Classico remained to be seen. With the Ministry of Agriculture’s approval of the unified Chianti DOC in 1967, the Consorzio del Gallo had, in substance, legally agreed that the name Chianti was not the

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exclusive property of its members. As a result, on May 7, 1968, it changed its legal name from Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine to the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico (referred to in these pages as the Chianti Classico consortium, with the Consorzio del Putto hereinafter referred to as the External Chianti consortium). Immediately, the Guerra del Chianti manifested in a new form: the desire of Chianti Classico to separate itself from External Chianti by establishing its own DOCG. Up to this point, Chianti Classico, which had been beset by high costs of production, low bulk-wine sale prices, unethical “Chianti” labeling, and unrestricted additions of cheap cutting wine from southern Italy, had had deep financial problems. During the 1950s, the annual volume of Chianti Classico wine sold bearing the gallo nero seal averaged fifty thousand hectoliters (1.3 million gallons). During the 1960s, it increased to eighty thousand hectoliters (2.1 million gallons) per year, reaching a high of ninety thousand hectoliters (2.4 million gallons) in 1967. The new DOC, by imposing quality controls, chief among them yield limits and limited protection from extraregional wine additions, gave External Chianti a boost, and Chianti Classico an even bigger one. In the wake of the attainment of the Chianti DOC, the number of gallo nero bottles sold dropped in 1968 and 1969, but the production of new vineyards boosted sales to 131,038 hectoliters (3.5 million gallons) in 1972.12 The number of members in the Chianti Classico consortium climbed over the five hundred mark by July 1968, representing 90 percent of the zone’s production. Bulk wine prices of Chianti Classico during 1969, the first year when the full impact of the DOC was felt, reached a decade-high point.13 Moreover, the differential between the prices of Chianti Classico bulk wine and those of External Chianti wine also reached a high point.14 At the same time, DOC recognition for the unified Chianti set the stage for agricultural funding to flow from the EU. For the first time, Chianti Classico and External Chianti enjoyed appellation protections within the EU and leverage in negotiations to prohibit the misuse of their names by non-EU countries. The regulations for the Chianti DOC allowed for great flexibility in the varietal blends of wines for both Chianti Classico and External Chianti. They had to contain 50 to 80 percent Sangiovese, 10 to 30 percent Canaiolo Nero, 10 to 30 percent Trebbiano and Malvasia del Chianti, and 5 percent unspecified complementary varieties. Unusually, these were percentages not of the varieties in the final wine blend but of what was planted in the vineyards. Trebbiano is so productive per vine that its volumetric percentage in the resulting wine could be much higher than its percent of contributing vines might suggest. This disease-resistant and productive variety lowered costs and made red wine lighter in color, body, and structure. As a practical matter, the varietal regulations in the 1967 Chianti DOC had been dictated by the planted mix already extant throughout the larger Chianti denomination and thus established a recipe for “Chianti” based on commercial priorities rather than quality considerations. The Italian government had the responsibility of ensuring that the DOC disciplinare was followed, but ultimately the system relied on self-reporting by producers. The

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Chianti DOC required annual declarations from farmer-bottlers and merchants. In order for a producer to put Chianti Classico DOC on a wine’s front label, its grapes had to be grown exclusively in vineyards registered to produce Chianti Classico. The Chianti Classico consortium employed inspectors to investigate producer declarations and tested its members’ wine samples in its in-house laboratory. Those members whose wines passed the consortium’s technical and other testing controls received the quantity of Black Rooster bottle seals necessary for their production. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the consortium’s members were responsible for about 90 percent of the production of Chianti Classico.

I TA L I A N A N D E U S U B S I D I E S

The Fascist period, World War II, and the disorganization that followed had left the Italian agricultural sector in tatters. Beginning in the 1960s, Italy and the EU established programs to help. In the Chianti Classico appellation, three factors made intervention a necessity to kick-start renewal: the deterioration of the mezzadria system, six decades characterized by minimal investment in viticulture, and the dry and rocky terrain (which made typical agricultural entrepreneurialism less profitable). Generally, the Italian and EU funding programs provided low-interest loans and matching grants to wine producers. The Italian state, in addition, offered tax benefits. The Italian government set up three programs, Primo Piano Verde in 1961, Secondo Piano Verde in 1966, and Ponte Verde in 1971 (collectively referred to as the Piani Verdi, or “Green plans”).15 The EU offered the Fondo Europeo di Orientamento e Garanzia Agricola (FEOGA, or European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund), an instrument for agricultural loans and grants. It operated in concert with the Italian government’s Secondo Piano Verde program to provide substantial loans and other aid.16 The Secondo Piano Verde specifically targeted “planting vines in specialized cultivation” in districts delimited pursuant to Italian Law 930 of 1963, “for the protection of controlled or controlled and guaranteed designations of origin.”17 From 1967 to 1972, the projects that the Piani Verdi and FEOGA supported had a profound impact on Chianti Classico and other areas in Tuscany. Inevitably, the renovation of Italian vineyards that FEOGA subsidized resulted in an oversupply of bulk wine. After 1977, direct EU intervention in Italy’s agricultural sector ended, but the Italian state and its regions continued underwriting agricultural support programs with both their own funds and those that flowed down from the EU. Throughout Tuscany, terraces were bulldozed and vineyards that had been coplanted with other crops were uprooted. In their place, larger vineyards dedicated to vines supported on wires were installed. These programs continued, but on a diminished scale, until January 2007. Qualifying applicants used the support to replant vineyards, buy new winery equipment, and build modern winery facilities. Most of the replanting involved the conversion of promiscuous viticulture to vineyard monoculture. In the early 1960s, more than 95 percent of wine grapes came from mixed agriculture.18 By 1977 there were 6,877 hectares (16,993 acres, or 26.6

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square miles) of specialized vineyards and 6,122 hectares (15,128 acres, or 23.6 square miles) of promiscuous culture.19 Today the number of hectares with promiscuous culture in Chianti is minuscule. Nurseries throughout the regions of Tuscany and Romagna provided high-yielding rootstocks grafted onto vine budwood of unknown provenance.20 Agricultural consultants recommended wide spacing so that tractors could move easily in the vineyards. The contours of hills were smoothed or removed. Stone terraces that had been in place on steep hills for centuries were demolished, increasing erosion and water runoff and decreasing the sun’s ability to heat the soil via radiation absorbed by the stone walls. Suppliers from agrochemical companies pushed chemical herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers. This also increased erosion and depleted the population of microorganisms that had enriched the soil. The results were higher yields and disease resistance but low-quality fruit. Equipment such as tractors reduced person-hours. With less farm labor needed, estate owners were able to compensate, in part, for the loss of their sharecropper tenants. The concrete skeleton that scars the scenic roadway leading up to Castello di Volpaia in Radda is a monument to the wastefulness of indiscriminate public funding. This structure was meant to be a cooperative aging cellar for local wine producers. Italian state and EU funds supported the project. Its organizers, however, never asked the local Chianti Classico producers if they needed it. Well into the construction, which started in 1976, the project was suspended when it was evident that no one would use it. Ownership of the gray skeleton passed from the Ministry of Agriculture to the region of Tuscany and finally to the township of Radda, which plans to turn it into a parking garage. It takes an expert’s eye to identify poorly sited vineyards. A drive around Chianti Classico in the early 2000s with one of Tuscany’s leading enologists was eye opening. He occasionally waved his hand in disgust at vineyards planted on ill-suited soils. He could tell by the age of the vines and the way they were planted, at a low density in wide rows with wires stretched between concrete stakes. Nonetheless, because vineyards in Chianti Classico occupy only 10 percent of the countryside—unlike in Barolo, Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Alsace, where they take up a high percentage of the land—this landscape survived the 1965 to 1975 “improvements” much better than many other areas. From a wine quality perspective, the negative effects of poorly planned vineyards were more evident. They spanned the thirty-year productive life of these vineyards, roughly from 1970 to 2000. It is no coincidence that this was the period when Sangiovese was found lacking and when Cabernet Sauvignon and then Merlot and Syrah were introduced into Chianti Classico vineyards to “improve” the wine by making it darker and more concentrated. Paolo Panerai, the owner of Castellare, believes that the Chianti Classico wines of the 1950s and 1960s were better than those of subsequent decades, when producers were forced to use the FEOGA-generation grapes. Those subpar vineyards made it easier for “Super Tuscans” to rise above Chianti Classico in blind tastings. During the first decade of the 2000s, however, new vineyards replaced those planted from 1965 to 1975.

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S O C I A L U P H E AVA L

In addition to losing their agricultural workforce, large landholders saw runaway postwar inflation and rising land and income taxation devour their financial resources. Many did not have the expertise (or desire) to transform their estates into modern profit-making enterprises. To access cash, they sold off, one by one or en masse, the homesteads deserted by sharecroppers, leaving isolated stone houses and little stone ghost towns (like the villages of Olena and Ama before they were renovated beginning in the 1990s). During the 1970s, the value of Chianti Classico land and farm buildings was at a twentieth-century low point. Many buyers took advantage, coming from nearby industrial towns such as Pistoia or from Piedmont, Rome, and as far south as Naples. They were most often upper-middle-class Italian professionals who used their postwar disposable income to buy weekend homes in the countryside. Many of their properties became boutique wineries during the 1990s and 2000s. The De Marchi family from Piedmont purchased Isole e Olena in Barberino Val d’Elsa in 1956. In 1961, Aldo Bianchi from Milan also purchased land in Barberino, which later became Castello di Monsanto. In 1973, Italo Zingarelli, a film producer working in Rome, bought a deserted borgo (village) and created the Rocca delle Macìe wine estate, an eighty-five-hectare (210-acre) property in Castellina in Chianti. The British have a long-standing fascination with Florence and its environs. They also acquired properties in the city and its surrounding countryside in this period. By the 1970s and 1980s, the British were so well represented in Chianti that they referred to it as Chiantishire. John Dunkley bought a podere, Riecine, in Gaiole in 1971. The first vintage of Riecine Chianti Classico, the 1973, was released in 1975. Norman Bain, a Scot, bought fourteen hectares (thirty-five acres) in Panzano, which became the winery Le Masse di San Leolino. The Swiss often found refuge in Chianti Classico as well. In 1981, Brigitte and Bruno Widmer bought eight and a half hectares (twenty acres) of vineyards in Castellina. This became the Brancaia winery. In 1988, Roberto Guldener, another Swiss, bought Terrabianca, 124 hectares (307 acres) also in Castellina. But wine producers from northern Italy made larger purchases of land. In 1969, the Triacca family from Valtellina in Lombardy bought the old Villa Franchi estate (345 hectares, or 853 acres) in Greve in Chianti. They renamed it La Madonnina. In 1979, the Zonin family from the Veneto acquired Castello di Albola and more than eight hundred hectares (about two thousand acres, or more than three square miles) of land in Radda in Chianti. Outsiders like these made an important contribution to the restoration and preservation of the Chianti Classico landscape—and to the evolution of the Chianti Classico appellation.

C H I A N T I F I A S C O U N R AV E L S

After the Second World War, the labor force of flask dressers (usually women from tenant farmer or laborer families) was much less available to do the time-consuming and

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low-paying job of weaving dried reeds around “Chianti” flasks. As a result, the cost of producing the fiasco increased. In general, inexpensive “Chianti” continued to be bottled in the fiasco. During the postwar period, Melini still released most of its wines, most from External Chianti, in straw-covered fiaschi. Its image remained strongly attached to the fiasco, which did not help its reputation by the 1970s. More expensive Chianti and Chianti Classico DOC, on the other hand, were increasingly sold in Bordelais-style glass bottles. The Consorzio del Gallo began to discourage its members from using the fiasco in the 1960s. So immediately recognizable and endearing was it, however, that it remained in wide distribution until the 1970s. The key inflection point was 1969, when the number of Bordeaux bottles (0.2- to 5-liter, or 0.21- to 5.3-quart, sizes) registered as Chianti Classico exceeded the number of fiaschi (0.475- to 3.78-liter, or 0.502- to 3.99-quart, sizes) so registered. From then on, the standardization of packaging required by mechanized bottling lines, the use of wooden and cardboard boxes, and the need to stack bottles for storage further favored the Bordelais bottle over the Chianti flask.21 More important, for those producers wishing to distinguish themselves from run-of-the-mill “Chianti,” the fiasco was a barrier to moving upmarket. In the late 1970s the flask was the exception, not the rule, for Chianti Classico. Ruffino stopped bottling in fiaschi altogether in 1975. In their place, it introduced its own, trademark-protected (and less rustic) bottle design, the “Florentine.” This had some of the curve of the flask and was without a straw skirt. It was designed to project elegance and to connect subliminally with the historical appeal of the fiasco. A symbol of the rise of the bottle and the growing prestige of Chianti Classico was the introduction of magnums (1.49 liters, or 1.6 quarts) of Chianti Classico in 1972.22 But the fiasco was not a relic to everyone in Chianti. One of Tuscany’s most esteemed enologists, Giacomo Tachis, had great fondness for it. To him, the fiasco represented the authentic culture of Tuscany, particularly that of the original Chianti. He understood that the problem was not the container but the contents.

M E R C H A N T S D O M I N AT E T H E P O S T WA R P E R I O D

The Barone Ricasoli estate emerged from World War II as the blue-chip label for Chianti Classico. It defined Chianti wine in both prestige and market power. In the early 1950s, Luigi Ricasoli, at the helm of several thousands of hectares of Ricasoli-Firidolfi property, found his situation untenable as mezzadri left their poderi in droves and as the price of bulk Chianti Classico deteriorated to below the cost of production. Seeking another source of revenue, he speculated in olive oil, buying enormous quantities from Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Spain, and Portugal. In 1953 the price of olive oil collapsed, and he was forced to sell most of the Ricasoli-Firidolfi properties to cover his losses. Castello di Brolio and Castello di Cacchiano, however, remained Ricasoli estates. But Chianti was still in crisis and Brolio’s continued to mount. In 1958, Bettino Ricasoli, the namesake of the creator of the Chianti recipe, sold a 50 percent share of the Barone Ricasoli winery and brand to the Seagram’s drinks business while retaining ownership of the Castello di

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Brolio vineyards and the castle in Gaiole in Chianti. Seagram’s gradually increased its ownership to 95 percent before selling it to the British businessman Roger Lamberth in 1986. Under Seagram’s, the image of the Castello di Brolio / Barone Ricasoli wines was tarnished. As a global spirits company, it did not understand an Old World wine estate like Castello di Brolio. According to one experienced winegrower in Chianti, in the space of one year Seagram’s American executives managing the Brolio investment went from buying up all of the available Chianti Classico juice in the appellation to dumping on the market all of the Brolio Riserva wines from casks. Ironically, during its tenure in Chianti, Seagram’s sold more External Chianti than Chianti Classico wine. During the post–World War II period, the firms of Ruffino, Melini, and Serristori competed with Ricasoli for market visibility. But it was the Marchesi Antinori company that filled the vacuum created by the sale of Ricasoli to Seagram’s. Luigi Ricasoli and his family faced a much greater crisis than did the Antinori family when the mezzadria system began to collapse during the 1950s. Ricasoli was the largest landholder in Chianti, with thousands of hectares and many poderi. His entire agricultural empire fell apart. Niccolò Antinori, however, was a merchant without significant landholdings. His firm largely bought, blended, and sold wine. The company was well managed and well positioned to confront the new global wine market in the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Marchesi Antinori company evolved from modestly sized and known for its easy-to-drink (i.e., soft and fruity) Santa Cristina Chianti Classico wine to a large firm with an upscale image. Tachis, Antinori’s enologist from 1961 to 1993, described Niccolò Antinori, the father of Piero Antinori, who succeeded him as the company’s president in 1966, as the first person in Tuscany to understand the world of wine. According to Tachis, he was more perceptive than his Tuscan contemporaries about the future of the wine market. He bought vineyards to improve and stabilize the quality of the Antinori brand. He upgraded winery equipment. Antinori’s pre–World War II premium wine, Villa Antinori Chianti Classico, which was inspired by Bordeaux in style, packaging, and ability to age, found placements in embassies, hotels, and restaurants around the world. Under Antinori’s direction, the company created its own domestic sales network and sold directly to restaurants. The firm valued customer care, a modern perspective that replaced the traditional one, which left the job up to companies further down the distribution chain. In 1961, Antinori hired Tachis for his enological team. First as the winemaker and general manager for the Antinori company and later as a consulting winemaker for wineries throughout Italy, Tachis became the guiding light of Italian enology. Antinori understood the potential of Sassicaia, a Bordeaux blend from the Tuscan coast, and brought it to Tachis’s attention. Piero, after taking over from his father, ushered Antinori into the world market. Antinori of the 1970s and 1980s became the leader of the “Super Tuscan” movement. In so doing, it moved its emphasis away from Chianti Classico. Santa Cristina, named after a podere of a large fattoria, Montenisa, in San Casciano, went from being a Chianti Classico to a vino da tavola (table wine) in 1986–87 and then to an IGT (indicazione geografica tipica, a recently created

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category that, while linked to geographic territory, is less restrictive than the higher classifications of the DOC and the DOCG) in 1994. Villa Antinori was a Chianti Classico Riserva until 2001, when it also became an IGT. Ostensibly this shift in the change of legal classification was to allow for the use of lower-cost grapes and larger sources of supply. But during the 1970s, the company had realized that it could expand faster and make better margins by focusing on its brands and the prestige associated with the iconic beauty of Tuscany rather than the deteriorating image associated with the word Chianti. Italy’s largest public wine company, Gruppo Italiano Vini (GIV), purchased both Melini and Serristori in the postwar period. After acquiring Serristori, it built a new brand, Villa Machiavelli, bottled as a Chianti Classico. Another high-quality merchant company was Straccali, founded in 1925 by Giulio Straccali. This firm had a strong presence in the United States. Ruffino too had a strong overseas market presence, which it worked to strengthen. A merchant before a producer, Ruffino was more closely associated with the sale of External Chianti than of Chianti Classico. However, in 1955 it produced its Riserva Ducale as a Chianti Classico for the first time, signaling its interest in the prestige of Chianti Classico. In 1967, a year before the Folonari family (the owner of Ruffino) sold the Folonari winery in Brescia, the Ruffino company purchased its first estate in the Chianti Classico appellation, Fattoria di Zano in Greve in Chianti. In the United States of the late 1970s, the Ruffino Riserva Ducale gold label was an early Chianti Classico icon. In addition to the railway hub of Pontassieve northeast of the Chianti Classico zone, beginning in October 1964 Ruffino was perfectly positioned to take advantage of Autostrada A1, also known as the Autostrada del Sole (Motorway of the sun), which passed just to its south. This highway connects Milan with Naples via Bologna, Florence, Pontassieve, and Rome. It is the most important highway in Italy. The locus for lower-cost volume “Chianti” (both External and Classico) was Poggibonsi, just southwest of the Chianti Classico zone. It is on the Empoli-Siena railroad line and the Superstrada del Palio, a toll-free highway that links Siena and Florence. Poggibonsi is the site of the Granducato Enopolio, the winemaking production facility of the Consorzio Agraria di Siena (Agricultural cooperative of Siena). Before the Second World War and during the early postwar period, the Enopolio was an important center for collection, blending, and transporting southern Chianti Classico wine, as well as External Chianti and Vernaccia di San Gimignano wine. After World War II, Poggibonsi’s two most important merchant houses, Cecchi and Piccini, grew quickly. They both had a working-class image. Cecchi’s solid working-class roots connected its wines to Italian immigrants throughout the Americas. In the 1960s, the Cecchi family acquired its own piece of Chianti, Villa Cerna in Castellina. The story of Piccini is not unlike that of Cecchi, one of expansion into a world looking for good-value “Chianti,” with successive generations making greater investments in Chianti Classico and eventually moving the firm’s winery into Castellina. In this regard, the Cecchi family showed vision ahead of some of the most prominent Florentine landholding families, who made sizable

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investments decades later to acquire (either by purchase or by long-term lease) vineyards in the Chianti Classico appellation.

T H E R I S E O F C O O P E R AT I V E W I N E R I E S

During the 1950s, on the Tuscan coast and in many other areas of Italy, the Italian government expropriated land from large agricultural landholdings called latifundia and redistributed pieces to poor farmers, often those who lived and had worked there as sharecroppers. It was common for these farmers to join other small farmers to form cooperatives. There were many advantages to doing so. The cooperative gave them protection against the often exploitive behavior of merchants. To enter the market, small farmers had to overcome the handicap of their marginal negotiating power. By organizing cooperatives, they could work as co-owners to pool their resources, particularly their crops and capital, and thereby attain economies of scale. They could hire technicians to transform their crops into marketable wine and market specialists to commercialize it. These groups also formed voting blocks that could cultivate the support of politicians. Cooperatives usually had a political leaning, to the right, left, or center, and typically had a political sponsor (such as an elected official at the regional or national level), who initially helped them to organize and secure funding from governmental programs such as the Piani Verdi and FEOGA initiatives. Social democratic political policies looked favorably on cooperative enterprises because they preserved livelihoods during a period of great change. The Communist Party also favored cooperative associations. However, land reform never occurred in Chianti. Unlike in other areas of Italy, where only small landholders formed wine cooperatives, in Chianti landholders of all sizes did so. With the sudden breakdown of the mezzadria system during the 1950s, the former padroni (the plural of padrone) in traditional Chianti moved to form cooperative associations to buffer the negative effects of this disintegration and to manage the costs of planting specialized vineyards and building new wineries. They took advantage of the Piani Verdi and FEOGA programs, which preferentially gave funds, tax breaks, and low- or no-interest loans to cooperatives. The joint vinification, storage, bottling, and stocking facilities of cooperatives were low cost and efficient. Farmers could share in the profits from growing their grapes and processing and commercializing the resulting wine. In 1961, the cooperative Agricoltori del Chianti Geografico (Farmers of geographic Chianti) was formed. Its members were large landholders, mostly from the southern half of Chianti Classico. In 1965, the entrepreneur Gualtiero Armando Nunzi organized small to large winegrowers in Chianti Classico into the Castelli del Grevepesa cooperative. It became large quickly, operating principally in the northern half of the Chianti Classico appellation. Both cooperatives were allied with Christian Democracy, which was the dominant, center-left party in Italy during the postwar period. Though smaller than Castelli del Grevepesa, Agricoltori del Chianti Geografico was politically well connected.

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Its sponsor was Amintore Fanfani, the prime minister of Italy for most of the period between 1958 and 1963. In 1975, the cooperative Le Chiantigiane was formed at Tavarnelle Val di Pesa. Unlike the others, it did not vinify its own wine but instead bought bulk wine, consolidated it, and resold it either in bulk or in bottle. This cooperative was closely allied with the Communist Party, which, particularly during the 1970s, appealed to former mezzadri and to many other lower-class and lower-middle-class Tuscans. It produced considerably less Chianti Classico than the other two cooperatives. During the 1970s and 1980s, Chianti Classico cooperatives began to compete with merchants in their volume of production. At the outset, the cooperatives sold most of the Chianti Classico wine that they produced in bulk to merchants, who bottled it under their own brand names. Increasing unsold stocks in the early 1980s forced cooperatives to bottle and commercialize their own wines. During that period, merchants also began to rely on the production of their own vineyards. By the early 1990s, the cooperatives were the largest-volume producers of Chianti Classico wine. However, during that decade members began to peel away as they sought to take advantage of the booming market by bottling Chianti Classico wines (and Super Tuscans) under their own estate labels.

A DIVIDED GALLO NERO

Despite the wrangling between the two Chianti consortia in the years leading up to the unified Chianti DOC in 1967, the late 1960s were hopeful for the Chianti Classico consortium. The black rooster symbol was strong as an indication of authenticity and quality. The consortium controlled 90 percent of the production of Chianti Classico DOC wine.23 However, the 1970s were a difficult decade for the consortium and for Chianti Classico in general. The division between Chianti Classico and External Chianti masked the underlying divisions within the Chianti Classico consortium. One obvious fault line was between large producer-merchants such as Ruffino on the one hand and growers such as Fonterutoli who sold wine to producer-merchants on the other hand. The cooperatives were a new market player; in effect, they acted as large producers composed of growers of all sizes. Until the early 1970s, merchants had accounted for more than 70 percent of the Chianti Classico wine attributed to the consortium, according to Ser Lapo Mazzei. But during that decade, growers, who had previously supplied the merchants with wine, began to bottle some of their own production. This newfound source of income made them less dependent on the merchants. The number of consortium-member bottlers grew from 56 in 1967 to 242 in 1974,24 a sign of the coming transformation. During the mid-1970s, the volume of wine produced by cooperatives that were consortium members also increased. The merchants had fundamentally different interests than the growers, grower-bottlers, and cooperatives. The consortium’s operations were largely funded by fees associated with the volume of wine that members registered. There was an added fee for the black rooster neck labels that advertised consortium membership. At the beginning of 1974, a group of

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midsize and small producers in the consortium insisted that the payment for the neck labels should increase and that this money be used to promote the black rooster mark. The large producers and merchants, among them Ricasoli, Antinori, Serristori, and San Felice, strongly resisted this proposal.25 These producers (who also acted as merchants, buying up bulk wine throughout the appellation) did not want to share the black rooster mark with inexperienced grower-bottlers, whom they claimed were making inferior wines. Publicly, they stated that the consortium should invest more in regulatory controls and less in marketing (particularly of the black rooster symbol, which they maintained was already dominant). They argued that they had invested significantly in the promotion of their estate brands and should not be compelled to contribute more to the consortium for the neck labels in order to sustain small producers with little brand recognition of their own. Privately, they could not tolerate the idea of sharing a logo with novice bottlers, whom they believed had not invested sufficiently in their products. They also feared that subsidizing smaller bottlers would lead to a reduction in the supply of wine in the bulk market over the long run, as more small growers bottled their own wine. In January 1974 several large producers issued an ultimatum that they would leave the consortium if it used funds for the promotion of the black rooster instead of ensuring quality control as required by the DOC law and consortium standards. The board of directors rejected the ultimatum in March. The stage was set for some serious changes within the consortium. At the same board of directors meeting, Bettino Ricasoli Firidolfi, the president of the consortium, resigned. Given that Seagram’s then owned the controlling share of the Ricasoli winery and merchant house, the Ricasoli company’s interests were aligned with the large producers. It and the Antinori company immediately made good on their ultimatum and resigned. Ruffino’s Chianti Classico–based estates, Zano, Nozzole, and Montemasso, also left the consortium. Mazzei, one of the vice presidents, was offered the president’s role. Recalling this moment to us forty years later, in 2014, he recounted how he had received telephone calls warning him not to assume the presidency because without the support of the large producers, the consortium would not survive. He told the callers that he would not be swayed by fear. His answer to each of them: “Why not try?” Mazzei accepted the presidency that month, March 1974 (two months before the fiftieth anniversary of the Chianti Classico consortium). He had more to lose than his reputation. His farm, Fonterutoli, at the time sold most of its grapes to large merchants. As retribution, they could have stopped buying from him. His executive position at the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (Savings bank of Florence) and hence his connection to the financial world and credit markets bolstered his support among consortium members and probably warded off his enemies. His authoritative style was a marked change from the more gentle and laissez-faire Ricasoli. Someone strong was needed to keep the consortium together, and a strong man was what it got. The impact of the departure of Antinori, Ricasoli, and Ruffino was immediate. In 1974, the consortium’s members produced 143,144 hectoliters (3.8 million gallons) of

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Chianti Classico wine. In the first full year following the departure of these large producers, that quantity dropped precipitously, to 85,182 hectoliters (2.3 million gallons). By 1976, however, the volume rebounded, to 134,558 hectoliters (3.6 million gallons), due to the entry of cooperative wineries such as Castelli del Grevepesa into the consortium’s ranks.26

SEMINAL ADVISORS IN THE FIELD

Until the 1970s, Tuscans perceived grape growing and winemaking as separate, almost disconnected, enterprises. Grapes were grown in the vineyard, and wine was made in the cellar. Giulio Gambelli and Giacomo Tachis were the men of the cellar who had the greatest impact on Chianti Classico beginning in that decade. Gambelli was Chianti Classico DOC to his core. He was born and raised in Poggibonsi, and his principal haunts were the cellars of southwestern Chianti Classico and Montalcino. He was dedicated to Sangiovese and its native expression. Though Gambelli worked in many cellars as a master taster, influencing how their wines were vinified, matured, and blended for many years, Montevertine was the only estate that put his name on the front label. In the 1970s, Tachis was not recognized in public literature beyond his role at Antinori. He liked full-bodied red wines with structure, understood what the market and journalists wanted, and had a great influence on the style of Tuscan red wine. There were two viticultural specialists who worked closely with him during this period, Carlo Modi and Valerio Barbieri. Modi was both an agronomist and a functionary in the Tuscan agricultural bureaucracy. Junior to Modi, Barbieri became a freelance viticultural consultant in Chianti Classico in 1972 (after serving as a farm manager at Isole e Olena in the 1960s). Tachis recognized their talents and worked closely with both men. For a region to develop a sophisticated wine culture, it must cultivate expert wine tasters. In Italy, someone who could recognize wines’ provenance and quality by sampling them and who could foresee how they could be successfully blended was given the informal title of master wine taster, or, in Italian, palatista or maestro assaggiatore. Palatistas often worked in the trade as agents or mediatori for merchant houses. They developed their innate skill by tasting numerous wine samples every day. Luigi Cecchi, Giulio Straccali, and Duilio Fossi, the owner of a small Florentine merchant wine house of the same name, were great palatistas. Among wine consultants, Gambelli, Tachis, and Mario Cortevesio, a Piedmontese working out of Greve, demonstrated the same skill. They directly trained and indirectly influenced many of today’s best tasters in the Tuscan wine trade. Since the 1980s, professional wine critics and journalists have assumed the role of palatista, though they have a different mission and impact on the wine trade. Enrico Bosi was Chianti Classico’s first modern wine critic. He published Atlante del Chianti Classico in 1972. This book caused an uproar because it dared to rank the wines of the zone from one to four stars. It would not be the last publication to do so.

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MARKET MOVES AND CHALLENGES

In addition to assisting its members to secure Italian and EU funds, the Chianti Classico consortium supported scientific research, setting up stations within the appellation to monitor rainfall and conducting experiments. During the 1970s, the Notiziario del Chianti Classico, the consortium’s monthly publication for members, expanded its coverage of scientific and commercial issues faced by wine producers. The volume of advertisements by viticultural and enological suppliers also increased. The consortium held several conventions at the Palazzo dei Congressi, a prestigious conference location in Florence. These events brought together key politicians, scientists, professors, and industry representatives. The consortium’s director, Guglielmo Anzilotti, with other influential members, created a new Lega del Chianti, a society dedicated to the preservation of Chianti’s wine and culture. With all this help, Chianti Classico producers should have improved quality and moved upmarket. Unfortunately, the marginal raw material that growers planted beginning in the 1960s in connection with the Piani Verdi and FEOGA agricultural programs yielded huge volumes of low-concentration fruit, which made it difficult for them to make the leap. This volume was the result of high-yielding clones and rootstocks, heavy fertilization, and other new vineyard technologies, and this destabilized the bulk market for Chianti Classico wine. From 1967 to 1977 the annual production of Chianti Classico more than doubled, from 117,000 to 300,000 hectoliters (3,090,813 to 7,925,162 gallons), to this day still its maximum.27 The wines were so light and thin that it was well known that they were “corrected” by other Italian wines, particularly those from the south. The large merchants were in a better position to take advantage of these “corrective” measures. They sent their enologists to secure sources of bulk wine in Sicily, Apulia, and Sardinia. After a surge in bulk wine prices for Chianti Classico in 1973,28 the combination of dropping domestic consumption, rising yields, and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ oil embargo of 1974, which was followed by a worldwide stock market crash, resulted in a severe drop in bulk wine prices in 1975. There was too much supply and too little demand. The late 1960s bulk pricing that had put a premium on Chianti Classico over External Chianti had only been temporary. By the 1970s, the difference in their bulk wine prices became too small to justify Chianti Classico’s lower required yields and higher agricultural costs. In 1975 and 1976, Chianti Classico also had unsustainably high ratios of stock to production, respectively 2.5:1 and 2.4:1. The smaller production volume from 1975 through 1978 helped to reduce its inventory and reach the ratio of 1.2:1 by 1979.29 However, as of 1978, the cost of production was still higher than the sale price on the bulk market.30 The situation remained bleak into the early 1980s. More and more estates, unable to sell their wines in bulk at a reasonable price, took the risk of bottling and commercializing it. At the end of the 1970s, the United States became the most important export market for Chianti Classico. In the early 1980s, it

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accounted for 20 percent of the wine exported by Chianti Classico consortium members. With higher per-bottle prices than the German and U.K. markets, the U.S. market helped to establish a foundation for higher margins during the mid-to-late 1980s.

SASSICAIA: INFLUENTIAL OUTSIDER

With all of the legal, commercial, and agricultural challenges that Chianti Classico faced in the 1960s and 1970s, the appellation had not built a reputation for quality. Merchants there were still constructing blends with wines purchased from fattorie that neither grew quality grapes nor had the infrastructure to vinify correctly. Chianti Classico was burdened with the image not only of External Chianti but also of the fiasco. In this atmosphere of stagnation, a wine that would change Tuscany was born in Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast. The story began after World War II. Niccolò Antinori’s brother-in-law Mario Incisa della Rocchetta made a wine at his Tenuta San Guido estate that he named Sassicaia after a vineyard of less than one hectare (about 2.5 acres) cut out of the woods on a hill at 350 meters (about 1,150 feet) above sea level. Incisa, Piedmontese by origin and a lover of Bordeaux red wines, made Sassicaia for his dinner table and as gifts for his friends. According to his son Nicolò, the first vintage was “probably” the 1948. The grapes came principally from old local clones of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. Incisa eschewed the traditional large chestnut barrels typical of Tuscan winemaking in favor of French barriques, made of oak. Sassicaia remained largely unknown for about fifteen years. Then Incisa planted an extra nine hectares (twenty-two acres) of Cabernet in 1963 and began to think about selling some of it. Antinori tasted the wine and recognized its quality but noted that it had some volatile acidity. He brought the wine to the attention of his enologist, Tachis. Tachis took control of the winemaking, reduced the volatile acidity, and stabilized the wine for commercial sale. In the early 1970s, Piero Antinori, having taken over the management of the Antinori company from his father, expressed an interest in commercializing the wine. Incisa agreed, and the first commercial vintage was the 1968. Since no DOC or DOCG was applicable to Sassicaia, they released it as common table wine, a vino da tavola. Incisa invited the famous journalist Luigi Veronelli to taste the wine. Veronelli wrote an article in 1974 in which he praised the 1968 vintage. Widespread acclaim came in 1978, when, at a blind tasting in London, the 1972 Sassicaia was served along with thirtythree of the world’s most famous wines and was judged the best. It became the archetype for other Tuscan and Italian wine producers. With its Bordeaux varietals and barrique maturation, Sassicaia inspired other Chianti Classico producers to seek their fame and fortune by also going outside the Italian denomination of origin wine law. Making wines with deeper color and more structure like the classified châteaux of Bordeaux, estates in Chianti found it easier to get press attention and move upmarket (in prestige and price) with Sassicaia-like wines than with their Chianti Classico wines. By the mid-1980s, the American wine press had anointed this new marketing category “Super Tuscans.” With

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the proliferation of these wines, the trade and consumers came to view Chianti Classico’s Riserva category as too traditional. Riservas also usually lacked a unique “sell” story, while Super Tuscans typically came with one. As Super Tuscans overshadowed Chianti Classico’s wines, history, culture, and place were sidelined.

S U P E R T U S C A N I N VA S I O N

The Antinori company’s second Super Tuscan was Tignanello. Like Sassicaia, it was named for the originating vineyard, though unlike Sassicaia it was born in the Chianti Classico appellation (in the south-central area of the township of San Casciano). In 1970, Antinori released its first Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva Vigneto Tignanello. In 1971, however, Tignanello was released as a vino da tavola instead of a Chianti Classico Riserva. The reason that the company gave for this reclassification was that Tignanello had small doses of white grapes—namely, Trebbiano and Malvasia del Chianti in an amount significantly less than the 10 percent minimum required by the DOC regulations. According to Piero Antinori, the second vintage of Tignanello (which was released in 1975) was the first to include Cabernet Sauvignon. At that time, producers in Chianti Classico began to follow Antinori’s lead and use less than the minimum of white grapes required by law and more French vine varieties such as Cabernet and Merlot in their blends. Tignanello was the first Sangiovese-dominant wine to mature in barriques. This was not inconsistent with the Chianti Classico DOC regulations. The oaky aroma imparted by new barriques and the way the oak-derived tannins bulked up the palate, however, pushed the wine’s profile, regardless of varietal blend, toward Bordeaux and away from Tuscany. Antinori and Tachis were the architects of Tignanello. It became not only the calling card of Marchesi Antinori but also one of the company’s most profitable brands (if not the most profitable). The section of the Tignanello vineyard dedicated to producing the wine is fifty-seven hectares (141 acres). It has a large production for highpriced wine, amounting to several hundred thousand bottles per year. Tignanello made Antinori the envy of ambitious wine producers in Chianti Classico, in Tuscany, and in Italy—and it still does.

SANGIOVESE SUPER TUSCANS

While the Super Tuscan label was popularly applied to many “Bordeaux blends” inspired by Sassicaia and its followers, there was another Super Tuscan revolution in progress. It was born of the same frustration with Italian wine law and the endless War of Chianti. However, the Chianti Classico producers who launched this revolution took their inspiration more from Sangiovese than from Cabernet Sauvignon. The little-known second Super Tuscan, and the first from Chianti Classico, was the 1968 Vigorello of San Felice from Castelnuovo Berardenga. Enzo Morganti was managing San Felice when the wine was created. It was a 100 percent Sangiovese and therefore could not be labeled a Chianti

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Classico, because the rules in the Chianti DOC discipline mandated the use of white varieties. The master taster Gambelli assisted Morganti in the cellar with this wine. Next, Fabrizio Bianchi, the owner of Castello di Monsanto in Barberino Val d’Elsa, released the 1974 Sangioveto Grosso “Chianti V.Q.P.R.D., dai Vigneti di Scanni.” Though the word Chianti was printed on the label, this wine was also 100 percent Sangiovese. Thus, it was technically in violation of the Chianti Classico DOC discipline. Bianchi released the 1975 vintage with a legal label: “1975 Sangioveto Grosso, vino da tavola, Vigna Scanni.” Le Pergole Torte, first released by Sergio Manetti of Montevertine in 1977, was and has remained 100 percent Sangiovese. Gambelli also helped to make this wine. Castello di Querceto’s first vintage of La Corte, another 100 percent Sangiovese single-vineyard wine, was 1978. From 1979 through 1985, several other important Chianti Classico winegrowers took up the cause of Sangiovese, including Castellare (I Sodi di San Niccolò), Montagliari (Brunesco di San Lorenzo), Castello di Volpaia (Coltassala), Isole e Olena (Cepparello), Badia a Coltibuono (Sangioveto), Fontodi (Flaccianello della Pieve), Riecine (La Gioia), Fèlsina (Fontalloro), and San Giusto a Rentennano (Percarlo). Though these producers embraced Sangiovese as the noble vine variety of Chianti, many also emulated the Bordeaux technology that Tachis employed in making Sassicaia and Tignanello. Those Sangiovese Super Tuscan producers who used new French barriques for aging (instead of the more traditional, bigger-format chestnut or oak casks) created wines that smelled of new oak and were richer and fuller in the mouth than Chianti Classico. Manetti’s Pergole Torte was the archetype of the “traditional” Sangiovese Super Tuscan. He sought to challenge Brunello di Montalcino, a zone where 100 percent Sangiovese wine was still being made using traditional techniques.

CHIANTI DOC BECOMES A DOCG

In 1963, Law 930 established the framework for a DOCG category, to recognize those DOCs that elected to adhere to higher standards. Since August 1970, the Chianti Classico consortium had sought a DOCG, but its hands were tied by its inclusion in the unified Chianti DOC, whose dominant member, the External Chianti consortium, was politically more powerful. In 1980, Brunello di Montalcino became the first DOCG; Vino Nobile di Montepulciano followed in 1981. DOCGs were novel and ignited the interest of wine journalists. The combination of a growing, better traveled, and more educated American middle class with disposable income, a new interest in Tuscany as a center of fashion and culture, increased tourism from the United States because of lower airfares, and finally the increased popularity of Italian cuisine over French cuisine in the U.S. restaurant scene helped fuel interest in quality bottled wine from Italy. Since the DOCG would give even more value to the denomination of origin, it would be favorable to small and midsize Chianti Classico estates, which lacked the scale and resources to get their wines known in major markets. It would also require lower production yields, almost certainly resulting in higher grape and bulk wine prices in the trade.

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Therefore, the DOCG was hard to sell to the large merchants. However, by the mid-1970s those in the Chianti Classico consortium, such as Melini and Cecchi, had already invested in vineyards in the zone to ensure stable sources of supply. (During the 1980s, the Marchesi Antinori company purchased its Badia a Passignano and Pèpoli vineyards in Chianti Classico, and Ruffino purchased its Santedame vineyard in Castellina in Chianti.) There was increasing pressure on the Chianti Classico consortium to secure the DOCG distinction. Nonmember producers would also benefit. As a subzone of the Chianti DOC, Chianti Classico by the early 1980s recognized that it needed to collaborate with External Chianti to secure approval of a Chianti DOCG from Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture. As part of this law, however, it would push for greater distinctions between Chianti Classico and External Chianti. Gualtiero Armando Nunzi, then the vice president of the Chianti Classico consortium, sensed that the political climate was favorable. As he had done in 1967 for the Chianti DOC, he zealously advocated for the Chianti Classico consortium to enter into negotiations with the External Chianti consortia to get an agreement on a framework for a unified Chianti DOCG. Chianti Classico and External Chianti in lockstep won their unified DOCG in 1984. The immediate impacts for Chianti Classico were higher prices for bulk wine sold to the trade, stability in the number of bottles produced, and increased turnover, due to growth in by-thebottle sales. The bulk price per quintal rose from 46,000 lire in 1980 to 58,000 in 1984 to 150,000 in 1987.31 Besides empowering the Chianti Classico consortium to monitor and protect against misuse of the geographic indication Chianti Classico, the new DOCG gave it responsibility for supervising its members’ adherence to the stricter regulations. However, pursuant to the DOCG legal framework, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture had delegated responsibility for screening finished wines in bottle to local chambers of commerce, which had to assess whether they met the additional chemical and organoleptic requirements of the DOCG regulations. The chambers of commerce for Chianti Classico operated at the provincial level. Since the zone was divided between the provinces of Florence and Siena, the chamber of commerce from each conducted tastings of finished wines for DOCG certification. The Chianti Classico consortium facilitated these tastings by collecting wine samples and hosting the tastings in its offices. Local enologists, for the most part, made up the tasting commissions. Successful entries (nearly all were successful) would have a pink DOCG award band (fascetta) wrapped around the neck of each bottle. The black rooster, once allowed to strut on its own, now had to do so underneath a pink paper halo. Nonmembers of the consortium could deal directly with the chambers of commerce to obtain the DOCG fascetta. The 1984 vintage was the first to come up for DOCG consideration. It was one of the worst in recorded history for Chianti Classico. Incessant rain and attacks of mold in the vineyards had marked the growing season. Nonetheless, the chambers of commerce passed nearly all the wines for DOCG certification. The Chianti Classico consortium could have been more selective in granting the black rooster seals for these wines. Unfor-

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tunately, rather than show the vigilance associated with the black rooster symbol, it gave seals to virtually all of the wines submitted by its members that had already received DOCG approval. The black rooster ceased to represent a higher standard than the law. Italian regulators recognized the consortium’s dual role of both supervising and promoting its members as a conflict of interest, and in 1987 the government required it to split its functions between two consortia. The Chianti Classico consortium continued to fulfill its quality control obligations under the DOCG discipline. Its promotional and marketing activities (including the awarding of the black rooster seals) were transferred to the new Consorzio del Gallo Nero (Black rooster consortium). Though the black rooster neck label had more stringent regulations than the DOCG fascetta (at least on paper), the Consorzio del Gallo Nero so rarely failed wines which had already been awarded DOCG certification that the black rooster seal was nothing more than a badge of paid membership in the new consortium. DOCG certification in effect superseded the black rooster symbol in representing that a wine met the Chianti Classico denomination’s standards of identity and quality. As a result, some members of the Chianti Classico consortium did not enroll in the Consorzio del Gallo Nero, and their membership diverged more over time. However, notwithstanding their legal separation, the same office building housed them both. It was not uncommon for an employee of one consortium to move across the hall to become an employee of the other. The split caused confusion. Chianti Classico had been complicated enough, but even more confusion was to come.

GUERRA DEL GALLO

In 1986, the Chianti Classico consortium made a fateful marketing decision. It published a full-page advertisement in Wine Spectator to announce the upcoming birth of the Consorzio del Gallo Nero and promote Chianti Classico wine. The E. and J. Gallo Winery owned the registered trademark Gallo in the United States and had consistently used the word on its wines since 1933. It sent a cease-and-desist letter in early 1987 to the Chianti Classico consortium warning against any further trademark infringement. In 1989 the fledgling Consorzio del Gallo Nero launched its own U.S. marketing campaign, prominently displaying the words Gallo Nero to promote the consortium members’ wines. The Gallo Winery promptly sued in U.S. federal district court. Believing that its historic claims to the Gallo Nero mark trumped the E. and J. Gallo Winery’s trademark rights, the Consorzio del Gallo Nero responded by filing a counterclaim to obtain a declaratory judgment that its use of the word Gallo did not infringe on or dilute the U.S. winery’s trademark rights. The Gallo Winery won the battle in 1991. The Consorzio del Gallo Nero was forced to change its name and cease using the word Gallo in its publications in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, where the Gallo Winery had registered its name as a trademark. Moreover, it had to pay for the Gallo Winery’s legal expenses. However, it could still use its black rooster symbol worldwide. The Consorzio del Gallo Nero changed its name to Consorzio del Marchio Storico Chianti Classico in 1992. Il marchio storico

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means “the historic mark,” an oblique reference to the black rooster. This defeat must have been salt in the wounds of Chianti Classico. After losing control of the name Chianti to External Chianti decades earlier, it had now lost the right to use the name of its proud standard-bearer, the Gallo Nero, in its most important export markets.

DOCG STIRS CHANGE

The unified Chianti DOCG allowed each Chianti subzone to set more stringent regulations for itself than the base discipline. Chianti Classico had the most stringent conditions of all: 2 to 5 percent of the white varieties, Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia del Chianti (versus the 5 to 10 percent of the External Chianti subzones), and a minimum alcohol level, 12 percent, higher than the 11.5 percent requirement of the External Chianti subzones. It also had the most stringent yield regulations, seventy-five quintals per hectare (3.3 tons per acre). External Chianti set its requirement at one hundred quintals per hectare (4.5 tons per acre), though the consortia for the Chianti Rufina and Chianti Colli Fiorentini subzones established upper yields of eighty quintals per hectare (3.6 tons per acre). The 1984 varietal recipe stipulated that a Chianti Classico DOCG wine include 75 to 90 percent Sangiovese, 5 to 10 percent Canaiolo Nero, and 2 to 5 percent of Trebbiano Toscano, Malvasia del Chianti, or a mix of the two. Complementary varieties were capped at 10 percent. While the 1984 DOCG regulations eliminated sales in bulk directly to consumers, which reduced opportunities for fraud, they failed to ban the corrective addition of wine, up to 15 percent, which allowed wine to enter from outside the appellation and the region. Some producers used this loophole to add international varieties to their wines. By 1994, however, the 15 percent corrective addition was disallowed because it was inconsistent with EU regulations.

C O N S U LT I N G E N O L O G I S T S

During the 1980s, consulting enologists, a new breed, made their presence known in the Chianti Classico zone. The new owners of estates were largely unfamiliar with the wine industry. They earned their livelihoods in other sectors. Until now, grower-bottlers had made little attempt to craft wines to meet the tastes of consumers and the growing wine press. The consumer trend then was for more deeply colored, ripe fruit–scented, and concentrated but soft-textured wines. Owners needed consulting enologists to “pull the switches” to make wines approaching this profile—no easy task with Sangiovese. The help could also not be full time, because their operations were small. A part-time consulting enologist was less expensive and could direct a cellar master (cantiniere) who worked full time at the estate but had less technical training. Vittorio Fiore, Franco Bernabei, and Maurizio Castelli were the most visible members of this generation of consulting enologists. Beginning in the late 1970s, they established

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high-profile client relationships. By the late 1980s they were so important that the Consorzio del Gallo Nero listed the consulting enologists of members in its catalogue. As wine journalists became opinion leaders in the trade and with consumers, estate owners began using the names of their consulting enologists as calling cards, because this gave their wines instant credibility. In the absence of a present and knowledgeable owner, the name of the consulting enologist was like a brand, a shortcut to understanding the style and quality of the wine.

CHIANTI CLASSICO CONTINUES TO ADAPT

Sangiovese makes wines lacking in concentration and substantial texture, especially compared with those containing Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. It is very sensitive to inclement weather because of its delicate, thin skin. The Sangiovese-dominant vineyards planted throughout Chianti Classico in the 1960s and 1970s aimed at quantity, not quality, of production. As a result, most of these vines were poor performers during the 1980s. To compensate for this deficiency, producers planted first Cabernet Sauvignon and then increasing amounts of Merlot in that decade. Cabernet Sauvignon makes wines that are very different from Sangiovese—darker and more vegetal scented, sour, and astringent. In Chianti’s climate, Merlot lacks the vegetal scent, the sourness, and the more persistent astringency of Cabernet. It blends seamlessly with Sangiovese, adding color and soft texture. The 1980s were also when producers, usually on the recommendation of consulting enologists, purchased toasted-oak barriques (225-liter, or 59-gallon, capacity), mostly from France, for maturing their wines. These helped to stabilize the color, gave a toasted-wood aroma (in great demand in the United States), and provided more texture in the mouth. During this period, Chianti Classico producers had to decide what to do with their white grape vines. Many were Trebbiano or Malvasia. The wine press, consumers, and enologists cried out for their exclusion from the blend. They made the wines pale and thin on the palate and shortened their shelf life. While a group of large merchants proposed to use these varieties in a new white wine type called Galestro, first launched by Antinori in 1977, the Chianti Classico consortium created its own white wine type, Bianco della Lega, the first vintage being the 1981. Both Galestro and Bianco della Lega failed to become popular, and Chianti Classico producers planted red grape vines in place of Trebbiano and Malvasia Bianca. The infusion of outside capital also spurred Chianti Classico’s adaption to the modern wine world. During the 1980s and even more during the 1990s, wealthy individuals from outside Chianti Classico who had made their fortunes in industries other than wine bought and renovated poderi and fattorie, planted vineyards, built small wineries, and began bottling their own wine in the zone. At the same time, wine merchants there bought properties and vineyards and became proprietor-bottlers themselves. The income of these properties was supplemented by turning their old farm buildings into individual

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holiday farmhouses called agriturismi (the plural of agriturismo). Subsidies and tax incentives fueled this renewal, which intensified during the wine and tourism boom of the 1990s. The controlled renovation of abandoned buildings protected the historic appearance of the Chianti countryside.

THE CHALLENGE OF A NEW WORLD MARKET

At the beginning of the 1990s, the export market for Chianti Classico wine became more important than the domestic market. Its most important foreign markets were Germany, followed by Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Japan in particular was a growing market. As the U.S. and Japanese currencies were strong against the lira, the Chianti Classico zone also became a tourist attraction for American and Japanese wine consumers who were visiting Florence and its environs. The total yearly production of 280,000 hectoliters (7.4 million gallons; this was the 1992 figure, but production typically oscillated between 250,000 and 300,000 hectoliters, or 6.6 and 7.9 million gallons, per year) met the needs of the market. Production, stock turnover, and sales were in balance. Small independent wine estates were able to find foreign buyers more easily than in previous years, because of the growing worldwide interest in and demand for Tuscan wine. During this decade (particularly its second half ) the wine business and associated industries grew rapidly and were increasingly profitable. From 1990 to 1995, the bulk price of Chianti Classico wine rose from one hundred thousand to more than two hundred thousand lire per hectoliter.32 As a result, bottled wine prices rose. Onceabandoned poderi became boutique wineries overnight, which sprung up like wildflowers on the first day of spring. Because of the positive market situation and availability of credit, growers increasingly abandoned wine cooperatives in order to vinify, bottle, and commercialize their own wines, a trend that continued into the next century. As a result, the cooperative movement stalled and then declined. In 1992, the members of the Chianti Classico consortium accounted for 82 percent of the appellation’s production, while the members of the Marchio Storico promotional consortium accounted for only 49 percent. Not only large estates and merchants such as Antinori and Ruffino but also some of the elite small estates such as Monsanto, Isole e Olena, Castello dei Rampolla, and Castello di Ama elected to stay out of the Marchio Storico consortium, so as to control their own marketing.

CHIANTI CLASSICO DIVORCES CHIANTI

The negotiations over the Chianti DOCG in 1984 had been an opportunity for Chianti Classico to further differentiate itself from External Chianti. Then, in 1992, a new piece of wine legislation, Law 164, ushered in a sweeping set of regulations that provided the opening Chianti Classico needed to secure its freedom from External Chianti. In addition

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to creating the IGT classification—more regulated than vino da tavola, which had previously given legal standing to Super Tuscan wines—Article 5 provided a legal mechanism for classico zones, the original, historic zones on which larger ones were based, to obtain independent appellations, whether at the DOC or the DOCG level. Beyond legalities, Chianti Classico’s representation of the Chianti DOCG in the market more than justified its claim to its own DOCG. In 1992, 82 percent of the Chianti DOCG wine bottled for that year was attributed to and labeled as Chianti Classico.33 Very few producers in the subzones of External Chianti identified their wines by subzone on their labels, instead opting to use just the name Chianti. In 1996, Italian regulators decreed that Chianti Classico could be an autonomous DOCG. Independence from External Chianti had long been Chianti Classico’s goal. But this gain in independence can also be seen as the final legal loss of its rightful claim to be the one and only Chianti. The divorce meant that the original territory of Chianti— now called Chianti Classico—was no longer part of the wine zone of “Chianti,” while External Chianti would have the exclusive right to the name Chianti for all of its wines (and, in practice, for its vast territory of seven subzones, which today the Consorzio Vino Chianti’s website describes as “the places of Chianti”).34 In 1997, External Chianti shone a spotlight on its control of the Chianti name when it gained the right from the Ministry of Agriculture to use the Superiore (Superior) designation. Ironically, the Consorzio del Gallo had announced its intent to use a Superiore qualification in its amended Statuto of September 20, 1927.35 This official category, secured by External Chianti seventy years later, was a higher level for wines labeled as Chianti DOCG but without a subzone name. The Superiore classification is used in other appellations, such as Valpolicella, Soave, Barbera d’Asti, Verdicchio, Valtellina, Frascati, and Marsala. It haunts Chianti Classico producers, because Superiore connotes higher quality more effectively than Classico, especially in export markets. Beyond granting Chianti Classico its “independence,” its DOCG discipline made significant changes to the way Chianti Classico wine could be made. Significantly, for the first time it could be 100 percent Sangiovese. Canaiolo could also be eliminated from the blend, as could Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia Bianca. Up to 15 percent of the wine’s vines could be of other red grape varieties allowed in the province of production, whether Florence or Siena, including Tuscan and well-known international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. However, varieties that were associated with other regions in Italy, such as Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and Sicily’s Nero d’Avola, were not. For the first time, a minimum vine density (3,350 per hectare, or 1,356 per acre) was required, for vineyards planted after 1997. The minimum alcohol levels for Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva were raised by 0.5 percentage points, to 12 and 12.5 percent, respectively. Chianti Classico’s minimum acidity was dropped from 5 to 4.5 parts per million (ppm), an indication of the trends of harvesting at higher levels of ripeness and successfully stabilizing lower-acid wines. The minimum release date was moved

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from June 1 to October 1 of the year following the harvest, which made fresh, fermentative smells less likely. This was meant to further distinguish Chianti Classico from inexpensive, young External Chianti wines. The aging period (regardless of container) was reduced to two years, a decision that moved Chianti Classico Riserva, which had previously required three years of aging, away from tradition. For the first time, Chianti Classico, in addition to being vinified in the zone, had to be bottled within the appellation. (Ruffino, however, pressed for and won an exception that allows it and other producers who were bottling outside the zone before 1996 to continue to do so.) External Chianti DOCG, on the other hand, can legally be bottled anywhere in the world.

W I N E C O N S U LTA N T S B E C O M E S TA R S

In the rapidly growing global wine market, the influence of the wine consultant increasingly offered assurance of quality and style. During the 1990s, a new generation of consulting enologists entered the Chianti Classico arena, among them Attilio Pagli, Luca D’Attoma, Paolo Vagaggini, Andrea Mazzoni, Gabriella Tani, Nicolò d’Afflitto, Giorgio Marone, Stefano Chioccioli, Alberto Antonini, Paolo Salvi, Federico Staderini, Giovanni Cappelli, and Gioia Cresti. Stefano Porcinai and Lorenzo Landi followed in the next decade. The most visible consultant of this generation was Carlo Ferrini, a former technical director of the Chianti Classico consortium. He secured high-profile clients including Fonterutoli, Brancaia, and Castello di Brolio. The press glamorized these consultants with the epithet “rock star enologist.”

THE NEW MILLENNIUM MARKET

The bulk price of Chianti Classico has historically been tied to the bulk price of External Chianti. The Chianti Classico price is consistently higher than the External Chianti one, but it is an open question whether the premium is large enough to compensate for Chianti Classico’s required lower yields and higher cost of production. From 1996 to 2003, Chianti Classico bulk wine prices soared much higher than those of External Chianti. However, trouble had begun in the new millennium. In the early 2000s, German supermarkets bought less-expensive Australian bulk and bottled wine instead of Italian wine. The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000. September 11, 2001, changed the world’s sense of security about the future. As New York recovered from the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, the city (the showcase of Italian wine in the United States) cut back on buying wine. Tourism to Tuscany was temporarily set back. In 2002, an eighteen-month decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which lost 25 percent of its value against the euro, began to take its toll on U.S. imports of Italian wine. Relationships between U.S. importers and Chianti Classico producers were strained as profit margins for producers based on earlier exchange rates decreased. After January 2003, there was a steep downward trend in the price of Chianti Classico bulk wine, which reached a low

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of 171 euros per hectoliter ($7.77 per gallon) in January 2006. Its historic high was 497 euros per hectoliter ($22.60 per gallon) in June 2002.36 By 2005, Chianti Classico producers were looking to develop other export markets, such as Poland, Russia, and China. The near-global meltdown of financial markets in mid-to-late 2008, however, immediately impacted Chianti Classico’s exports. As the volume of total annual sales declined, hitting a low in 2009 of 192,496 hectoliters (5.1 million gallons) from a high of 289,741 hectoliters (7.7 million gallons) in 2007, stocks of yet to be certified wines held by merchants and producers in Chianti Classico rose steadily. On the advice of the consortium, members voted to block 20 percent of their 2009 harvest and put the wine in storage for two years before market release. This tactic had been successful in the Champagne region of France. But Champagne is largely a nonvintage product, and its vintage wines that have been blocked in storage can easily be moved to service the nonvintage category at any time. Chianti Classico producers, particularly smaller grower-bottlers, did not have this flexibility, because vintage variations in quantity, quality, and style have more impact on them. The strategy did not work. As the world recovered from the economic recession, the annual sales volume of Chianti Classico began to climb after April 2010, reaching a high of 260,000 hectoliters (6.9 million gallons) in 2012. In 2013 it declined slightly, to 252,094 hectoliters (6.7 million gallons).37 But the amount of Chianti Classico in stock on December 31, 2013, remained too high, at 791,006 hectoliters (20.9 million gallons). The high ratio of stock to sales that had plagued Chianti Classico in the late 1970s returned to haunt it. The Chianti Classico bulk market is complicated. Of the average annual production of 270,000 to 300,000 hectoliters (7.1 to 7.9 million gallons) of Chianti Classico wine, approximately 35 to 40 percent is sold as bulk wine. Beyond merchants who simply buy, bottle, and sell bulk wine as Chianti Classico, there are many producers who own vineyards in Chianti Classico and, in addition to bottling the wine they make, either sell grapes or wine on the bulk wine market or buy in grapes and bulk wine to bottle and sell. There are two indicators that analysts look at to understand the health of Chianti Classico: the bulk wine price and the amount of Chianti Classico that remains stored and unsold as stock (giacenza) in cellars. Normally there is an inverse relationship between the two indices—the higher the bulk price, the lower the wine in stock, and vice versa. The bulk market is affected by vintage quality; external market forces, such as economic surges and downturns; and internal issues, most importantly supply and demand. Another important internal issue is the two-year delay between the purchase of wine on the bulk market and its sale as bottled wine. Putting aside other market changes, the price paid for Chianti Classico wine in bulk has an impact on the price of the bottled wine when it is sold in the marketplace two years later. Although the market may be primed for an increase in bottle prices, a lower bulk price from two years earlier will act as a drag on the eventual sale price. In addition, the bulk market tends to move in cycles that do not appear directly related to real-time supply and demand market forces. This has made it very difficult to manage for the Chianti Classico consortium.

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The fluctuation in the bulk prices of Chianti Classico wine has undermined the economic health of the appellation. From 2005 to 2015, the average bulk price of Chianti Classico remained under 220 euros per hectoliter ($10 per gallon). Two hundred fifty to two hundred seventy-five euros per hectoliter ($11.36 to $12.50 per gallon) is considered the level at which grower-bottlers are able to cover their costs. After a decade of losses, the ability of such grower-bottlers (without outside sources of revenue or fresh capital) to further invest in their estates was eroded. However, the situation has been gradually improving in recent years. In 2013 and 2014 the average bulk price was 169 and 216 euros per hectoliter ($7.68 and $9.81 per gallon), respectively, up from the 2011 and 2012 respective average bulk prices of 146 and 140 euros per hectoliter ($6.64 and $6.36 per gallon). In 2015 the average bulk price remained stable at 221 euros per hectoliter ($10.05 per gallon). Chianti Classico’s grower-bottlers and merchants keep a watchful eye on the bulk market price of External Chianti wines. While the bulk price of External Chianti has historically been lower than that of Chianti Classico, this differential does not tell the whole story. External Chianti’s production-yield limits are higher than Chianti Classico’s, 9,000 versus 7,500 kilograms per hectare (4 versus 3.3 tons per acre). Hence, for External Chianti, the maximum yield in liquid volume is 63 hectoliters per hectare (674 gallons per acre). For Chianti Classico, it is 52.5 hectoliters per hectare (561 gallons per acre). In 2014, by the estimate of one grower-bottler in Chianti Classico, the income from selling External Chianti bulk wine was 11,214 euros per hectare ($5,448 per acre), compared with 10,500 euros per hectare ($5,101 per acre) for sellers of Chianti Classico (i.e., 714 euros less per Chianti Classico hectare, or $347 per acre). The situation was even worse in 2012 and preceding years. The fact that Chianti Classico producers (who generally have higher farming costs than External Chianti producers) have been earning less (on average) per hectare than External Chianti producers distresses Chianti Classico producers who depend on selling bulk wine to get cash quickly. This situation has many Chianti Classico producers asking themselves if it was a sound business decision in 1996 to pull away from the unified Chianti DOCG to have their own DOCG. In 2010, this separation went fully into effect.38 Before then, producers in Chianti Classico had had until December 15 after every harvest to make the decision, called the scelta vendemmiale (harvest choice), whether to classify their wine as Chianti Classico or External Chianti (i.e., “Chianti”). In today’s market, the large merchants and producers in Chianti Classico make more money than small ones, because they have more commercial options. If they own vineyards in or buy grapes or wines from External Chianti (as many do), they can use those grapes or wines to make Chianti DOCG wine, as long as they follow the processing regulations of its discipline. These producers have a hybrid business model of selling both Chianti Classico and External Chianti wine to boost their profit margins, depending on differences in bulk prices and other market factors between the two appellations. This commercial reality is at odds with the aspirations of and pressures on small and medium

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grower-bottlers of Chianti Classico. It lies at the root of the debate among members of the consortium regarding fundamental issues impacting Chianti Classico’s identity. As of 2015, there were seventy members of the Chianti Classico consortium (of a total of 376 bottlers) who sold both Chianti Classico and External Chianti wine. At least for these seventy (many of whom are high-profile names), it could be fairly said that they want to sell their Chianti and have their Chianti Classico too.

THE CHIANTI CLASSICO CO.

In keeping with modern marketing strategies, the Chianti Classico consortium in 2013 created an independent sister company, the Chianti Classico Co., to promote the “Chianti Classico lifestyle” and generate revenue by licensing its black rooster trademark for fashion, athletic, and wine-related merchandise. The Chianti Classico Co., working with the consortium’s nonprofit Fondazione per la Tutela del Territorio (Foundation for the protection of the territory [of Chianti Classico]), has energized the cultural and educational initiatives at the consortium’s restored convent in Radda: the former Santa Maria al Prato convent, now called Casa Chianti Classico (House of Chianti Classico), that since 2014 has housed a wine school, rotating art and photography gallery, and shop showcasing the wines of its member estates. It is the center for the consortium’s special events in the historic heart of the appellation. The Chianti Classico Co. has also launched an upscale enoteca (wine shop) in Florence, on the recently renovated upper floor of the Mercato Centrale (Central market) near the Church of San Lorenzo.

C O N S O RT I U M A B S O R B S A N D R E F O R M S

In 2003, the Italian government put the Chianti Classico consortium on a path to strengthening its authority. If all went as planned, it would be permitted to absorb the marketing and promotional functions that the Consorzio del Marchio Storico was carrying out. And indeed, in December 2004 their members voted to merge, with the Chianti Classico consortium as the surviving organization. The merger was effective as of June 2005. From then until 2010 the Chianti Classico consortium was also authorized to conduct all of the regulatory controls imposed by the Chianti Classico DOCG discipline, except for the final organoleptic test, which was still the responsibility of the provincial chambers of commerce. But all was not well. During the late 1990s, satellite photos had revealed that of eight thousand hectares (19,768 acres) registered for wine production in Chianti Classico, only six thousand (14,826 acres) actually existed. Two thousand hectares (4,942 acres) of forested land had been registered as official Chianti Classico vineyards. The legal documentation, or “paper,” that officially and fallaciously declared the yields for these two thousand hectares could be sold for handsome (and ill-gotten) gains on the black market and then attached to cheap bulk wine from anywhere to legalize its sale as Chianti

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Classico. In October 2005, trust was publicly shattered when newspapers printed the story of a Radda-based wine merchant who was arrested for blending wine from outside the region with his inventory of Chianti Classico. Because of this illegal compromise of Chianti Classico wine, the police sequestered seventy thousand hectoliters (1.8 million gallons) of Chianti Classico DOCG, about one-quarter of the zone’s yearly production. In April 2006, on the eve of Vinitaly, Italy’s biggest trade fair, the scandal known as Brunellogate in the United States and Brunellopoli in Italy broke. There were accusations that many Brunello di Montalcino producers were not bottling 100 percent Sangiovese wines as required by their DOCG discipline. Though the spotlight was on Montalcino, producers in Chianti Classico were also nervous. Was there cause for concern in their appellation? In late 2006, six prominent Chianti Classico producers sent a letter to the consortium complaining about the overuse of authorized ameliorative red varieties or the use of unauthorized red varieties in Chianti Classico wine, the increase in illegal blending of Chianti Classico with wines from outside the region, and the tendency of tasting commissions (composed of consulting and full-time enologists within Chianti Classico) to favor dark, very ripe wines.39 It was no secret that a significant amount of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah were planted throughout the zone, more than what the law allowed. Unauthorized red varieties from the south of Italy were also suspected of having been planted in the appellation, for darkening or spicing up wines. Among producers in Chianti Classico there were (and still are) many stories about dark and ripe wines (with little resemblance to Sangiovese) passing the tasting commission’s organoleptic test, while light-colored and sour wines (typical examples of cool vintage Sangiovese) failed. In response, the consortium expanded its inspection network to fulfill its duty of guaranteeing the adherence of Chianti Classico producers to all applicable regulations. One inspector’s job was to make sure that what was planted in producers’ vineyards conformed to their declarations. Because a 2002 modification of the production code had raised the minimum percentage of Sangiovese in the blend from 75 to 80, the amount of Sangiovese being planted throughout the appellation was a particular focus. Minor infractions were easily correctable. Larger ones were not. There were rumors that a highprofile producer had bought a vineyard or vineyards with a high percentage of Sangiovese to offset its excessive plantings of Merlot. Chianti Classico’s producers must have breathed a collective sigh of relief that they had not taken the 100 percent Sangiovese pledge of Montalcino’s producers. Nevertheless, lessons were learned. In August 2009, EU policies mandated that independent, privately owned, EU-certified organizations conduct organoleptic examinations of all EU wines, collect data on their vineyards, and inspect their vineyards for compliance with appellation law. In 2010, Valoritalia, which has a national presence in Italy, took over these functions for the Chianti Classico consortium. (As of 2015, its principal office in Tuscany shared the building and some of the work spaces of the consortium.) The consortium presently focuses primarily on promotion, marketing, and protecting the Chianti Classico name and trade-

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marks throughout the world. It also conducts tasting checks on bottles labeled as Chianti Classico that have been released into commerce. One reason is to ensure that they contain Chianti Classico wine and not wine from another source. In 2010, the Chianti Classico consortium became the first consortium of wine producers in Italy to attain the stature to regulate erga omnes (“toward all” in Latin). Because it met the criteria of representing more than two-thirds of the producers in Chianti Classico and had demonstrated the ability to enforce the DOCG regulations and promote and protect the appellation, the Italian government appointed it the sole legal representative of all Chianti Classico producers. Whether or not producers are members of the consortium, therefore, they are required to pay a fee for its services. Consequently, there was little reason for them not to join. In 2012, the Marchesi Antinori company returned after a thirty-eight-year hiatus. A handful of unwavering holdouts remain, including Montevertine in Radda, Castello dei Rampolla in Panzano, and Le Boncie in Castelnuovo Berardenga. With the attainment of erga omnes authority, the consortium has increased its power and influence. Giuseppe Liberatore, in his role as the director of the Chianti Classico consortium, was the architect of the national erga omnes law. As of June 2014, a regulation adopted by the consortium mandated that every year, wines of the most recent vintage that were intended to be sold as Chianti Classico (known as atto a divenire Chianti Classico, “designated to become Chianti Classico”) could no longer be sold in bulk without being certified. This certification involves an organoleptic analysis, including a tasting examination to ensure eligibility (idoneità) as a Chianti Classico wine. Once issued, the certification must travel with the bulk wine. If the wine is blended with another lot of Chianti Classico, it has to pass DOCG inspection again before going on the market. Before this reform, Chianti Classico wine could be moved in bulk without any paper trail, increasing the possibility of fraud. The previous system also allowed bulk wine to be sold without any assurance that it was well made. The new law has had the effects of providing upward price support for Chianti Classico bulk wine and making the bulk market more stable. The fact that the wine has passed the tasting assessment makes it more valuable in the eyes of the buyer, giving sellers more bargaining power. At the end of 2014, the Chianti Classico consortium made it mandatory for all of its members to display the black rooster trademark on every bottle of their Chianti Classico wine. The mark can appear either in its traditional perch, on the front of the neck, or, less conspicuously, on the back label. Typically, producers who believe that the black rooster strengthens their image display it on the front of the bottle, while those who seek to emphasize their estates’ identity and branding place it on the back. Small producers in the consortium usually characterize its debates as struggles between themselves and much larger producers and merchants. While most producers in the consortium are small, ten companies account for 44 percent of the volume of Chianti Classico wine. The consortium’s members do not have equal numbers of votes: each is given one per three hundred hectoliters (7,925 gallons) of production. The

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consortium proudly points to this weighted voting structure as a compromise between a one member, one vote policy, which would heavily favor small producers, and the allocation of votes purely on the basis of actual volume of production, which would favor large producers even more. It also prides itself on its transparency and corporate governance. Members have access to the minutes of all meetings of members and of the board of directors, and they voted on the introduction of the Gran Selezione category and on all of the recent reforms of the Chianti Classico DOCG discipline at the consortium’s annual meeting (typically held in May or June and known as the Assemblea).

WINE STYLE EVOLUTION

Until 2003, the provinces of Siena and Florence made the official determination of complementary vine varieties authorized for Chianti Classico wine. After 2003, the region of Tuscany took over this function. It had a longer list than the provinces, more than forty varieties in all. This opened the door to many more possible ways to enhance Chianti Classico. Petit Verdot, among others, was authorized for the first time. On the other hand, beginning with the 2006 vintage, it was illegal to use Trebbiano, Malvasia Bianca, or any other white variety in a Chianti Classico blend.40 More significant, the perception of what a fine Chianti Classico should look, smell, and taste like has evolved. Particularly from the 1990s until Brunellogate, the model for great Chianti Classico was the Bordeaux-influenced style of the respected French enologist Émile Peynaud (and his disciple Tachis): dark color, ripe and woody smell, and a high-extract texture but smooth palate. Pale and delicate wines rarely do well in mixed double-blind tastings, at which darker, more alcoholic, softer-textured, and more concentrated wines nearly always rank higher. Since Brunellogate, however, wine journalists and producers have reassessed how Sangiovese wines should taste, and there is a growing acceptance of pale and elegant Chianti Classico.

G R A N S E L E Z I O N E A N D N E W D O C G L E G I S L AT I O N

On January 29, 2014, a new Chianti Classico DOCG discipline went into effect. The principal change was the addition of a category at the top of the quality pyramid, Gran Selezione (Great selection). The Chianti Classico consortium’s description states that “the Gran Selezione is made exclusively from a winery’s own grapes grown in its finest vineyards according to strict regulations that make it a truly premium wine, the new point of reference on the world wine scene.”41 The language of the law is more flexible, requiring only that the vineyards be either owned or managed by the producer, who may hire another company to bottle the wine. Therefore, a producer could lease and manage vineyards anywhere in the appellation, then hire another company to bottle his finished wine after vinification and maturation. The law was devised with the intent that the wine producer

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be in complete control of the viticulture. It is in this sense that Gran Selezione is wine made from estate-grown fruit. The architects of the new category hope that Gran Selezione will become more prestigious than Super Tuscans. The revised DOCG discipline defines technical parameters for the three tiers within the Chianti Classico appellation: Chianti Classico annata, Chianti Classico Riserva, and Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. The annata is the primary tier of Chianti Classico wine (though the DOCG law does not define annata, the consortium and producers use the word to signify that a given wine is not a Riserva or Gran Selezione Chianti Classico). Formerly, the descriptor normale (normal) was used for the base Chianti Classico, but it was likely replaced because it was considered pejorative. Annata must have a minimum alcohol level of 12 percent and a minimum dry extract level of twenty-four grams per liter (3.2 ounces per gallon), Riserva 12.5 percent and twentyfive grams per liter (3.3 ounces per gallon), and Gran Selezione 13 percent and twenty-six grams per liter (3.5 ounces per gallon). Gran Selezione must also be aged for thirty months, six more than the requirement for the Riserva category. One of the challenges for the outside tasting commission appointed to approve Gran Selezione samples (prior to release) is the absence of purposively defined organoleptic parameters that distinguish it from Riserva or annata. Some winegrowers have complained that the wines that consistently pass the tasting commission’s scrutiny are still those that are darker in color and softer and thicker in the mouth, characteristics not typical of Sangiovese wine. The Gran Selezione category has created a great deal of discussion within the appellation. The initial concept of the law was that it would focus on the vineyard. However, once the larger producers got involved in the deliberations, an elite product category more connected to a producer’s identity than to distinct growing environments took shape. Smaller estates were more inclined to embrace the vineyard idea. Prestigious larger producers such as Castello di Ama had also championed the single-vineyard concept. For certain winegrowers in Chianti Classico who have already been producing single-vineyard (or single-place) or 100 percent Sangiovese wines in either the Riserva or the annata category, the creation of the Gran Selezione category is an operazione di facciata, window dressing, rather than a substantive step forward for the denomination. It was unfortunate that in the first release of Gran Selezione, large producers who had unsold stocks of high-quality wine targeted to be released as Riservas were in the best position to make use of the press attention and the consortium’s marketing support. At the Chianti Classico Gran Selezione inaugural event in February 2014 in Florence, of the thirty-three estates that presented a wine, the following six released in the aggregate 900,000 bottles, or 82 percent of the category: Ruffino (500,000 bottles), Brolio (108,000, split 88,000–20,000 between two labels), Castello di Ama (100,000), Antinori (92,000), Castello di Fonterutoli (60,000), and San Felice (40,000). The remaining twenty-seven estates accounted for 195,100 bottles, or 18 percent of the category. Large producers clearly have enough resources to support another product tier. Small producers who previously made annata and Riserva might be forced to sacrifice their Riserva to

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make a Gran Selezione in order to have an entry at the top of Chianti Classico’s new quality pyramid.

THE SUBZONE ISSUE STIRS

In the early 1980s, the American author and wine journalist Burton Anderson, who was living in Tuscany, set up a wine tasting for the Chianti Classico consortium. He organized it by the township of origin of each wine. So much controversy surrounded this idea that the consortium decided to abandon the approach after that tasting. Historically, the subzone topic was taboo within the consortium, because of a fear that wine journalists would rank subzones based on what they perceived as the potential of the terroir or on how successful the producers in each were on average in garnering critics’ points. The last thing the consortium wanted to do was to set up or endorse a system that favored some members over others. In the months before and after the February 2014 coming-out party for Chianti Classico Gran Selezione, there was a resurgence of debate about the subzone issue. It was triggered by the frustration of smaller producers who believed that the new category, a commercial product class largely unrelated to terroir, was simply another manifestation of the taboo against showcasing subzone differences. Their immediate question was, why should townships not be identified to consumers? There were advantages to doing so. It would create differentiation in the marketplace, encouraging more placements on store shelves and more entries in wine lists. Among producers, it would help to create township self-identity. In the Chianti Classico appellation, township names have traditionally been allowed on the front label only in minuscule letters, in the winery address. Many winegrowers are advocating for laws that would allow township names to be printed in a large font on front labels. This would be a first step toward identifying zones within Chianti Classico for the trade and consumers. Whether township labeling should be accompanied by appellation regulations or whether it should be just a menzione geografica (geographical indication), an identification of origin, is a complex issue. Certainly the latter would be easier to implement. So easy that we cannot help but exclaim, “Why not?” Some larger producers suggest that only the Gran Selezione category should be allowed the privilege of using township identification, while others believe it should be the start of a gradual phasing in, from the top of the quality pyramid down. Geographic origin should not, however, be tied to particular commercial categories, such as annata, Riserva, and Gran Selezione. It should apply to all categories of Chianti Classico. The movement to township labeling has gathered momentum on the ground in the past couple of years. Taking inspiration from Panzano’s well-established union of winegrowers, the Unione Viticoltori di Panzano in Chianti, producers in Castelnuovo Berardenga and San Casciano in Val di Pesa have organized their own member associations (Classico della Berardenga and Viticoltori del Chianti Classico Sancascianese, respectively) to define and promote their zones. The idea of place should be protected and promoted in

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Chianti. If there were ever an appellation that should understand this concept, it is Chianti Classico.

FRESCOBALDI AND ANTINORI INVEST IN HISTORIC CHIANTI

In 2014, the Frescobaldi wine company announced that it was renting approximately sixty hectares (148 acres) of vineyards from Castello di San Donato in Perano, a prized property straddling the Radda-Gaiole border. A year later, the Antinori wine company announced that it had purchased eighty-five hectares (210 acres) of vineyards in the historic San Sano area of Gaiole. The Frescobaldi company is a long-standing member of the External Chianti consortium. It makes Chianti Rufina at its headquarters at Nipozzano near Pontassieve. The Antinori wine company, located in San Casciano, flirted with the consortia of both the Gallo and the Putto during the 1920s and largely disassociated its products from Chianti Classico in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It has since joined the Chianti Classico consortium. It is hard to pierce through the corporate veils of these two companies. One can only imagine that there exists a fierce rivalry between these two ancient Florentine families, particularly since the Frescobaldis wrested the Ornellaia property in Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast from Lodovico Antinori (via the Robert Mondavi wine company and then Constellation Brands). The entry of these two companies into the heart of historic Chianti signals the important role that they believe Chianti Classico will have in future years. It remains a battleground.

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5 CHIANTI’S HIDDEN ROADS My guide and I came on that hidden road to make our way back into the bright world; and with no care for any rest, we climbed— he first, I following—until I saw, through a round opening, some of those things of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there that we emerged, to see—once more—the stars. DANTE ALIGHIERI, INFERNO (TRANSLATION BY ALLEN MANDELBAUM)

In his epic poem The Divine Comedy, Dante journeys from the depths of inferno (hell) to the heights of purgatorio (purgatory) and beyond. His poetic and figurative guide through most of these realms is the Roman poet (and his literary hero) Virgil. Dante, writing in his native Tuscan of the early fourteenth century, describes his guide (duca) as both knowing (savio) and truthful (verace).1 In our epic search for the true Chianti, we too were in need of a knowing and truthful guide. We found one in the towering figure of Giovanni Brachetti Montorselli. Nanni, as he is known throughout Chianti, worked for the Chianti Classico consortium for almost forty years. In the 1970s he was its chief inspector in the field. He witnessed the transformation of Chianti’s traditional fattorie into modern wine estates. He navigated Chianti’s curved and banked strade campestri (rural roads), both paved and unpaved. He survived countless battles in the Guerra del Chianti, the conflict between Chianti Classico and External Chianti that raged for most of the twentieth century. And he lived to see this War of Chianti formally end in a truce in 2005, with External Chianti securing the exclusive use of the historic name Chianti for both its peripheral territory and the wines of its seven subzones—an outcome Montorselli describes as assurdo (absurd)! Montorselli is Florentine to his six-foot-six-inch core. He was baptized in the baptistery named for San Giovanni (Florence’s patron saint) directly in front of Florence’s Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore. He proclaims that he was born with “Firenze negli occhi” (Florence in his eyes), though it was in the city of Siena (Florence’s ancient rival) that his most famous ancestor, the painter Dionisio Montorselli, distinguished the family name,

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beginning in the late seventeenth century. The Montorselli family is legendary in Siena for its physical stature. For centuries, a Sienese, when catching sight of an extremely tall man, was likely to exclaim, “Look, a Montorselli!” On a crisp and clear Saturday morning in late October 2014, Montorselli (seventyeight years young) arrived at our agriturismo in his navy Mercedes sedan. He had offered to show us his Chianti—the vero (true) Chianti. In his role as an inspector for the consortium, he had regularly visited almost all of the estates throughout the zone. Giovanna Morganti had told us on an earlier trip to her wine estate, Le Boncie, that she remembered Montorselli coming regularly in the 1970s to San Felice (where her father, Enzo Morganti, had been the director) to offer technical support. Montorselli greeted us, declaring in his baritone Tuscan, “Today we will see Chianti, la terra [the land] where Chianti Classico is made!” We knew we were in the right hands. After we loaded our day gear into his trunk, we all marveled at the clear view of the medieval towers of San Gimignano to the west. We were at the western edge of Chianti, to the northeast of Poggibonsi (midway between Florence and Siena). Montorselli explained how Val d’Elsa (the Elsa River Valley) borders Chianti to the west, while Valdarno (the Arno River Valley) borders it to the east. Poggibonsi, though just outside the Chianti Classico zone, has played a pivotal role in its history. The town was a flash point for the battles between Florence and Siena for control of Chianti, and in 1203 it was the imperial delegate of Poggibonsi who, in an arbitral decision, officially awarded control of Chianti to Florence. However, in the oft-recounted legend of the gallo nero, the Florentines won Chianti because they arranged for their black rooster (by either starving or almost drowning it) to crow hours before daybreak, giving their horseman a running start in the race against Siena’s. The point where the two horsemen crossed south of the town of Castellina is still called Croce Fiorentina (Florentine cross). As we left our farmhouse and traveled north to Barberino Val d’Elsa, we passed the Castello di Monsanto and Isole e Olena wine estates. Approaching the small fortified village (borgo fortificato) of San Donato in Poggio, we glimpsed the crenellated stone bell tower of the parish church. The top of the tower was built with cut blocks of the tan local sandstone called pietra forte (strong rock) and the bottom third with the white local limestone called alberese. In stark contrast with the cathedrals of Florence and Siena, the Romanesque churches of Chianti are devoid of any external ornamentation. Montorselli explained how the case coloniche and everyday household and agricultural objects were similarly elemental in nature in Chianti. He declared that it was the “essentialness” (essenzialità) of things that was always valued there. “Come pane senza sale” (like bread without salt), he added. As we traveled farther north in the direction of Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, we saw Jeeps and SUVs sporadically parked by the side of the wooded road. Montorselli informed us that late October is prime hunting season for pheasant and wild boar (cinghiale) and that the camouflaged hunters whom we glimpsed returning to their trucks empty handed had been stalking their prey since daybreak. When the sound of gunshot occasionally rang

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out, black-and-white magpies darted from the woods. As we drove on, we asked about the small roadside crosses (croci via) and tabernacles with a statue of the Madonna (Madonnine) that we glimpsed at some intersections. Montorselli informed us that these sacred markers were created for the faithful who made pilgrimages to Rome beginning in the Middle Ages. After we passed the town of Sambuca Val di Pesa, we approached the medieval abbey Badia a Passignano. Graced with crenellated walls and towers and enveloped by a thicket of giant cypresses, the abbey looks more like a castle than a monastery. Montorselli explained that the Antinori estate had purchased the surrounding vineyards and leased its wine cellar from the frati (brothers) of the Vallombrosan Order. We then drove along the Antinori vineyards that produce the estate’s Tignanello wine. There was not a vineyard, village, church, hilltop, roadway, or rivulet that Montorselli could not name. We saw sheep and goats grazing in a nearby field, and Montorselli mentioned the name of the Sardinian shepherd who tends these flocks for his fellow Sardinians who have been producing the local pecorino and caprino cheeses since the 1960s. As we turned south to head to Panzano on Strada Provinciale (SP) 118, we passed a sign for the wine estate Castello di Gabbiano and a smaller sign with an icon for a church. Sant’Angelo a Vico l’Abate is down a strada sterrata (unpaved road) past Gabbiano Castle. In 1319 its parishioners commissioned for their single-nave church the first dated painting attributed to the Sienese artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti. This image of the Madonna and child is now on display in the Museo di Arte Sacra in nearby San Casciano. Seated on an inlaid wooden throne, the corporeal and plain Madonna cradles her animated infant son, clasping her hands tenderly around him. As she stares directly ahead, the curly blond child’s gaze is fixed on his stoic, protective mother. Having wriggled his left foot out from under the blanket that his mother has loosely wrapped around him, the baby stretches his toes directly toward the viewer. The painting’s depiction of a threedimensional space and the spontaneity of the mother and child’s interaction show Lorenzetti’s early embrace of perspective and naturalistic detail. At the very time when the wealthy families and trade guilds of Florence were fiercely competing to commission artworks by the Florentine masters who ultimately defined the proto-Renaissance, such as Giotto, the humble parishioners of Sant’Angelo a Vico l’Abate commissioned a work by a Sienese artist who was quietly beginning to transform the art of painting in their own hills of Chianti.2 For Montorselli, this work in all its simplicity and immediacy was created from and for “a real context.” Back on the road south to Panzano, he told us that valleys and rivers have always defined Chianti. He pointed to Val di Pesa (the Pesa River Valley) on our right and Val di Greve (the Greve River Valley) on our left. Both of their rivers run north and flow into the Arno west of Florence. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as many as forty grain mills (mulino) and olive mills (frantoio) dotted the Pesa River. The Greve River has its source south of the storied wine town of Lamole, high in the steep hills that form the western buttress of the Chianti Mountains, the natural boundary between Chianti and

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Valdarno. Montorselli explained that Chianti’s rivers are seasonal, flowing after the winter rainfalls and drying to a trickle by the summer months. After passing the village of Panzano we turned on to Via Chiantigiana, Strada Regionale (SR) 222, the principal road that runs from Florence to Siena through Chianti. This part, also known as Nuova Chiantigiana, was paved for the first time only in the 1980s. Driving around Panzano’s sun-filled amphitheater of vineyards, known as la conca d’oro (the golden shell), was like leaf peeping in New England. The vine leaves were aglow, in shades of gold and vermilion. While we were taking in the view, Montorselli explained that Panzano’s union of winegrowers has created the first biodistretto (organic district) in Europe. It was clear that this golden beauty is more than skin deep! Passing the parish church of San Leolino, we learned that Tenuta degli Dei, the nearby wine estate owned by the Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli and his son Tommaso, now rents its historic wine cellar. Our journey then took us farther south on Via Chiantigiana, in the direction of Castellina. Winding along the twists and turns of the road’s curves and cutting their apexes, our car was flanked by the pelotons of cyclists who take to these country roads on weekends. Unfazed, our veteran captain recounted how the original Chianti wars were the pitched battles between Florence and Siena for control over this countryside that separated the two growing and powerful city-states. As if on cue, we then spied the lone tower of Grignano Castle, perched on a hilltop and guarding this stretch of the Chiantigiana. Montorselli announced that Michelangelo Buonarroti had purchased this castle-turnedvilla-cum-farmhouse in the mid-sixteenth century and that Galileo Galilei had been the owner of a nearby farmhouse called Grignanello (some neighborhood!). Stopping just north of the town of Castellina we went to see the source of the Arbia River, which flows south through Chianti before merging with the Ombrone River south of Siena. Quoting Dante, Montorselli declared that it was the Sienese “che fece l’Arbia colorata in rosso” (who stained the waters of the Arbia red)3 when they vanquished the Florentine forces at the Battle of Montaperti on September 4, 1260. From this vantage point we had a clear view of Castellina, whose massive curved northern wall still embraces it. In the early 1400s, the governing council of the Florentine Republic ordered the architect of the Duomo’s cupola, Filippo Brunelleschi, to go to Castellina to assess how best to fortify its walls, which completely encircled the town then.4 As further proof of Castellina’s importance to the defense of Chianti, Florence commanded the Duomo’s masons to build these fortifications before completing the Duomo’s new workshop.5 Without stopping to examine Castellina’s extant northern wall close up, we turned eastward on SR429 to head to Radda—the township that was the administrative center of the Lega del Chianti until the late eighteenth century. Like Castellina, it is a fortified town with a monumental wall that was built to protect it from the invading forces of Siena and its German, Aragonese, and other allies. Unlike Castellina, Radda is still encircled by walls. Nearby, in a high valley to the northwest of Radda, is a church named Santa Maria Novella in Chianti, whose resident monks are believed to have been the first to

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cultivate Vitis vinifera in Chianti, beginning in the eleventh century. The word novella derives from the medieval Latin term ager novellus (new field) and signifies a newly cultivated piece of land.6 After driving through the center of Radda and passing its Renaissance-style Palazzo del Podestà, we turned left and headed north on SP72, passing signs for the Vignavecchia, Montevertine, Volpaia, Caparsa, Poggerino, and Albola wine estates on our way to the Chianti Mountains. Montorselli recounted that the past summer had been unusually rainy right up until mid-September, a few weeks before the grape harvest. Earlier in the week we had met Johannes (Giovanni) Davaz of the Poggio al Sole estate in Tavarnelle near Badia a Passignano. He described 2014 as the “anno di miracolo” (year of the miracle). After the rains stopped, the Sangiovese, Canaiolo Nero, Colorino, and other red varieties had three full weeks of sunshine to ripen, with warm days and cool nights. The vineyards were now radiant with the colors of the stagione ottobrata (October season)—yellow, red, and russet bordered by the silvery sage green of the olive trees and the dark green of the cypress trees. As we drove higher into the Chianti Mountains, we left the manicured vines, villas, and villages behind. Montorselli reminded us that Chianti has approximately fifty thousand hectares (123,553 acres, or 193 square miles) of forest, seven times the amount of land planted to vineyards. As we approached Monte San Michele, the highest point in this chain at 892 meters (2,927 feet), he declared, “The air here is clear and clean.” The curved road is hugged on both sides by small-scale oak (quercia) trees, entwined by delicate-leafed green ivy and dotted with whitish lichen. A thick carpet of ferns and purple cyclamens covered the forest floor. There are also holly oak (leccio), juniper (ginepro), and chestnut (castagno) trees at this altitude. Chianti’s woodlands have a primeval aura with their web of ivy and veil of lichen. The leaves of the trees had turned golden and chestnut brown. Montorselli explained that most of the trees are diminutive because the soil in Chianti is sassoso (stony) and povero (poor), and that when the leaves fall off the deciduous trees in November the panorama from the valleys below is grigio (gray) except for the evergreen of the pine trees, which were planted less than a century ago. The winter landscape in Chianti was not always devoid of color, though. Before the exodus of the peasant farmers from the countryside in the 1950s and 1960s, their case coloniche were façaded not with the “traditional” stone of Chianti’s country homes today but rather, as Montorselli described, with plaster in colori tenui (pastel colors)—giallo chiaro (straw yellow), celeste (sky blue), and verdolino (pale green). At certain intersections along our journey, our tireless navigator would slow the car and, quietly speaking to himself (in classic Florentine), weigh his options like a chess master considering his next move on the game board. One time he decided to head farther north, briefly passing through Valdarno on the way to the town of San Polo in Chianti in the northeast corner of the Gallo Nero zone. On this stretch of unpaved road, clouds of whitish dust billowed around his sedan as we sped northward. Montorselli remarked that people today bypass these unpaved roads to avoid getting their cars dirty— “una mentalità strana!” (a strange way of thinking), he declared. He decided to show us

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San Polo because it is known for growing the flower that is believed to be the true symbol of Florence: the iris (giaggiolo), not the lily. While the city’s original flag pictured a white flower on a red background, after the Ghibelline political faction took control following the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, the colors were reversed, with a red flower sitting on a white background. There is no red giaggiolo, though, found in nature. San Polo sponsors an annual competition to reward any grower who succeeds in producing a red iris worthy of Florence’s flag. Its growers sell their dried irises to the perfumers in Grasse, France. San Polo is also celebrated for growing Tuscany’s prized spice, saffron (zafferano). After San Polo we continued northwest on SP56 and curled around the northern edge of the zone to reenter Chianti. Montorselli recalled how in the 1990s he and his colleagues at the Chianti Classico consortium had arranged for signs to be posted at the entry and exit points of the historic zone of the Gallo Nero. On entering the appellation, a driver would see a grand gate with doors swung wide open and the message “Benvenuto, stai entrando nel regno di Chianti Classico” (Welcome, you are entering the kingdom of Chianti Classico). On leaving the zone, drivers would be greeted with an image of these same gates closed and a notice that they were departing this storied kingdom. This was a provocation to the merchants in External Chianti. In the end, the Chianti Classico consortium ordered Montorselli to take down the signs. Apparently, they made the point too clearly! We continued on Via Chiantigiana heading south. When we reached the crest of a hill, Montorselli pointed out the window to show us how the topography at that location changes, from the lower, clayey hills behind us to the steeper, stonier, and forested landscape of Val di Greve, which lay before us. He explained that this landscape, characteristic of Chianti, is suited to growing quality wine grapes. He quickly signaled to show us the sign for the hamlet, Spedaluzzo, that we were passing through, just at this high point where the Greve River Valley comes into view. It was almost 2 p.m., and he advised that we stop for a pranzo chiantigiano (Chianti lunch) in Greve, Chianti’s historic market town. We parked just beyond Greve’s arcaded piazza. As we walked under one of the arcades we saw the vendors from the weekly Saturday market closing up their stalls in the piazza. In the middle stood a statue of Greve’s most famous son, the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. We walked up a flight of stairs to the Locanda di Greve restaurant, on the second level of the arcade. We chose a corner table outdoors, under the veranda and overlooking the piazza. Montorselli summarily ordered a “vera bistecca” (true steak) of Chianina beef weighing more than a kilogram (2.2 pounds) and a side of fagioli zolfini (a variety of Tuscan white beans from the pre-Apennine mountain range known as the Pratomagno) for us to share. He double-checked with the restaurant’s owner that the bistecca came from Greve’s Antica Macelleria Falorni, the respected butcher across the square (actually a triangle). Montorselli lamented how rare it is to find a restaurant in Tuscany that still knows how to properly grill a bistecca. When our meal was served, he showed us that the chef had grilled the four-inch T-bone on the front, back, and side so that the rare beef was heated all the way to the bone. Montorselli proudly concluded

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that the chef “ha messo un po’ di anima” (had put a little soul) into this steak. For him, a bistecca with a little radicchio and olive oil was the essence of an authentic Chianti pranzo. There was no need for fronzoli (finery)! The wine should be pronta beva (ready to drink)—young, fresh, and loaded with natural acidity, he added. We ordered a bottle of the 2013 Chianti Classico (100 percent Sangiovese) from the Molino di Grace estate in Panzano. The vera bistecca found its perfect mate that afternoon. After lunch we mentioned to Montorselli that I had lived with a family from Greve in the early 1980s when I was studying on a fellowship at the University of Florence. He asked their name and I told him, “Anichini.” He asked, “Beppe Anichini at Le Corti?” Yes, I replied, Beppe and Mirella Anichini. Montorselli told us that the family still lives at Le Corti, between Ruffoli and Lamole. He also recounted how Beppe’s father, Angiolo Anichini, of the Fattoria Le Corti estate (not related to the estate Le Corti Corsini in San Casciano), went to Radda on May 14, 1924 (days after his wedding to Beppe’s mother, Clementina), to pledge his support for Chianti’s first consortium of winegrowers—and because of his initials, A.A., was the first official member of the Consorzio del Gallo. The Anichinis’ estate is one of the four or five surviving estates of the original consorzio. As we drove south from Greve on Via Chiantigiana, Montorselli indicated the strada bianca (gravel road) near a stand of tall white poplars with the sign for Le Corti. While heading to the town of Gaiole, he called Beppe Anichini on the car’s speakerphone, and we planned a reunion for the following weekend. Our sage guide had uncovered yet another hidden road. At the main intersection in Panzano, we headed southeast on smaller provincial roads until we reached SR429 near Radda. We drove east, in the direction of the medieval abbey La Badia a Coltibuono northeast of Gaiole. Before reaching it we took a sharp righthand turn (and several tight curves) and then passed Monte Cetamura, the hilltop site at 695 meters (2,280 feet) of an Etruscan artisanal colony. Among the early finds here was a small ceramic cup with a curved inscription on its intact base spelling CLUNTNI in the Etruscan alphabet. This object inspired some archaeologists to question whether Cluntni was the Etruscan name for Chianti.7 Other archaeologists theorize that it was an Etruscan surname (and the inscription thus identified the cup as belonging to the Cluntni family). As we pondered the mysteries of Cetamura, we headed south to the township of Gaiole in Chianti. Unlike Castellina and Radda, which were both fortified towns, this was a mercatale (market town). It was built along Massellone Creek, a tributary of the Arbia River. (Some historians contend that the Etruscan name for this creek must have been the origin of Chianti as a hydronym, given that the Massellone cuts through what was historically referred to as the Chianti Valley.)8 Montorselli parked his car in the center of town along the side of the main road so we could get out and see the legendary Massellone. But there was not even a stream to behold in the stony riverbed below the town’s walls. Montorselli explained that after the winter rainfall, the Massellone would flow again. The prior weekend, the town had been flowing with thousands of cyclists and classic cycling fans on their annual pilgrimage to Gaiole to participate in the race known as L’Eroica (The heroic).

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Our steadfast guide reminded us that the sun would be setting in a couple of hours and we still had many roads to traverse. We drove through Gaiole and then took a left on SP73 to head eastward to the Chianti Mountains. Along the way, several motorcyclists on bright red and yellow Ducatis zoomed past our sedan. One after the other leaned into each banked turn as if racing on a superbike track. Montorselli blasted his horn and shouted, “Imbecile, you chase a short life!” He recounted the story of a wine estate owner in the 1980s who would take his Ferrari out on the dirt roads near his property in Castellina to race at more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour. Every time Montorselli was scheduled to travel those roads for work, he would call the estate to confirm that the owner was planning to be at home! After we reached Monte Luco in the Chianti Mountains, at 834 meters (2,736 feet) above sea level, Montorselli took us on an even narrower rural road to see the hamlet of Starda (with its eponymous castle and wine estate) on the eastern edge of Chianti. There we found what looked like a small Alpine village. It seemed a world away from the lower hills in Gaiole. We then traced our path back through the woods to Monte Luco and turned left to travel south on the ridge that divides Chianti from Valdarno. Glimpses of the verdant Arno River Valley and the Pratomagno to the east punctuated the columns of chestnut and oak trees. Along the way, our expert scout located the gravestone-shaped marker, jutting out from the forest floor, that indicates the source of the Ombrone River. As the road descended and the softer hills of Chianti Senese widened our vista, we could see the city of Siena in the distance. Once we reached the medieval village of San Gusmè, we took a right-hand turn and headed west on SS484. Montorselli stopped the car by a vineyard along the road. He explained that this was the creation of the late Enzo Morganti, “un vero chiantigiano” (a true Chianti man). In the 1970s, while overseeing the demolition of San Felice’s old walled terraces and the planting of modern specialized vineyards, Morganti was traveling throughout Chianti to collect all of the historic vine varieties he could find. According to Montorselli, before the modern Chianti wine industry was born, estate owners planted different varieties “come spezie” (like spices) in their personal vineyard-gardens to make their estate wines distinctive. In this initial experimental vineyard of about 0.6 hectares (1.5 acres), Morganti had planted four vines of each of the 147 varieties he identified. This vineyard, now part of San Felice’s viticultural research project, named Vitiarium (signifying an arboretum or nursery of vine varieties, based on the Latin word vitis, “grapevine”), is a living library of Chianti’s viticultural past. Our guiding spirit told us it was time to press on. He continued north in the direction of Gaiole until he found a dirt road that was almost hidden from view and looked like it would bring us back to the woods. Rather, within a few minutes we were on a high hilltop overlooking Castello di Brolio and Barone Ricasoli’s sprawling vineyards. The setting sun made the ancient castle, surrounded by its high ramparts, appear even more commanding. Montorselli pointed to the faint outline of a tower on an even higher hill to the distant north. It was the ruins of Castello di Montegrossi, dating from the eleventh century, the original stronghold of the Ricasoli-Firidolfi family.9 When the growing city-state of

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Florence had aimed to vanquish its imperial enemies in the twelfth century, it had attacked and destroyed this castle, the regional headquarters of the German emperor Frederick I. When the Aragonese and their Sienese allies had set out to conquer Florence in the late fifteenth century, they had besieged the rebuilt Castle of Montegrossi and demolished Brolio Castle (the symbolic cornerstone of Florence’s sovereignty in Chianti). Montorselli reported that these castle towers were built so each could signal the next allied castle in the distance. From Montegrossi in the Chianti Mountains southwest to the border of Siena is a chain of medieval castles that in various epochs were under the dominion of the RicasoliFiridolfi clan, including those of Vertine, Barbischio, Meleto, Tornano, San Polo in Rosso, Cacchiano, and San Giusto a Rentennano. Here in Chianti, Montorselli reminded us, the wine road is also a castle road. The sun had set on our Chianti journey and it was time to make our way home to Poggibonsi. Driving south from Brolio we passed San Giusto a Rentennano and then took the first left on to SP408 di Montevarchi (also known as the Chiantigiana Vecchia), which runs southwest along Massellone Creek and the Arbia River through Chianti Senese and then to Siena. We passed the town of Pianella and headed west to Siena. When we reached the Siena Nord entrance to the Superstrada del Palio (the fastest route from Siena to Poggibonsi), Montorselli saw that it was blocked to traffic. He nimbly steered us to the Vecchia Cassia (now known as SR2), the old Roman road that links Rome to Florence. Our pilota (pilot) warned us that we could expect “tante curve e controcurve” (many serpentine curves). He explained that this stretch of the Vecchia Cassia was used for the Siena-to-Florence segment of the legendary Mille Miglia car race until 1957. The night was upon us, but Montorselli navigated these curves as if he were at the helm of a vintage Mercedes in our own running of the Mille Miglia. Below the medieval town of Monteriggioni, “crowned with towers,”10 we merged on to the Superstrada del Palio and swiftly arrived at the exit for Poggibonsi Nord. We climbed our way up the winding single-lane road leading to our agriturismo at Fattoria di Cinciano with only the shadows of the colossal cypresses as our guideposts. On reaching our farmhouse, Montorselli checked his odometer and announced that our journey had taken us 340 kilometers (211 miles) around Chianti’s hidden roads. We sat in the car and spoke with him for another fifteen minutes before getting out and saying our good-byes. The stars flickered against the clear midnight-blue sky. Our knowing and truthful guide expressed his highest hope (speranza) for Chianti Classico—“di unire il vino Chianti Classico alla cultura e la bellezza del Chianti, il territorio” (to unite Chianti Classico wine to the culture and beauty of Chianti, the territory). Only in this way will the world know the true Chianti. We share this hope.

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6 THE GEOGRAPHY OF CHIANTI CLASSICO

T H E L AY O F T H E L A N D

We have just taken you on a personal tour in which you have glimpsed the landscape, vineyards, roads, rivers, valleys, and towns of Chianti. Now we offer you data, information, and ideas that underlie that geographic reality. Chianti Classico is a legal wine appellation in the interior of Tuscany that is about forty kilometers (24.9 miles) long and twenty kilometers (12.4 miles) wide (see map 2, in “Mapping Chianti Classico” below). The area is virtually encircled by two major highways, the Superstrada del Palio (also known as RA3) and the Autostrada del Sole (also known as A1). Knowing where these are helps to delineate Chianti Classico. For first-time explorers (without the benefit of a native and knowing guide), the best way to access any destination in Chianti Classico is to pick the nearest highway exit and drive into the interior. While it is relatively easy to travel on straight roads around Chianti Classico, the routes inside the zone are narrow and banked roadways with no shortage of zigzagging curves. Most of these were first paved only during the 1970s or 1980s. Often, destinations that are near as the magpie flies are far by roadway in Chianti. Four townships are wholly incorporated in the Chianti Classico appellation: Radda in Chianti, Gaiole in Chianti, Castellina in Chianti, and Greve in Chianti. The denomination includes about half of Castelnuovo Berardenga, half of Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, half of Barberino Val d’Elsa, a small slice of Poggibonsi, and about four-fifths of the township of San Casciano Val di Pesa. In Italy, the administrative divisions, from largest to smallest, are regione (region), provincia (province), comune (township), and frazione (hamlet, 105

which we refer to as localities in this book). The principal town or village in a township often shares the same name with the township. For example, the principal town in the township of Greve in Chianti is also named Greve in Chianti. In Chianti has been legally added to the original name, Greve, in part to associate the town with the well-known, esteemed, and historic name Chianti and in part to distinguish the town and township from others in Italy that are also named Greve. In most cases, a frazione lacks exact geographic boundaries. There are bureaucratic structures and elections at the regional, provincial, and township levels. A località is a named small place (typically smaller than a frazione). It can be officially used in an address. Tuscans call a village un paese. The province usually has the same name as its principal città (city). Hence, there are two Florences, the città and the provincia. The northern half of Chianti Classico is in the province of Florence. The townships of San Casciano Val di Pesa, Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, Barberino Val d’Elsa, and Greve in Chianti are all in the province of Florence. This area is also commonly referred to as Chianti Fiorentino. The southern half of Chianti Classico is in the province of Siena. The townships of Poggibonsi, Castellina in Chianti, Radda in Chianti, Gaiole in Chianti, and Castelnuovo Berardenga are in the province of Siena. This area is commonly referred to as Chianti Senese. The watersheds of the three largest rivers are Val di Pesa, Val di Greve, and Val d’Elsa. The Pesa, Greve, and Elsa Rivers empty into the Arno River. The Elsa veers northwest away from Chianti Classico after it passes the town of Poggibonsi and then continues northwest by the town of Certaldo before reaching the Arno. Its watershed takes in the southwestern edge of Chianti Classico. The Pesa and Greve Rivers have sources at higher elevations in the center of the Chianti Classico zone and flow roughly parallel as they descend from the heights of the Monti del Chianti (Chianti Mountains). Their watersheds occupy most of Chianti Classico north of the ridge that extends from Badia a Coltibuono to Castellina in Chianti. As they flow to the northwest, the Pesa forms the western border of Chianti Classico from Sambuca to Cerbaia, and the Greve becomes the border between the townships of Greve and San Casciano. A smaller river, the Arbia, flows southeast from its source at Macìa Morta north of Castellina to the city of Siena, eventually meeting the Ombrone. It and its tributaries form the principal watersheds south of the Castellina-Coltibuono ridge. The Massellone, a tributary of the Arbia, has its source in the Monti del Chianti. It runs through Gaiole and the land that for centuries could have aptly been called Ricasoli country. None of these rivers are navigable. Torrents, streams, and creeks that are dry for most of the year fill up with water suddenly after rainstorms. The combination of Chianti Classico’s highly permeable soils and the tendency of these waterways to evacuate water quickly renders agriculture with greater water demands than vines and olive trees challenging. Of Chianti Classico’s 71,800 hectares (177,422 acres, or 277 square miles), 41,400 (102,302 acres, or 160 square miles) are in the province of Siena; the rest are in the province of Florence.1 There are only 7,200 hectares (17,792 acres, or 28 square miles) of vines registered to produce Chianti Classico,2 with about another three thousand

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hectares (7,413 acres, or 12 square miles) registered to produce IGP wines (IGP is the initialism of indicazione geografica protetta, or “protected geographical indication,” an EU classification incorporating place designation and quality control standards). Three thousand hectares of olive groves are also registered to produce Chianti Classico DOP olive oil (DOP is the initialism of denominazione di origine protetta, “protected denomination of origin,” a similar EU classification).3 Forest dominates the landscape of Chianti, accounting for about two-thirds of its surface.4 Until the end of World War II, firewood collection was an important activity in Chianti Classico, and hunting is still important there. The trees, mostly oaks, are small, because the soil is so poor and the water in it so scarce. Rather than being concentrated in particular areas, vineyards and olive groves are spread throughout Chianti. The preponderance of vegetation keeps the air clean. Chianti, compared to other famous viticultural areas such as Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux, is in pristine ecological condition. Vineyards designated to make Chianti Classico wine must be in hilly terrain but not higher than 700 meters (2,297 feet) above sea level. Few vineyards rise above 500 meters (1,640 feet) or reach lower than 250 meters (820 feet) in elevation. The Monti del Chianti, a wall of high hills, delimit Chianti Classico’s eastern flank. The boundary line runs through the highest point of the range, Monte San Michele, which is 892 meters (2,927 feet) high and 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) due east of Panzano. The wall of east-facing mountain slopes from Monte Muro (620 meters, or 2,034 feet, high) at the northern end, east of San Polo in Chianti, to Poggio Macchioni (590 meters, or 1,936 feet, high), northeast of San Gusmè, in the south provides protection from harsh continental weather, particularly cold weather from the east. The Pratomagno Mountains in Arezzo (east of Chianti) loom higher than the Monti del Chianti, sealing Chianti Classico off from the early morning sun. This may be the reason why Chianti Classico winegrowers have historically preferred southern and southwestern exposures to eastern ones. At the southeast corner of Chianti Classico, the upper Arno River Valley opens up somewhat to the east and south, allowing in more morning light. Chianti Classico tends to have wide vistas of the horizon to the south and to the west. The coincidence of light and heat that occurs in late afternoon on plots with a south-southwestern exposure creates riper grapes and therefore more-alcoholic wines, a preference of many wine tasters. That said, variations in weather and factors like being shaded by obstructions such as hills invalidate any hard-and-fast rules about exposure. As ripening has advanced by several weeks in the past thirty years and as producers have sought vineyard sites that result in lower-alcohol wines, plantings at higher altitudes, from four to five hundred meters (1,312 to 1,640 feet), and with eastern to northern exposures are becoming more desirable. Vittorio Fiore, a consulting enologist and winegrower, said that when he first came to Chianti, thirty years ago, “people told me it was crazy to plant vines at more than 350 meters [1,148 feet].” That elevation was considered too cold to ripen the grapes every year. Gionata Pulignani, the agronomist and head winemaker at Fonterutoli in Castellina, reported that “at the beginning of the 1980s,

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350 meters was the best elevation for Sangiovese here. Now five hundred meters is best.” On the other hand, Stefano Porcinai, the consulting enologist for Bibbiano, on the southwestern edge of the zone, noted that alcohol levels in wines are getting so high that less sun is preferred: “Here in the warmer areas of Chianti Classico, north and northeast exposures are now better.” The warmest locations in Chianti Classico are where the elevation is lowest, the San Casciano area and along the western and southern extremities of the zone. The very warmest area may be just north of Monteriggioni, in the southwestern corner, due to its elevation of 250 to 300 meters (820 to 984 feet), its exposure to the southwest, and the warm, humid winds that arrive from the Tyrrhenian Sea off Tuscany’s western coast. Niccolò Brandini Marcolini at Castello di Rencine, which is on a hill that overlooks Monteriggioni, reported that his estate’s harvest is seven to ten weeks earlier than those in the higher-elevation areas nearer to the Monti del Chianti. The water-rich clay soil at Rencine balances the heat of summer, cooling and feeding the vine roots. While the Monti del Chianti run along the eastern edge of the appellation (from the northwest to the southeast) through Greve, Radda, Gaiole, and Castelnuovo Berardenga, the other outstanding high-elevation feature of Chianti Classico is a ridge that cuts through its width, running west from Badia a Coltibuono (at 628 meters, or 2,060 feet) to Radda (at 530 meters, or 1,739 feet) and Castellina (at 578 meters, or 1,896 feet) and then northwest to Poggio della Macìa Morta (at 632 meters, or 2,073 feet). This divides what Chiantigiani call Chianti Fiorentino on the northern side from Chianti Senese on the southern side. Since the prevailing autumn-to-spring weather systems (including the mistral) come from the northwest, precipitation is higher to the north of this divide, particularly where the wet atmosphere moves up to cooler, higher elevations. Exposures facing the Crete Senesi such as at Castelnuovo Berardenga extend near to the horizon, providing this area with high luminosity. January and February in Chianti are known for their cold, clear days. In most winters it snows frequently in the hills more than six hundred meters (1,969 feet) in elevation and once or twice at lower elevations. At these lower elevations, where there are vineyards, the snow lingers for several days before melting. Winegrowers hope for cold winter days. When the vines go into full dormancy, it is safest to prune. The eighteenthcentury Florentine botanist Saverio Manetti knew his viticultural seasons in Chianti. Writing in 1773 under the pseudonym Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, he observed, “In Chianti, the winter is very cold. Thus the custom is to prune the vines in February, which is to say, after the coldest period. To prune early would adversely affect the vine and wound it.”5 Today there are fewer cold winter days than there were in his time. But vines grow better in the spring if they have had the opportunity to be fully dormant during a cold snap in the winter. Such cold weather also reduces or wipes out populations of deleterious microorganisms such as fungi and insect pests (particularly the flying kind). The peasant farmers who tended vines in Chianti for centuries understood the value of winter well. There is an old proverb: “Nell’inverno tramontana, pane e vino alla Toscana”

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(In the winter, the tramontana [a cold north wind], bread, and wine come to Tuscany).6 In other words, cold winter weather ensures good harvests of grain and grapes. According to Michael Schmelzer of the Monte Bernardi winery in Panzano, recent warmer winters in Chianti have meant earlier budbreak. In 2014, it happened at the end of February. This increases the possibility of damage by capricious spring frost, such as occurred in 1997 and in 2001. Spring frost kills buds coming to life after winter dormancy, reducing yield and causing uneven ripening. During the summer in Chianti, the sunny days can extend for weeks without rain. Many streams flow in the winter, only to dry up in the summer. Summer temperatures can rise above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) during July and August, which are generally the warmest months. Temperatures lower than 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) are not uncommon during the winter.7 The average throughout the year is 13 to 14 degrees Celsius (55 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit).8 Day-to-night temperature variation is greater at higher elevations and on the eastern flank of Chianti Classico, which is the part farthest from the Tyrrhenian Sea. During the growing season, day-tonight variation throughout the zone averages about thirteen degrees Celsius (twentythree degrees Fahrenheit).9 During the winter, such temperature difference is less. Schmelzer noted that with very few exceptions (one of them being the unusually warm 2003 vintage), day-to-night temperature variation during the preharvest period is significant. This helps skin and pulp to mature at the same rate, allowing for a better balance of wine alcohol to flavor. Specifically, it triggers pigment development in the grape skins and preserves acidity in the pulp, leading to more pigmented, more astringent, and more acidic wines. A zonation study created for Chianti Classico’s olive oil industry listed a range of nine hundred to one thousand millimeters (twenty-five to thirty-nine inches) for the average annual rainfall from 1993 to 2012.10 Several winegrowers have reported that the weather is subject to more violent changes than in the past. They describe bursts of intense rainfall that they call bombe di acqua (water bombs). Climatically, Chianti can be a chameleon. Some years, such as 2002, can be very wet. Others, like 2003, can be very dry. At Castello di Brolio, only forty millimeters (two inches) were reported for April through August in 2003.11 Typically during these five most important months of the growing period, only 275 millimeters (11 inches) are registered.12 Rainfall is highest during the autumn months, with the most in November and December, an average of 159 and 124 millimeters (6 and 5 inches), respectively, from 1993 through 2012. This had encouraged clonal selection of Sangiovese for earlier-ripening characteristics. During the spring, April regularly has the most rain (ninety-three millimeters, or four inches, on average from 1993 to 2012). The months with the least rainfall are July (twenty-six millimeters, or one inch, on average from 1993 to 2012) and August (thirty-nine millimeters, or two inches, on average from 1993 to 2012).13 Winegrowers appreciate rainstorms of limited duration roughly at the end of June and sometime in August to keep vine maturation from slowing down or stopping because of

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drought. The significant jump in rainfall in September (to ninety-nine millimeters, or four inches, on average from 1993 to 2012) brings dangers that grape producers must face during the harvest period.14 The combination of water availability and temperature is an important factor in grape maturation. At higher altitudes in Chianti, drought is more likely, because the soils are sandier and rockier and hence more free draining. These soils are poorer in nutrients too. Many experts believe that for hotter vintages, it is better to select wines made from vineyards in Chianti Classico at higher altitudes. They reason that temperatures are cooler there, which is true. However, the Piedmontese agronomist Ruggero Mazzilli, who has been working in Panzano for more than a decade, disagrees. He observed that at higher elevations the coincidence of heat, drought, and low fertility desiccates the grapes more than would be the case at lower elevations, particularly where there are clay-rich soils. At lower elevations, heat causes vine stress. This slows maturation, despite high soil vigor. Ripening is thus delayed until when it is cooler and there is more day-to-night temperature variance. If drought and high heat occur just before the harvest, as they did in the last half of August 2000, grape maturation halts because of vine stress. Raisining without further ripening can result. However, if there is sustained cool and wet weather during this period, as in the summer of 2002, ripening slows, the grapes swell up with water, and mold attacks and degrades the grape skins. Even if the grapes ripen well in dry conditions but then it rains before the harvest, as was the case in 2012, some botrytis is inevitable. There are magic years when cold summer weather slows the ripening. In 1995, for instance, everyone thought that the grapes would not mature sufficiently. Then came warm and sunny October weather, which pushed them to perfect maturity, with high levels of acidity. Then there are ideal growing seasons for wine quality, such as that of 1997. In that year, spring frost reduced the yield per vine. Perfect summer growing conditions resulted in an early harvest. While analyzing meteorological readings of the 2003 to 2008 vintages, Schmelzer noticed that although Chianti Classico growing seasons overall may be very different from one another, the weather during the last six weeks of vine growth tends to be similar. High winds are unusual in Chianti Classico. Jurij Fiore at the Poggio Scalette estate in Ruffoli, with a west-facing exposure, says that there is nearly always a light wind, which keeps down mold in the vineyard. While cool, dry air can be a blessing in humid conditions, the ascent of warm, humid winds from low elevations to high ones can produce damaging summer hail. One hot spot for hail is south of Fonterutoli, where hot winds rise quickly from the city of Siena, sharply north and up 250 to 450 meters (820 to 1,476 feet), to Castellina in Chianti. Gaiole and Radda are also more at risk for hail than other areas of Chianti Classico. The part of southwest Chianti Classico near Poggibonsi is affected by warm and humid winds from the Mediterranean, which, by one account, can deposit salt after buds burst, damaging their growth.15 In general, exposures along the western flank of Chianti Classico are strongly affected by weather fronts that

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arrive from the west. Growers there rarely talk about weather patterns from the south or east. In the interior of the zone, the reports of winegrowers vary so much as to indicate that the chaotic topography of Chianti fragments weather patterns. Black storm clouds can form around its highest points. Where they go from there depends on local wind conditions and the facets of the hills off which they ricochet. Since the early 1900s, Chianti geologico (geologic Chianti) has been defined by its galestro-, alberese-, and macigno-based soils. These are local names for rock types, described below. The prevailing theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries characterized Chianti geologico as deriving from the Eocene epoch. In fact, the geology of its hills is more complex. It is nonetheless easy to identify Chianti geologico, since its rocks have jagged edges, the result of tectonic movement. With the exception of some low spots of more recent sedimentary origin, Chianti geologico predates the formation of the surface northwest of Mercatale Val di Pesa, southwest of Lilliano in Castellina, and along the southern edge of Chianti Classico, the largest area being roughly contained within a triangle whose points are the village of Pianella, Castello di Bossi, and the town of Castelnuovo Berardenga. These areas are mostly from the Pliocene epoch. Their soils are sedimentary. Their stones are round, not sharp. This geologic configuration was one of the primary factors that induced Giovanni Rezoagli to propose new borders for Chianti in his detailed monograph Il Chianti in 1965. His map La regione del Chianti omits the areas of more recent sedimentary origin just mentioned.16 Otherwise, the confines of his Chianti are very similar to those of present-day Chianti Classico. The concept of Chianti geologico influenced the delimitation of Chianti as a wine zone in the first quarter of the twentieth century. This can be seen in the first statute of the Consorzio del Gallo, from 1924, which describes the soil of Chianti as “geologically formed or derived from galestro, alberese, arenaria [macigno].”17 Since then, the geologic criteria for the delimitation of the Chianti Classico appellation have expanded. According to the current DOCG regulations, the soils of Chianti Classico vineyards must “consist predominantly of sandstone, calcareous marl, clayey schist, sand and pebbles.”18 Macigno is a local Chianti word for arenaria, or sandstone rock. Erosion turns it into sand. There can be patches of foliated arenaria, as in Ruffoli and Lamole. Alberese (from albus, “white” in Latin) is a hardened marl stone that approximates limestone. In contrast, galestro is a highly friable clay schist, perhaps better described as shale. It is petrified clay with fine layers of sand, which allow it to break apart easily along foliations. This foliation occurs with exposure to air. Macigno, galestro, and alberese have always been the key rocks associated with Chianti. Their color varies with their chemical constituents, which are similar to those of the round rocks of the areas with Pliocene soils. Macigno has a low calcium carbonate content, while at the other extreme that of alberese is quite high. Hence, macigno is darker, usually dark gray, brown, or reddish brown, while alberese can be white or a pastel shade. These stones erode into particles of different sizes, from sand, the largest, through silt to clay, the smallest. Sand is so fast draining that it does a poor job of supplying water

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and hence nutrients to vine rootlets. As a consequence, wines from sandy soils tend to be pale and lightweight. Vines, particularly infant ones, have a difficult time surviving in sandy soil. It does not support them well, so stakes are needed. Clay, at the opposite extreme, holds water and has the best particle size to allow vine rootlets to take up water and nutrients. Too high a concentration of clay, however, can make soil too dense. This can asphyxiate the roots. Clay soil absorbs water and swells up. When it dries, it cracks, increasing evaporation and allowing too much oxygen to come in contact with the roots. Thus, the surface of clay soil needs to be constantly broken up and smoothed over. It can also be very slippery. Silt is the ugly duckling of the three soil sizes. Viticulturalists rarely have kind words for it. It is neither very fast draining nor very efficient at delivering nutrients to the vine. It also compacts easily under the weight of machines. Soils usually have a mix of all three particle types. Calcium carbonate is a compound that helps soils retain water, but, unlike clay, it never cracks and causes problems. Marl is a lime-rich mud with higher percentages of clay and silt than sand. The discussion of soil types is very confusing. Soil maps have borders, but in real life there are none in the ground. This is particularly true of Chianti, where soil types can change by the foot. However, broad generalizations can be made. The Monti del Chianti are macigno rock with macigno-based soils, hence sandy. To the west of these mountains, marl mixes with a chaotic jumble of alberese and galestro rocks. In one area, alberese predominates; in another, galestro. The Monte Morello Formation, a sedimentary layer deposited in the Eocene, typifies this mix. It dominates a broad swath of the zone and produces Sangiovese wines with perfume, structure, and longevity (though keep in mind that with current viticultural techniques, fine Sangiovese wine can be made from most of the soils in Chianti Classico). In the part of San Casciano northwest of Mercatale, in a strip of land north of Sambuca along the Greve River in Tavarnelle, in the area near Pianella in Castelnuovo Berardenga where the Arbia River exits Chianti Classico, and elsewhere along the southern and western borders of Chianti Classico, the soil is principally silty sand. At points where in the Pliocene epoch there were shallow areas of an ancient salt sea, there are now beds of fossil seashells. These fossilized exoskeletons increase the calcium carbonate content of the soil. Where the ancient currents were stronger, as in the Pisignano area just northwest of the town of San Casciano, small round stones are plentiful. The Pliocene soils with a sandy-silty base make lighter wine. At places where the ancient sea currents were more sluggish, the soils are more clayey. There is a particularly clay-rich area just north of Monteriggioni and just east of Poggibonsi. The soil is dark, without stones, and very deep. The wines here tend to be dark and tannic. This was an ancient sea bottom where the currents were too weak to move anything but the finest soil particles. The rounded contours and round stones (where one finds them) give this and other areas with sedimentary soils a gentle feel, which contrasts with that of the jagged contours of the Monti del Chianti and the galestro and alberese rocks that characterize the Monte Morello Formation. In Chianti, one also occasionally comes across pietraforte, a hardened mix of fine

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sand and high-carbonate cement. Pietraforte bedrock underpins much of Panzano. This hardest and least erodible of all rock in Chianti is used for cornerstones and foundations. It adds no nutrients to soil. It is whitish gray on the outside and dark gray on the inside.

MAPPING CHIANTI CLASSICO

An in-depth, scientific understanding of the terroir of Chianti Classico necessitates a zonation study that breaks up and classifies its surface into units defined by numerous parameters. However, Chianti Classico is such a complex maze of soils, exposures, and elevations that a terroir map easily comprehensible by the typical wine connoisseur cannot be made. There are no fast, easy answers. To date, Edoardo Costantini, a Tuscan pedologist, has completed a scientific zonation study only for Chianti Senese and Castello di Brolio. Such studies are useful not only for large-scale decisions such as where to site vineyards but also for more refined ones such as what type of scion or rootstock to plant, what kind of training system to employ, and whether to install an irrigation system. The Italian journalist Alessandro Masnaghetti has created tools that help to bridge the chasm between a complex zonation study and a simple subzone map easily accessible to consumers: a vineyard map of Chianti Classico and a series of more detailed vineyard maps for Panzano (the area within Greve) and several individual townships (Radda, Castellina, and Gaiole) in the zone (available at his website, www.enogea.it). Each map identifies the producers who own the vineyards, which are grouped together according to a locality name—that is, the name of a place in the center of the vineyard area, usually the site of a former fattoria. Localities have no borders, but inhabitants and local members of the agricultural trades have referred to them for centuries. On the back of each map, Masnaghetti provides more explication, including the exposure, altitude, and climatic conditions of vineyard areas. He links all of these factors to the typical expression of the wines from each locality. Masnaghetti’s Chianti Classico maps are valuable tools for members of the trade and for highly motivated consumers. The best near-term solution for consumers and members of the trade who wish to connect Chianti Classico wines to place would be a subzone map, plus subzone names in large letters on the front labels of Chianti Classico wine. However, any system that indicates origin faces a quagmire in defining the borders of subzones. Where should they be? Who is in? Who is out? Arguments circling around these issues are fractious and can end in results that are far from simple and far from relevant. The only incontestable divisions in Chianti Classico are the legal borders of townships. However, only four of the nine townships that have real estate within the Chianti Classico DOCG are completely within it: Radda, Gaiole, Castellina, and Greve. The other five towns, Castelnuovo Berardenga, San Casciano, Poggibonsi, Barberino, and Tavarnelle, are only partially within the Chianti Classico DOCG. This brings up the issue of how to refer to subzones that consist of only parts of townships. Calling them by the

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5 Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico 6 San Donato Classico 7 San Casciano Classico

same name as the whole township would misconstrue their legal borders. For this reason, we have created our own names for them (see map 2). Because San Casciano and Castelnuovo Berardenga are mostly in Chianti Classico, we will call the parts of each in Chianti Classico San Casciano Classico and Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico, respectively. Another issue is what to do with those fragments within Chianti Classico that are minor parts of their own townships (namely, Poggibonsi, Barberino, and Tavarnelle) and too small to be subzones at this level. We have consolidated these fragments into a single subzone called San Donato Classico (using the name of San Donato in Poggio, a central village in that area). Creating sub-subzones such as Panzano, Monti within Gaiole, and Lamole/Casole and Ruffoli within Greve would mean creating borders with no legal precedent. Some twenty Panzano-based winegrowers, the Unione Viticoltori di Panzano (UVP), are lobbying to define Panzano as a subzone. Panzano in Chianti is a frazione of Greve in Chianti, but beyond the village it is unclear how this frazione is delimited. There is no official map of a “Greater Panzano” that would include surrounding vineyards. According to Masnaghetti, he created the Panzano map in his “I cru di Enogea” series on his own. The UVP was completely satisfied with his result. In the notes to this map, he explains the rationale for his delimitation of the Panzano viticultural area. For the southwestern border, he selected the border of the Castellina in Chianti township. For the southern border, he used that of the Radda in Chianti township. He extended the northwestern border so as to contain the ridge with the Rignana estate. For the northern, northeastern, and eastern borders, he relied on a delimitation included in a 1912 Panzano frazione proposal to be a township separate from Greve. This request never received national approval. As he indicates in his notes, Masnaghetti made two exceptions to that proposal. On the eastern flank, he did not include the area of Lamole, reasoning that it has a long vinicultural history separate from that of Panzano. Few would disagree. Lamole is a world apart from Panzano. Their growing conditions are very different. The Lamolese Paolo Socci recounts, with a campanilismo (parochial) wink, that the Lamolese used to say, “The wheat is good down there,” implying that Panzano was not famous for its wine. In fact, the richer clay soil of Panzano could support the growth of wheat, while the sand of Lamole cannot. The oro of Panzano’s conca d’oro (“shell of gold” or, with reference to topography, “basin of gold”) refers to the color not of the sun, as is commonly thought, but of wheat. Masnaghetti deviated from the 1912 request in another instance. He stretched his delimitation of Panzano farther to the northwest, up to the Pieve di Sillano, a chapel in the locality of Sillano, so as to include the Vecchie Terre di Montefili estate. His rationalization was that it has had close professional connections with Panzano producers for some thirty years. Although Vecchie Terre di Montifili is on an extension of the ridge on which the village of Panzano is perched and has similar rocks and soil, an argument against its inclusion is that it is no more than 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) up the road from the town of Greve. Between them is the hill town of Montefioralle. Greve was born as its marketplace. By contrast, it is difficult to make a strong cultural

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and historical connection between Vecchie Terre di Montefili and the village of Panzano. Drawing lines in the soil is rarely free of controversy in our political world. Masnaghetti has been courageous to do so. The UVP winegrowers hope that Panzano will be legally recognized as a subzone of Chianti Classico. Drilling down to define and identify place is the important next step for Chianti Classico.

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7 THE SECRET OF SANGIOVESE

Essentially, Chianti Classico is a Sangiovese varietal wine. But that was not always the case. In 1773, Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi (the pen name of the Florentine medical doctor and botanist Saverio Manetti) explained that red “Vino nel Chianti” was primarily made of “Canajolo nero,” with additions of “S. Gioveto, di Mammolo, e di Marzamino o Marsamino.” (He mentioned that a white “Vino di Chianti” was made too, but with San Colombano and Trebbiano.)1 From the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, Canaiolo was dominant in the red Chianti blend, and Sangiovese was in the background. Canaiolo is a very old variety in central Italy. Piero de’ Crescenzi, writing from Bologna at the beginning of the fourteenth century, described what he called the canajuola grape as “come cinabro rossa molto dolce e servabile” (red like cinnabar, very sweet, and servable).2 One factor that might have contributed to Canaiolo’s popularity from the time of Villifranchi to the mid-nineteenth century was the advantage it enjoyed over Sangiovese when planted in systems that relied on trees for support. Sangiovese’s tendency to ripen late and give high yields make it difficult for tree-trained Sangiovese to ripen before fall rains. In 1885, an Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce report advised that “Canaiuolo nero comune” was better cultivated high, married to trees.3 Canaiolo’s popularity also coincided with the intensification of the mezzadria system, which relied on training vines up trees. However, the variety was at a disadvantage after the late nineteenthcentury phylloxera infestation, since it is more problematic than others to graft on to rootstocks. Moreover, at least since the mid-nineteenth century, when Bettino Ricasoli and others devised the modern Chianti grape blend, there have been no convincing arguments

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that Canaiolo is better than Sangiovese for wine production. As for the other varieties that Villifranchi cited, in part because of the dominance of the Ricasoli Chianti formula, after the late 1800s, Mammolo was marginalized and Marzemino disappeared from Chianti. According to Attilio Scienza, a professor of agronomy at the University of Milan, Mammolo gave high yields grafted to Vitis rupestris–based rootstocks that were first employed as a solution to the phylloxera infestation. Mammolo wines, as a result, were low in perfume and oxidized easily. Scienza asserts that Marzemino was abandoned at the end of the nineteenth century because of its sensitivity to powdery mildew and its low and inconsistent productivity. Chianti and its environs have been home to a great diversity of vine varieties. In his late eighteenth-century treatise, Villifranchi listed ninety-two.4 In 1815, Ignazio Malenotti, a priest at Montauto near San Gimignano, catalogued and described eighty-seven.5 This diversity diminished somewhat later in the nineteenth century when diseases such as powdery mildew (called oidium in Europe) and downy mildew (called peronospora in Europe) and infestations such as phylloxera devastated vineyards. The disintegration of the sharecropping system in Chianti and elsewhere in Tuscany from the 1950s to the 1970s also profoundly damaged varietal diversity. It is difficult to know if the historical names used for vine varieties correspond to their modern names. Vine varieties move, proliferate, and change along the way, just as human populations migrate and change. Even if specific varieties remained stable over time, they may have been given different local names (with different spellings). For example, a casual reader might assume that Sangioveto, Sangiogheto, and San Zoveto were local names for the variety that today we call Sangiovese. However, what appears to be true might not be true. Hence, when considering what varieties were used in Chianti and in Tuscany in earlier epochs, we must always keep in mind that what seems to be a linguistic match may not be a genetic one, nor even an ampelographic one. The study of grape varieties through historical references necessitates contextual analysis, cross-referencing, and inference. Patterns of usage can reveal things not only about the history and character of the varieties mentioned but also about the personality and surrounding culture of their observers. It is widely believed that Sangiovese, which dominates the modern-day Chianti Classico blend, was not selected and propagated as Chianti’s premier variety until the midnineteenth century. One question mystified us: why was it undervalued for so many centuries? We set out to find an answer. Giovan Vettorio Soderini is unanimously cited as the first commentator to mention Sangiovese, or as he spelled it, sangioueto. His Trattato della coltivazione delle viti, e del frutto che se ne può cavare (Treatise on the cultivation of vines, and of fruit trees that can be harvested) was written in the 1590s and first published in Florence by Filippo Giunti in 1600.6 Soderini was from a prominent Florentine family. He had studied philosophy and law at the University of Bologna and, as punishment for a political plot against the Medicis, was exiled to Volterra, where he wrote his agricultural treatise. In addition to

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explaining that “sangioueto” is a generous producer of grapes and hence wine, Soderini issued this warning: “Guardati dal sangioueto, che chi crede farne vino ne fa aceto” (Beware of Sangioueto, for he who thinks to make wine with it will make vinegar).7 It was with great surprise that we found an author, Girolamo da Firenzuola, who mentioned Sangiovese even earlier. In 1552 he authored a seven-book agricultural treatise titled Sopra la agricultura.8 The first book covers viticulture; the second, vinification and maturation of wine. The remaining five discuss the cultivation of fruit trees and the principles of garden design. Though his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all served as high-level officials for the Medici rulers of Florence,9 Firenzuola was, in his own words, a man who had a “certain natural inclination” for grafting vines and fruit trees.10 He had inherited three properties in Galluzzo just north of San Casciano in Val di Pesa,11 but it is likely that he taught himself the “grande arte della Agricultura” (great art of agriculture)12 in his work as an administrator at the Vallombrosan abbey Badia di San Salvatore, in Vaiano north of Prato.13 Firenzuola wrote his treatise while serving a sentence in Florence’s Stinche prison (probably as a consequence of a dispute with the administrator of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence’s Duomo, or cathedral, regarding its lumber harvesting practices).14 He did not possess the writing skill of his brother, Agnolo, who was a well-known abbot and later author. His treatise was not a display of erudition but a practical handbook based on his personal experience planting and grafting vines and fruit trees—and making wine. Neither his manuscript nor his name publicly surfaced until 1803, when an abbot named Luigi Fiacchi (also known as Clasio) gave a lecture in Florence at the Georgofili Academy and another at the Academy of Science and Letters in Florence, called La Colombaria. In these lectures, he described an unedited work about agriculture from 1550 by a Girolamo di ser Bastiano Gatteschi da Firenzuola.15 He explained that it had been lost to history and, in contrast with the works of celebrated Tuscan authors such as Luigi Alamanni, Pier Vettori, Bernardo Davanzati, and Soderini, presented an entire system of agriculture, especially regarding the cultivation of olives and vines. According to Fiacchi, Firenzuola’s treatise was “sepolto ancora miseramente fra le tenebre di vergognosa dimenticanza” (still buried miserably in the shadows of shameful oblivion).16 We discovered what we believe to be Firenzuola’s original handwritten text from September 16, 1552, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF, or National Central Library of Florence). Its 157 numbered, double pages contain all seven books, the first two of which detail every aspect of planting vineyards, growing grapes, and making and aging wine. We also obtained a copy of what we assess to be an exact transcription, barring punctuation and spelling corrections, of this manuscript in a more legible handwritten version (though 117 double pages in length) from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML, or Laurentian Library) in Florence. The BML copy turned out to be our Rosetta stone for deciphering Firenzuola’s feverish and faded cursive script in the BNCF manuscript. His work was published in 1871 for the first and only time to date, in Siena. However, that volume contains only three books and is based on an abridged version of

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Firenzuola’s original manuscript in the Biblioteca Comunale di Siena (City library of Siena). This version veers away from the other two, streamlining ideas, omitting details, and even changing the order of chapters. It must be a condensation of the original manuscript by someone who, sadly, did not understand the seminal value of Firenzuola’s work or the practical art of agriculture. Curiously, phrases in the 1871 text appear sometimes verbatim and always without attribution in the 1571 Discorso dell’agricoltura of Giovambatista Tedaldi, dedicated to Cosimo I de’ Medici; Toscana coltivazione delle viti e delli arbori of Bernardo Davanzati, written in 1579; and Soderini’s Trattato della coltivazione, probably penned in the 1590s before his death in 1596. Ideas and terminology in the BNCF and BML manuscripts, however, do not always reappear in this subsequent literature. For this reason, we believe that it must have been the abridged and corrupted version of Firenzuola’s treatise that was reportedly circulated in certain learned Florentine circles in the mid-to-late sixteenth century.17 The Florentine intelligentsia in search of literary fame borrowed heavily from it to compensate for a lack of hands-on agricultural experience. In the prefatory letter to his original Toscana coltivazione (not included in the version published in Florence by Giunti in 1622), Davanzati obliquely referred to an earlier, roughly written work that he “squeezed some of for its juice.”18 Firenzuola was the first known commentator to reference Sangiovese and among the earliest Tuscans to cite Mammolo and “canaiuola” (Michelangelo Tanàglia mentioned “canaviolo” in the 1490s in his poem De agricultura). He noted that sweet vermiglio was based on Canaiolo, with lesser amounts of Mammolo and Raffaone.19 Raffaone is an old Tuscan variety that is no longer planted for commercial wine production. Chapter 6 of book 2 of his treatise provides a method to “fare un vino prezioso” (make a precious wine). To do so, Firenzuola singled out Sangiovese and Sangiovese alone: “Above all, cherishing the variety Sangioveto for this choice.” The spelling used for Sangiovese in the BNCF manuscript is śgioveto. The spelling in the BML manuscript is Sangioveto. In the BML manuscript, Firenzuola first discusses sourcing for a vino prezioso: “One must take grapes from a vineyard of old vines growing in mountainous and rocky locations such as Lucolena, Montescalari, Radda, Panzano, Lamole, Civitella and similar.” What is remarkable is that these six towns are in Chianti or close to the Monti del Chianti. Hence, in Firenzuola’s day, Sangiovese, not Canaiolo, was the premier grape variety of Chianti, the only region he singled out for making a precious wine. Several sentences later on the same page, he identifies Sangiovese’s characteristics: “Notwithstanding that it makes richly colored and great wine in ample quantity, its proverb says that, instead of wine, Sangioveto makes good vinegar. The wine is not lacking in great flavor. It is a vine variety ideal for attaining success in business. Because it is fruitful, it is useful in large blends.”20 The abridged text published in 1871 (and presumably the manuscript on which it was based) omits mention of Radda, Lamole, or Civitella in this passage. Though it cites Sangioveto, it contains little praise for the variety in comparison with the BNCF and BML manuscripts. It incorrectly transforms the old “proverb” referred to in Firen-

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zuola’s original manuscript into an unqualified warning about Sangiovese: “Avverti da sangioveto, chè chi crede far vino fa aceto” (Beware of Sangioveto, for he who thinks to make wine will make vinegar).21 Hmm? Something precious got lost in translation. Sangiovese is not, in fact, a variety that is prone to making wines that turn to vinegar. Amazingly, Soderini issued the same warning in the late sixteenth century. In 1726, Cosimo Trinci of Pistoia published a seminal manual L’agricoltore sperimentato (The experienced farmer), which was so esteemed that it went through multiple reprintings. In the 1738 edition, “S. Zoveto,” as he called Sangiovese, “[f ]a il vino senza odore; molto colorito, grosso, e spiritoso; ma portandoli nella estate, piglia facilmente d’aceto, o come altri dicono, di fuoco” (makes a wine without aroma; very colored, fat, and alcoholic; but during the summer, it turns easily to vinegar, or as others say, to fire).22 In Renaissance Italian, saying that a wine took on di fuoco most likely meant that it emitted the strong, acrid, nail polish–like smell of ethyl acetate. This chemical compound is associated with the presence of acetic acid, the principal volatile acidic compound in wine. Could two independent agronomic experts, Soderini and Trinci, have arrived at the same conclusion? Almost fifty years later, Villifranchi wrote that Sangiovese makes wine with deep color, without smell, and with body, force, and high alcohol, but one that “facilmente in Estate prende come dicono volgarmente il fuoco, o sia l’acetoso” (easily in summer, as they say vulgarly, becomes fiery or vinegary).23 His book Oenologia toscana, published in 1773, was considered so authoritative that it won a prize offered by the Georgofili Academy. Ever since this book was written, it has been seen as the bible of late eighteenth-century Tuscan viticulture, enology, and wine commerce. Apparently Villifranchi too had the same bad “experience” with Sangiovese. Giuseppe Acerbi, in the classic Italian tradition of the adventurer, translator, and politician (but neither farmer nor scientist) turned agronomist, wrote a compendium of information about Tuscan grape varieties that was published in 1825. He said of Sangiovese, “Fa il vino molto colorito e spiritoso, ma senza odore, e facilmente in estate prende, come dicono volgarmente, il fuoco, o sia l’acetoso” (It makes a very colorful and alcoholic wine, but without smell, and easily takes on in summer, as they vulgarly say, fire, or vinegary smells).24 It was not until the mid-1850s that Sangiovese’s reputation for producing flawed wine seemed to fade away. Surprisingly, it resurfaced a century later, in 1957. In a speech at the conference on the future of Chianti as an agricultural zone that was held at the Georgofili, Giovanni Dalmasso, the enological consultant to the conference and the most highly respected Italian wine scientist of his day, criticized Chianti’s winegrowers for using Sangiovese as the dominant variety in their wines, citing both Trinci’s and Villifranchi’s texts as evidence that it made wines that were too harsh and acidic.25 Unfortunately for Tuscany, a bad reputation, even ill founded, dies hard. How the proverb quoted in Firenzuola’s original manuscript came about will likely remain a mystery. Its creator may have noticed that a vat or barrel of Sangiovese must or

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wine smelled of vinegar. This might have been caused by an attack of acetic acid bacteria before or during a stoppage in fermentation. A contaminated barrel could also have caused this smell. Firenzuola, though, was relating his own experience of successfully vinifying Sangiovese from the high hills of Chianti. Mentioning the proverb in his treatise was likely his way of dispelling a long-held rural myth. Unfortunately for Chianti, it may have been one flawed transcription of Firenzuola’s manuscript and repetition by Tuscany’s erudite (but hands-off ) agronomists that sidelined Sangiovese for three centuries! (Why Firenzuola, the earliest champion of Sangiovese as Tuscany’s noble variety and of the Sangiovese-predominant wine hailing from Chianti, has been sidelined for 464 years is another story.) One of the challenges in unearthing Chianti’s past is that until the nineteenth century it was a hinterland. Commentators, usually members of the intelligentsia, wrote from surrounding cities and towns. Unfortunately, the majority of them never farmed a vineyard or personally made a wine. Particularly during the Renaissance, there was such faith in the agricultural treatises of the Greeks and Romans that these writers cited such classical texts as if they were relevant to the present-day agronomic circumstances. They uncritically collected and compiled information. Their works largely were not the fruit of personal observation and empiric analysis, let alone of scientific inquiry. Firenzuola’s Sopra la agricultura was the exception. In his 1803 lectures to the Georgofili and Colombaria academies, Fiacchi credited Firenzuola with embracing the “gran parte della scienza Agraria” (most of the agrarian sciences).26 It bears asking to what extent the agrarian sciences, especially viticulture and enology, would have advanced in Tuscany if Firenzuola’s original work had seen the light of day.

SANGIOVESE RISES AGAIN

There were, fortunately, winegrowers outside the echo chamber in which Sangiovese was believed to produce vinegary wine. They were not members of the intelligentsia. They grew and vinified Sangiovese. Domenico Falchini, the fattore at the Medici Villa of Lappeggi south of Florence, at the beginning of the 1700s described a “sangioveto grosso” (which, he wrote, was also known as sanvicetro) as having a dense bunch similar to Canaiolo, with colored skin and a sweet pulp. However, only when planted in humid spots, does he allow for its use in high quality wines. Perhaps he was under the spell of the agronomic literature that undermined its use. On the other hand, he made several references to a “sangioeto,” which he qualified further in two instances, indicating pigmentation in the case of “sangioeto colorito” (colored sangioeto) and berry or bunch size as well as pigmentation in the instance of “sangioeto piccolo rossigno” (small and light-reddish sangioeto). Falchini described the latter as an early-ripening vine with a small, sparse bunch that animals eat before large quantities can be harvested.27 Though he preferred that “canaiola” be the dominant variety in quality wines to be aged, such as Chianti and

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Montepulciano, he advised that one “aggiungere un poca di uva di sangioeto” (add a little sangioeto) to Chianti wines to ensure that they would last into the summer after the harvest, particularly during the hot days.28 This addition of a sweeter grape would have increased the sugar content of the must, resulting in higher-alcohol wines that would therefore have been more stable and resistant to microbiological attack. Without this higher alcohol content, spoilage would likely occur during the summer months. Falchini’s description and use of sangioeto fit those of what some Chianti Classico winegrowers used to call Sangiovese piccolo but is today recognized as Sanforte, a distinct variety. Moreover, Villifranchi’s comment that Sanforte makes a powerful wine that becomes excellent with age and is suitable to export also supports the equation of sangioeto with Sanforte.29 Giuseppe del Moro, a fattore in Colle Val d’Elsa, listed Sangiovese first among his preferred Chianti varieties ca. 1760: “Per il Chianti dove vi si fanno vini navicabili e potenti vi sono più qualità d’uva cioè Sangiveto nero, Canaiolo nero, Marzamino nero, Raffaione nero, Tribbiano bianco e queste sono le qualità d’uve per fare il Vino navicabile, ma la maggior parte d’uve pigliano S. Giveto, e Canaiolo, del Tribbiano” (For Chianti, where they make shippable and powerful wines, you need the higher-quality grape varieties, that is Sangiveto nero, Canaiolo nero, Marzamino nero, Raffaione nero, Tribbiano bianco, and these are the grapes of quality for making shippable wines, but S. Giveto, Canaiolo, and Tribbiano should make up the principal part of the blend).30 Thirty years later, in 1790, Francesco Bernardino Cappelli at Fattoria Montagliari, an estate in Panzano, made a 100 percent Sangiovese wine. The estate looks northeast across the Greve River up to the high-elevation vineyards of Lamole. The grapes for the wine were dried indoors for fifteen days and then fermented. The wine was kept in large barrels until San Lorenzo’s day, August 10, when it was transferred to smaller, twohundred-liter (fifty-three-gallon) barrels. Hence the Cappelli family named the wine Brunesco di San Lorenzo. It matured in the small barrels for another four to eight months. The Cappellis ceased production of the wine in 1917 when phylloxera destroyed the vineyard. In 1980, Minuccio Cappelli revived production using the same recipe, which had been discovered among family documents.31 It took an outsider, as it often does, to openly assail the status quo, in this case the primacy of Canaiolo as the base of quality Chianti wine and the bad reputation of Sangiovese. In August 1833, Giorgio Perrin, the Swiss owner of the Petrolo estate (in Valdarno di Sopra just outside the southeastern border of Chianti), gave a presentation to the Georgofili Academy in which he identified “san Gioveto” as the best variety in his vineyards. He made experimental vinifications of varietal wines to test his hypotheses. Refining his choice further, he identified three biotypes of Sangiovese: “Calabrese,” “san Gioveto grosso,” and “san Gioveto piccolo.”32 Perrin’s reference to Calabrese as a member of the Sangiovese family is interesting, because genetic studies, the first published in 2004,33 have shown that Calabrese di Montenuovo, a variety previously native to Calabria (although now, according to Attilio

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Scienza, there are only two extant vines, one in Campania and the other at the University of California, Davis), is the parent of Sangiovese, along with Ciliegiolo, which is widely planted, particularly along the Tuscan coast. No one knows what Perrin was referring to as Calabrese. Baron Antonio Mendola, the legendary Sicilian ampelographer, read his 1834 account and assumed that Perrin meant the Calabrese native to Sicily, a variety that is commonly referred to as Nero d’Avola today and is distinct from Calabrese di Montenuovo. To Mendola’s knowledge, Perrin was the first person to refer to “Calabrese” in Tuscany. He did not have any cuttings from Perrin in his collection in Favara in Sicily, so he could not ascertain whether this was the same Calabrese that was present in Sicily.34 In 1839, affirming Perrin’s association, Giorgio Gallesio listed Calabrese di Montepulciano as a synonym for Sangiovese.35 In a report on its research from September 1875 to October 1876, the Ampelographic Commission of Siena identified “Sangioveto” and “Canaiolo,” then “Marrugà” and “Calabrese” as the most important grapes used to produce Chianti.36 The viticultural researcher Roberto Bandinelli, however, asserts that the Calabrese that exists now in Tuscany is neither Calabrese di Montenuovo nor a biotype of Sangiovese. Sangiovese is never short of mystery. As a red grape, Sangiovese finally gained wide Tuscan recognition with Bettino Ricasoli’s recipe for Chianti wine in the mid-nineteenth century. The young Ricasoli who became a member of the Georgofili in 1834 was probably aware of Perrin and his research, and he later conducted viticultural and enological experiments to improve Castello di Brolio wine. The first indication of what he believed was the best varietal mix for his wine comes from Regolamento agrario (Rulebook for farming), which he drew up and had printed in 1843. It was the result of four years of his experience at Brolio.37 It was read out loud to all of the contadini (peasant farmers) living and working on Ricasoli’s properties at Brolio, Cacchiano, and Torricella in Gaiole. In the section titled “Crops and Their Maintenance,” the book instructed the contadini to plant “few varieties of grapes,” the best of which were “il Sangioveto, il Canaiolo bianco e nero, la Malvagia, il Mammolo, il Trebbiano.”38 Sangiovese was first in Ricasoli’s rulebook. Beginning in 1851, he chronicled his observations and ideas in a series of diaries titled Storia della cantina di Brolio (History of the Brolio winery). In a letter dated October 10, 1871, he identified Sangioveto (Sangiovese) as being the predominant variety in his Brolio wines, stating that it would contribute at least 80 percent to his blend.39 On September 26, 1872, he explained his wine’s blend in a letter to his enological consultant, Professor Cesare Studiati of the University of Pisa. By then he had decided to base Chianti on a blend of solely Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia: “I confirmed the results of the first few experiments, in which Sangiovese gives the main dose of perfume (which I particularly like) and a certain vigorous sensation, Canaiolo gives softness, which tempers the hardness of the Sangiovese without taking away its perfume, and Malvasia, which one could omit in wines intended for aging, tends to dilute the blend of the first two grape varieties, enhances the flavor, and makes it lighter and more readily usable at the daily dinner table.”40

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Ricasoli, by virtue of his dedication and prominence, firmly established Sangiovese as Chianti’s star, but it was one in a cast of three, sharing the stage with Canaiolo and Malvasia. Experts of Ricasoli’s day reinforced the idea that a blend of grapes was better than Sangiovese alone for Chianti, though they believed that it should be limited to about three varieties. Egidio Pollacci, the famous enologist and teacher, asserted that a blend of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia would make a better wine than Sangiovese or Canaiolo alone.41 One wonders, however, what could have happened if Ricasoli and his descendants had instead focused on Sangiovese alone, doing the same kind of scientific selection and propagation of biotypes that occurred more than a hundred years later in the Chianti Classico 2000 project (see “Sangiovese Purebreds” below) and afterward at Brolio under the leadership of Francesco Ricasoli. Perhaps Luigi Ricasoli was reflecting on the Iron Baron’s decision to make a blend rather than a 100 percent Sangiovese wine when, in 1930, sampling the 1891 and 1888 Biondi-Santi Brunellos, he lamented to Ferruccio Biondi Santi with a sigh, “Ecco, a questo io non ci arrivo!” (Here is what I am not arriving at!)42 While Bettino Ricasoli was refining his Chianti formula in the 1870s, Biondi Santi was continuing the selection and propagation of Sangiovese biotypes selected and propagated by his grandfather Clemente Santi. In an interview in 1998, Franco Biondi Santi asserted that in the 1870s, Ferruccio identified and separated out a special biotype or small family of biotypes called Brunello di Montalcino, which became the basis of the Sangiovese varietal wine of that name. It was a “super” Sangiovese varietal wine. Biondi Santi’s work was a precursor to the intensive selection process that characterized the work of the Chianti Classico 2000 project to identify and develop the best performing clones of Sangiovese.

S A N G I O V E S E ’ S U N S TA B L E FA M I LY

Girolamo Molon described the differences between the Sangiovese grosso (big) or dolce (sweet) and the Sangiovese piccolo (small) families in his book on ampelography published in 1906: “Two are the types of Sangioveto, which have been long cultivated in Italy: the grosso, also called Sangioveto dolce; and the piccolo, called Sangioveto forte [strong]. The first . . . is without doubt the more important and the more widespread; it differs essentially from the other in having berries that are larger and looser in the bunch, and that produce much more [juice per bunch].”43 Until the 1990s, it was widely believed that there were two families or classes of Sangiovese, the grosso being associated with the Sangioveto of Chianti, the Brunello of Montalcino, and the Prugnolo Gentile of Montepulciano, and the piccolo being a small-berried family whose members were not clearly defined. However, during the 1990s, the scientific community determined that distinct grosso and piccolo families did not exist. The conclusion was that they are all part of one vine variety, Sangiovese. Because biotypes of Sangiovese selected in the field change their morphology when grown in different conditions, consistent familial strains could not

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be deduced. Even clones of the same biotype planted in two vineyard sites can grow and look different from each other. In the words of Giovanni Mattii, an associate professor of viticulture at the University of Florence, “Sangiovese is phenotypically unstable.” It is a chameleon of a vine variety. The Lamole area is the legendary source of the biotypes of Sangiovese used in Chianti. It offers an added twist to Sangiovese’s genealogy. Paolo Socci, a grower-historian at Lamole, reports that until fifty years ago, growers there divided what they called Sangioveto into three families, grosso, piccolo, and forte. While the distinction between grosso and piccolo is not valid from a genetic standpoint, researchers have recognized and understood what the Lamolese called Sangioveto forte. Roberto Bandinelli was one of those who investigated this grape and determined that it was distinct from Sangiovese. In Italy’s National Registry of Grape Varieties, it was given the name Sanforte to distinguish it from Sangiovese. Genetically, Sanforte and Sangiovese are not closely related. Neither are their morphologies. Sanforte’s harvests are substantially earlier than Sangiovese’s, and the musts derived from its grapes are higher in sugar.44 The name forte probably refers to the final alcohol content of the wine, which usually reaches 15 percent by volume. Though Villifranchi is given credit for the first mention of this variety in his Oenologia toscana, published in 1773, Falchini some sixty years earlier described “sangioeto piccolo rossigno” as distinct from “sangioveto grosso”: it ripened earlier, and its grapes were so sweet that farmers fenced them in to protect them from marauding animals. This is similar to the modern description of Sanforte. In addition, Falchini said that sangioeto piccolo rossigno vines should be planted at higher altitudes, in unfertile and dry soils.45 This fits Lamole and Sanforte’s other synonym, Sangioveto montanino (little mountain Sangioveto). Contemporaneously with Falchini’s mention of sangioeto, Bartolomeo Bimbi (the still-life artist who worked in the court of Cosimo III) painted a bunch of “Sangioeto” in his Uve, dated 1700. Bimbi made portraits of the plants grown in the Medici fattorie, such as the one at Villa Lappeggi, where Falchini was the fattore.46 These are the two earliest instances of the spelling sangioeto. The next was in a dictionary of the natural sciences published in 1848.47 Though it is always difficult to make conclusions based on spelling variation, particularly when they are attached to ampelographic identifications, it appears that sangioeto was a relatively rare variety in Chianti. That too fits what we know about Sanforte today. Socci, forever the Lamole champion, has a hunch about how the Biondi Santi family of Montalcino selected its Brunello strain. According to Socci family lore, his greatgrandfather, Giovanni Socci, the cellar master at Castelvecchi in Radda, was friendly with Ferruccio Biondi Santi and corresponded with him. At that time, viticulture in Lamole was considered the most developed in Tuscany, while that in Montalcino was less developed. Socci winked when he suggested that Biondi Santi might have come to Lamole to take cuttings of what became known as Brunello di Montalcino. Was what became Brunello di Montalcino really a transplanted “Brunello di Lamole”?

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SANGIOVESE PUREBREDS

During the 1970s, three clones of Sangiovese were propagated for use, R10, R24, and F9. R and F indicate their developers, respectively the Rauscedo nursery and the University of Florence. The Rauscedo nursery in Friuli selected the original budwood for R10 from Lamole. Known as Grosso Lamole, it is a high-yielding clone that was criticized in the 1990s for making pale and thin wine. R24, known as Medio Predappio, was selected and developed in the Romagnan hills to the northeast of Tuscany. It was and has remained popular for making fruity and moderately colored wine. The University of Florence selected the F9 clone (more precisely, SS-F9-A 5–48) from Tuscany. The precise origin of the selection is not known. It has large berries similar to R10 but makes wines with deeper color. There is some mystery surrounding another high-performing Sangiovese biotype. In 1970, the viticulturist Remigio Bordini selected a biotype called T19 in Emilia-Romagna. It was studied as a presumptive Sangiovese clone in the Chianti Classico 2000 project of the 1990s, along with other registered clones. In a 1998 blind tasting of microvinifications of Sangiovese clones (F9-A 5–48, R10, R24, and T19) conducted by the Chianti Classico consortium, although the R24 clone wine had the most fruit, the T19 sample had the deepest color and “had floral aromas and had firm tannins, not unlike those of R24.”48 According to Jarkko Markus Di Peränen of the Candialle estate in Panzano, T19 matures later than all the other Sangiovese clones that he has used, ripening about ten days after their average date. The bunches are loose, hence more resistant to mold. He maintains that the grapes also have the deepest color, most sugar, most acidity, and lowest pH among them. To taste a T19 Sangiovese wine, try Candialle’s Pli. That insiders know T19, alias RL Bosche, as a “best of breed” clone may be one of Sangiovese’s bestkept modern-day secrets. Because T19 has one or more viruses—two, according to Peränen—it has not been registered as a clone. Italian regulations do not permit the presence of viruses in registered clones. But though some viruses are deleterious to vine health, others have little if any impact. The Consorzio Vini Tipici di San Marino lists a Sangiovese clone named RL Bosche.49 The consulting enologist Vittorio Fiore reports that it is the same genetic material as T19. T19, then, must have been renamed and become a registered clone. During the 1990s, the Chianti Classico 2000 project developed seven Sangiovese clones for use, CCL 2000/1 through CCL 2000/7. These were particularly popular when they were released, beginning in the early 2000s. Many other new clones were released from nurseries at that time. They were loosely called “the second-generation Sangiovese clones,” the first generation having been characterized by F9, R10, R24, and T19. Since then, a new round of clones has been released. The names most often mentioned as the sources of this wave are Rauscedo and the French nursery Pépinières Guillaume. Since 1988, Pierre-Marie Guillaume has taken a particular interest in Tuscany, traveling there often to look for Sangiovese biotypes to propagate, study, and register as

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clones. His nursery has available at least twelve clones that he has selected from throughout Italy. Over the years he has worked closely with Paolo De Marchi of Isole e Olena. However, there now is a trend against clones and toward mass selection, the choice and propagation of cuttings from one’s own or nearby vineyards. Giulio Gambelli, Chianti’s renowned master taster, was not a believer in using registered clonal selections sold by nurseries. The consulting enologist Fred Staderini is blunter: “We have been prisoners of clones. To get financing for your loans, you are required to buy and plant virus-free clones. There is a [counter]trend toward mass selection.” Many winegrowers reason that they can rely on the performance of what they propagate because they have witnessed the behavior of what they select. Among the characteristics that have been valued most for biotype selection are early ripening, loose bunches, small bunches, thick skins, small berries, growth that balances fruit and vegetation, and disease resistance. An argument can be made that selecting local clones helps to preserve the identity of an area. However, to search for the true Chianti, growers must select parent vines that predate the FEOGA years of the 1960s and 1970s and, even better, the 1930s, when phylloxera necessitated the extirpation of prephylloxera vines and the grafting of selected budwood on to resistant rootstocks. Michael Schmelzer, a Panzano vignaiolo whose ideas often challenge the status quo, reports that he prefers the two classic Sangiovese clones F9 and R24 to the new generation of superclones. He does not want to make dark, astringent, and alcoholic wines, which have driven the selection process of the superclones. In general, he uses firstgeneration clones supplied by nurseries instead of a mass selection of budwood so that he can methodically compare and track the performance of his plantings in the field and in the glass. Stefano Porcinai, one of the architects of the Chianti Classico 2000 project, warns against too much reliance on the expected performance of clones. The management of a vine’s growth, he says, is much more important than its clonal selection. One criterion in the selection of the second and third generations of Sangiovese clones needs reexamination. With global warming, Sangiovese is ripening several weeks earlier than it did twenty-five years ago. The emphasis should now be on the development of late-ripening clones. The resulting greater day-to-night temperature variation and generally cooler conditions at harvest would ensure slower development of sugar in the pulp, so that the maturation of skin and seeds could keep pace. Cooler temperatures also translate to lower pHs and higher acidities at picking and more-controlled onsets of fermentation. One great vintage that is memorable for its late harvest date is the 1995, which extended from the third week of September to the second week of October. The wines have the combination of high acidity and structure that will enable them to age for decades. Moving Sangiovese to higher altitudes is a long-term solution to the global warming issue. During the 1990s, Gambelli, who knew Sangiovese wines better than anyone else in Chianti, recommended elevations of 300 to 350 meters (984 to 1,148 feet) above sea level. Those now need upward revisions of one hundred meters (328 feet). Traditionally,

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the best exposures were considered to be south to southwest. Gambelli preferred southwest, because he feared that the coincidence of morning heat and moisture rising from the ground would create ideal conditions for downy mildew. In most cases in France, growers prefer southeast-to-east exposures. Now with climate change, Italian growers are considering such exposures for Sangiovese. Northern exposures are the best in extremely hot vintages. Sangiovese is a difficult variety to grow. Sometimes it needs help. It buds early, making it frost prone, particularly in March and April. If frost occurs, then buds are destroyed and yields drop precipitously. Paolo De Marchi remembers that the spring frost of 2001 destroyed about 40 to 45 percent of the Chianti Classico crop. Yet the production of 2001 Chianti Classico wine, 263,000 hectoliters (6.9 million gallons), was only 10 percent less than that of the previous year, 291,000 hectoliters (7.7 million gallons).50 Other varieties, some not legal, from outside Chianti Classico came to the “rescue” of the wine industry. Sangiovese suffers when the soil is too wet. Plant Merlot there instead—it does well in moist and rich soil. When it rains and rains, as it did in 2002, Sangiovese grapes swell up rapidly and can burst. Cabernet Sauvignon’s thick skins and small berries resist these conditions. In 2012, after a hot, dry summer, it rained before the harvest, causing dilution and botrytis problems. Sangiovese’s relatively thin skins make it prone to botrytis. Call in the Cabernet Sauvignon! Sangiovese flags when the temperature is high. Ciliegiolo does much better in such conditions. There is a lot of it planted in Chianti Classico. It blends right in because only an expert can tell a Ciliegiolo vine from a Sangiovese one. The pH of Sangiovese grapes can go rather high in hot conditions, but the resulting wine’s total acidity is less affected. Sangiovese wines rarely lose their sour zip. The coincidence of high temperatures and drought can make the vines comatose and the grapes dry up without ripening. Since the mercilessly dry and hot vintage of 2003, the regulations restricting the use of irrigation have been relaxed. The coincidence of high temperatures and sunlight can burn the thin skins of Sangiovese. This happened in the vintage of 2011. Canopy management, such as leaving the leaves on the vines’ western side, can provide a natural sun block. Clay soils result in dark, heavy, tannic wines; sandysilty soils, in pale, light, aromatic ones. Sand and clay are the two extremes for Sangiovese, but together in a blend grapes grown on them work well. Gambelli’s ideal soil for Sangiovese was galestro based. Coming from vines grown on galestro, wines naturally have high perfume and longevity. Even in years with rain, galestro-based soil stays dry. Because alberese absorbs and conserves water, in very dry years it is the best soil base. These same stones, once they have drunk their fill, provide drainage in wet years. Galestro, however, can store some water between its foliations. Sangiovese rarely suffers mold problems when planted on galestro-based soil. That being said, with modern viticultural techniques, fine Sangiovese wine can be made from vines grown on a wide range of soils. Looking at the quality issue from another perspective, a fine, delicate Sangiovese that comes from sandy soil has to be assessed on its own terms, just as a dark, structured one from clay must be.

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Vinifying Sangiovese has its challenges as well. It does not respond as well as Pinot Noir to prefermentation maceration. Color development is very slow at the beginning of fermentation, when the must is aqueous. Much of the color comes later, when the alcohol, now at higher levels, acts as a solvent. If Sangiovese skins are perfectly mature, long macerations of more than a month can yield excellent results. Wine aroma becomes more complex; astringency, better integrated and more softly textured. Sangiovese wine does not blend well with varietal wines with strong personalities. The smell of Cabernet overwhelms it. Merlot seamlessly blends in. New oak smells in the nose also easily cover Sangiovese wine, particularly when it matures in barriques (225-liter, or 59-gallon, capacity). At the same time, if the new oak is carefully selected, its extracts can fill Sangiovese’s relatively vacuous middle palate with texture. Vacuous middle palates, however, in the presence of expressive aromas and long, fine, sour, astringent finishes characterize Barolo and Barbaresco, if not the best traditional-style Sangiovese wines. Such is the case for those that mature for a year or more in well-maintained large barrels. The middle road, tonneaux of five hundred liters (132 gallons), is the one most taken now. More than thirty months in a barrel of any type is pushing Sangiovese’s ability to resist oxidation. If it needs more maturation, leaving it in bottle is a safer solution. Given the evolved technologies in the vineyard and the winery, it is possible to make a 100 percent Sangiovese wine almost every year in Chianti Classico. Unfortunately, “almost” is not a strong enough standard to convince many producers to lobby to make 100 percent Sangiovese Gran Selezione the law of Chianti Classico’s land. Producers are under pressure to deliver a fine and consistent product every year, despite varying harvest conditions. The regulations concerning the Chianti Classico blend allow up to 20 percent of other varieties, enough to offset problems associated with harvest conditions. Regardless of changes in some sophisticated markets, an important selling point to novice consumers is depth of wine color, the deeper the better. Among the allowed “other varieties,” some deepen the color of the final blend. Others perform other functions, such as adding alcohol, acidity, tannin, or flavor nuances. If 100 percent Sangiovese should ever become the rule for Gran Selezione or other Chianti Classico legal categories, producers will lose the varietal blending option. Since the scandal that uncovered that Brunello di Montalcino wines were not all 100 percent Sangiovese as required by law, the technology with which consortia and legal authorities determine whether a wine has met its required standard of Sangiovese purity has come into wider use. It analyzes a wine’s amount of various monomeric anthocyanins, coloring pigments in the skins of grapes. In deeply colored grape varieties, such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, 20 to 40 percent of the anthocyanins are attached to chemical groups called acyls. The percentage of acylated anthocyanins in the skins of pale varieties such as Sangiovese and Pinot Noir is lower. At most 3 percent of the anthocyanins in Sangiovese grapes are acylated.51 After vinification, this decreases to 2 percent or less. Technology can now detect if more

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than 2 percent of anthocyanins in a wine are acylated. This means that Sangiovese wines with a small addition of highly pigmented varieties can be identified. We can now have more assurance that a 100 percent Sangiovese varietal criterion will not be sacrificed because of market or other pressures. Sangiovese and terroir should shine in at least one category of Chianti Classico. Requiring one or more categories of Chianti Classico to be 100 percent Sangiovese would result in fewer color and flavor adjustments during blending. We say “fewer” because producers can still blend in different lots of Sangiovese, such as wines matured in different container types, press wine, and up to 15 percent from another vintage. Sangiovese is very sensitive to its growing conditions, whose clarity of expression the use of other varieties blurs. A voluntary reduction in the use of new oak barrels would also encourage Sangiovese and terroir to shine. Geographical identification would have more meaning if it were intrinsic to wine flavor rather than being simply an address. The character and quality of the wine would then be more the result of skill in viticulture and care throughout vinification and maturation. Though long obscured by a narrative that marginalized it as inferior, Sangiovese can now express the terroir of Chianti more purely than in the four plus centuries since Girolamo da Firenzuola first championed the precious Sangiovese wine of Chianti.

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8 VITICULTURE IN CHIANTI

T H E B U O N G O V E R N O ' S V I T I C U LT U R A L L A N D S C A P E

The Buon governo (1338–40), a fresco by the Sienese painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, shows us how vines were grown during the late Middle Ages in the countryside from Siena to the hills of Chianti Senese. There are three training systems visible. First, there are specialized vineyards just outside the city walls, planted in the alberello style, supported by stakes. Giovanna Morganti, who uses alberello at her estate, Le Boncie, mentioned that the density of these vineyards has been estimated at twenty thousand vines per hectare (8,094 per acre). The heads of the vines are about thirty centimeters (one foot) off the ground, and each carries two or three dark purple bunches. There are some canes arching over the rows, bearing what look like more bunches. These were likely grown to allow particularly vigorous plants to more fully express themselves, resulting in a higher yield per plant. These specialized vineyards have olive trees planted here and there. Hence they are not strictly monocultural. The second system is up in the hills, where fields bordered by trees appear. These trees, likely olive and fruit trees, may also have supported vines in the method known as the alberata system. It became dominant in the late eighteenth century and was commonly used in Chianti until the mid-1960s. Third, there are rows of what appear to be vines in the square fields contained by these fences of trees. Each row was called an anguillare, perhaps because it looked like a row (filare means “a row of trees”) of eels (anguilles in French). Stakes or canes supported these vines. Parallel rows in a field were called a pancata, from panca, meaning “bench.” Perhaps vine rows, usually three or four in number, when lined up resembled people sitting on a bench. In the Buon 13 2

governo, the rows run along the contour of the slope, limiting water runoff and hence soil erosion. The distance between them was as much as six meters (twenty feet), and it was customary for shoots to grow into these spaces and bear fruit, substantially increasing yields.1 Farmers also planted other crops between the rows. What we see here are two very different systems of viticulture existing side by side. One emphasized low-trained, densely planted vines. The area of planting, called a vineyard, had a monoculture, focusing all the power of the earth and sun into one plant, the vine. This was the system devised in ancient Greece and transferred to the Italian peninsula via the colonization of southern Italy by the Greek city-states. The target environment of this system was south-facing slopes and stony soils. The resulting wines had concentrated flavors and ample residual sugar or alcohol. The other system, training vines high up trees and interplanting with other crops, was inspired by the Etruscan civilization. It was born in the fertile plains lining the Tyrrhenian Sea. The soils there could support the simultaneous growth of vines and other plants, such as trees, cereals, vegetables, and fruits. These vines in polyculture produced wines that were less concentrated and lower in alcohol and sugar. But we also see in the Buon governo a compromise between the two, in the form of anguillari (the plural of anguillare) and pancate (the plural of pancata), rows of vines with crops planted in between. In subsequent centuries, the question of what type of viticulture resulted in better wine stubbornly remained a matter of discussion in viticultural circles despite the agreement among the most sensitive and experienced viticulturalists that the Greek system was the answer.

T H E V I N E T R A I N I N G D E B AT E

More than two centuries after Lorenzetti finished his fresco, Girolamo da Firenzuola described the same vine training systems that appear in the background of its hilly countryside, plus a few others: “à vigna ò pancate, anguillari, pergole ò bronconi ò alli alberi maritate” (in a vineyard or by pancate, anguillari, pergolas or bronconi or married to trees).2 Bronconi (the plural of broncone) are tall columns or poles topped with transverse pieces of wood or cane. To make the best wine, Firenzuola recommended planting vines in vineyards on hills, more or less in monoculture. They should be low to the ground, in the alberello style, and supported by stakes. That way, the harvest would be of lower volume but higher quality. Firenzuola was an advocate of dedicated vineyards because he noted that fruit from vines in the center of a vigna was better and hence made better wines. He saw this as proof that monoculture produced better wines than polyculture. For a greater quantity of wine, he advised planting anguillari and pancate on gentle slopes with rich soil or on the plains. In this training system, the vine’s trunk grows several feet high. Its head can have a cordon or cane extending horizontally, supported by a stick. If one wanted more but weaker wine, one should let the vines grow higher, up bronconi. If even more production was desired, vines should be trained higher still, to overhang from pergolas and

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grow up trees, with expansive canopies that would compete with that of the tree. Firenzuola encouraged his readers to make wines from each of the training systems that he described and come to their own conclusions: “And so we say that in order to experience yourself what we have discussed above, harvest grapes and put them in different vats, the grapes harvested from one vineyard in one vat, and, in another, the grapes from a pancate planted in true anguillari, and all from hilltop sites in the same area using the same grape variety. And like this you make your own test to find out what makes the best wine, and without doubt the wines of the vineyard site will be better than those of pancate by a wide margin.”3 From 1710 to 1729, Domenico Falchini, while serving as the fattore at the Medici estate of Lappeggi, wrote his Trattato di agricoltura (Treatise on agriculture), which describes in detail all the vine training systems that Firenzuola cited. Falchini’s preferred training system was alberello, supported by a chestnut stake with spurs on each branch carrying up to three buds.4 When discussing his recipe for making great wine to age, similar to that of Montepulciano or Chianti, he explained that the best system to adopt was a dedicated vineyard with low-trained vines (vite basse) in a sunny spot. Low training meant the vines could benefit from the moisture rising from the ground, and it “matura e confetta l’uva” (matures and makes the grape sweet).5 Falchini also believed that it was possible to make excellent wines with vines in pancate, if they too were trained low and in a sunny spot. He said that vines trained higher off the ground, as on bronconi or columns, “produce worse grapes than the vines in a vineyard or in a pancata.”6 He noted that high training on columns would produce a high yield of quality wine grapes if the columns were positioned above dry stone walls. The foundations of the walls would provide drainage for the vine roots,7 which must have kept grape size low and hence fruit quality high. At the very beginning of his treatise he listed training vines up trees as one of several possible methods, but he did not mention it again.8 Perhaps the quality of the resulting grapes was not high enough for the Villa Lappeggi wines. Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, writing about fifty years later, like Firenzuola and Falchini advised his readers to plant vines in high places, not in the plains, to get better wines.9 Villifranchi was the pen name of Saverio Manetti, a professor of botany at the Società Botanica Fiorentina (Florentine botanical society) and a supervisor of the Orto Botanico di Firenze (Botanic garden of Florence). His treatise made no reference to anguillari or pancate. This suggests that these terms were no longer in common use, though the system must have continued, since rows of vines with crops planted in between can still be seen in old vineyard sites such as in Casole and Ruffoli in Greve. As if referring to pancate, Villifranchi noted that if other crops were to be planted between vine rows, the rows would have to be more distant from one another.10 This was a period, however, of solidification and rapid expansion of the mezzadria system in Tuscany and in Chianti in particular. Higher training on trees offered the possibility of growing a wider variety of crops in a limited space, so it was becoming more popular than anguillari or pancate among Chianti’s mezzadri. The trees also provided forage for animals and

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wood for fires and other household needs. Villifranchi focused on two systems: low training, associated with hilly and rocky areas, and high training, with vines married to trees in valleys and plains. For higher-quality wine grapes, “the vines must be kept low, because in this way they benefit better from the radiant energy of the sunlight and the virtue of the light reflected from the ground. High-trained vines produce insipid and weak wine and supported by trees or hedge maples produce sour and much less colorful juice.”11 Villifranchi wrote his treatise to win a competition created and sponsored by the Accademia dei Georgofili. Perhaps to appease its members who were patrician landholders wed to the mezzadria system, he presented positive aspects of the alberata system (vines trained on trees). Since the hedge maples supporting the vines, one on either side of its trunk, were planted far from other trees, the soil was not easily impoverished. Their branches also tended to grow separately from one another and to come out of the trunk at obtuse angles, allowing the vine foliage that clung to them to spread out. Air and light could thus penetrate the vine canopy. In addition to supporting the vine and its multiple bunches, Villifranchi recognized that the tree training method kept the grapes above the reach of many animals and thieves.12 During the period when Villifranchi was writing, Gaetano Gozzoli, a Cistercian monk from Tuscany, returned to Florence from a two-year stage (apprenticeship) in Burgundy with a French viticultural treatise and a pile of Burgundian vine wood in his travel trunk. The treatise, no longer extant, has been attributed to another Cistercian monk, Dom Denise from Burgundy. The Florentine abbot Domenico Sestini, a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili, translated it into Italian, as Delle viti e dei vini di Borgogna (About the vines and wines of Burgundy). This text shows that Burgundians were against what they considered unnecessary shading of the vines, such as that resulting from mixed agriculture and tree training. France had completely adopted ancient Greek viticulture: “There is no need that the vine should be shaded: the trees as a result damage the quality of the wines. There is no need to plant them among the vines. A vine shaded by trees, or by a wall, will always give a wine of mediocre quality.”13 That the viticultural debate continued, at a higher pitch, in the succeeding decades is confirmed by the topic of an essay competition sponsored by the Georgofili on September 24, 1820: “Determine if one should prefer the vine training system that uses a support pole or a hedge maple, considering differences in soil, climate, and the general situation.”14 The jury selected the manuscript of Sabatino Baldassarre Guarducci as the winning entry. It presents many reasons why the alberata system is preferable to stake-supported low training: if trees support the vines, farmers save the costs associated with stakes; it is expensive to plant a specialized vineyard; alberata provides higher yields; when vines are trained up trees, they are healthier and live longer; and climatic and other forces are likely to compromise the condition and health of the vines planted in low training. Guarducci conceded, however, that training on poles exposed vines to more sunlight and hence ensured a higher degree of maturation of the grapes.15 That his essay won the competition evidences that the Florentine landowners who controlled the Georgofili also wanted to control its

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message. Training vines up trees was integral to the polycultural system that allowed sharecroppers to cultivate land intensively to provide sustenance for their families yearround. Advocating this was tantamount to supporting the mezzadria system over the expansion of exports of high-quality wine.

T H E L O R E N A P E R I O D ( 1 73 7–1 8 6 0 ): T H E E X P A N S I O N O F T H E T E S T U C C H I O S YS T E M

Testucchio is a local Tuscan name for the Acer campestre, or hedge maple. The hedge maple has been in use as a support for vines for centuries. It is essentially a living trellis. It was better suited than other trees for the hills of Chianti, because it could grow in the dry and infertile soils that characterize most of Chianti. There were many names for the tree there. Firenzuola called it oppio (oppi in the plural),16 Falchini chioppio (chioppi in the plural), and Villifranchi added loppio and pioppo.17 Outside Tuscany, pioppo refers to the poplar, a tree better suited for the fertile and wet soils of the Po River Valley in northern Italy. The word testucchio came into usage at the end of the eighteenth century. It probably derives from testa (head), since the top of the tree trunk, as a result of pruning to support the vine, looks like a human head. Besides testucchio, the tree had other names in Tuscan dialect, such as tastucchio, stucchio, and fistucchio. À testucchio (to testucchio) referred to the system of running vines up trees with tree branches or reeds stuck into the ground to support the vines planted in between. With the institutionalization of the mezzadria system, vines were increasingly planted à testucchio. The ideal location was where the soil was deep and fertile enough to support tree growth. During the first half of the 1800s in Chianti, this system occurred not only in the fertile plains but also in the low hills, where it became increasingly used.18 Growing vines up trees is referred to as maritata, meaning that the vine is “married” to the tree (while training vines between and up trees is called alberata). In the testucchio system, two to four vines were trained on each tree. Each vine had two to four fruitbearing canes, each of which generally carried eight to ten buds and sometimes more.19 The canes, which hung down from the branches of the tree, were often braided together.20 Such a testucchio carried a huge amount of fruit. The trees could also be planted in a row, with vines planted up them and between them in the row. Rows were six to ten meters (twenty to thirty-three feet) apart.21 Distances between the trees in the row varied from 2.5 to 3.5 meters (8.2 to 9.8 feet).22 Tree density could thus vary from 286 to 664 per hectare (116 to 269 per acre). The vine density was highly variable, from five hundred to one thousand per hectare (202 to 405 per acre).23 The lateral branches of the hedge maples, usually one on each side of the tree, grew along the row, nearly touching those of the trees on either side. These two bracciali (the plural of bracciale, “bracelet,” though the meaning here is closer to the root word braccio, “arm”) supported the one or two fruit-bearing canes of the vines planted below them. Each of these canes carried another eight to ten buds. So common was the use of bracciali in Chianti that this row system

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was called bracciali alla chiantigiana.24 Additional supports, usually reeds (canne, the plural of canna, a local bamboo), were stuck into the ground under the bracciali. The rows of hedge maples supporting the vines rose to about 4.5 meters (fifteen feet) high. The testucchi formed a wall of vegetation that usually surrounded a field where other crops were grown or covered a field themselves, in parallel lines. They looked like anguillari or pancate on stilts. Given all the buds available to bear fruit, à testucchio, planted by itself, in rows, or in the linked form, bracciali alla chiantigiana, was a massive producer of grapes. Unfortunately, they were rarely fully ripe, and the juice of each was dilute, low in sugar, and high in acidity. As a result, wine quality was very low. This system, however, protected the vines from extreme heat in the summer and absorbed excess humidity during rainy periods, thus reducing mold. There was a wide mix of crops planted on either or both sides of the row of testucchi. Cereals, principally wheat, barley, and rye, were a vital nutritional necessity for mezzadri, but their harvests were meager in Chianti’s infertile higher hills. Different varieties of beans were grown, as was flax, which was used to make linen. Fruit trees provided fruit and wood (essential for making fires). The gelso (mulberry) was planted in Chianti to breed silkworms for Florence’s silk industry. However, in fertile, flat lowland areas, maize and potatoes were also planted.25 The sticks and vegetation from this arboreal polyculture were used as forage for the limited livestock in the possession of each mezzadro family. The competition for light among all these plants was disadvantageous for each. Their products were generally acceptable for domestic consumption but not for export to discriminating markets.

C H I A N T I ’ S H I L L S FAV O R A L B E R E L L O

In the fertile areas of Chianti, such as valleys, mixed planting employing à testucchio dominated. The hillier regions, however, were known for the “vite bassa, e non broncone” (low vine, and not on broncone), as described by Francesco Redi, Cosimo III’s personal physician, in his late seventeenth-century poem Bacco in Toscana.26 The move away from vineyards to polycultural, higher-trained arrangements was slow and coincided with the expansion of the mezzadria system. Firenzuola, a champion of matching mountainous, stony vineyards with low-trained vines of the Sangiovese variety, was bitter at the advance of viticultural systems that produced more but lesser-quality grapes. He attributed this erosion of standards to a new generation of farmers who cared more about the quantity than the quality of the land’s bounty. However, he singled out the Greve River Valley and Chianti as the only two places where specialized viticulture endured: Today there are fewer vineyards, particularly in infertile, mountainous, and hillside locations. Vineyards annoy modern farmers who can extract more fruit from vines planted in anguillari or pancate according to the new way of cultivation. The exception is in Val di Greve

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and in Chianti, as we see in the vineyards of Panzano, Radda, and similar, which are maintained and enlarged. Not only are they being maintained for the quality of the wines, and the goodness of the land, but most of this good work is done by the hands of the landholders, and all at their own expense.27

Combined with Firenzuola’s description of “precious” Sangiovese wine made in towns associated with the Monti del Chianti and the Greve River Valley, this statement establishes a culture of carefully managed vineyards of Sangiovese in Chianti and Val di Greve dating back to at least 1552. Based on his sensitive, expert, and detailed observations, it can be deduced that Chianti wine has its deepest roots not in Bettino Ricasoli in the midnineteenth century but in a period before the 1550s, perhaps as much as a century before. Firenzuola warned that if Tuscan landowners failed to invest capital and personal care in tending their vineyards, peasant farmers would impoverish the land by using it for mixed agriculture and pasturage, as in the fertile plains.28 Alberello-trained vines in Chianti were each supported by a stake, usually of chestnut wood, since chestnut forests thrive at elevations higher than where vines can ripen and thus were available in Chianti’s mountainous areas. According to Firenzuola, “One should stake the entire vineyard with chestnut stakes because in truth they support the vines better, and they last longer than any other type of wood that one could use.”29 Farmers in the steep hills of Chianti, particularly Lamole and Casole in the high hills south of Greve, customarily planted their staked alberello vines in rows along the gradient of the hill. Vines were positioned a meter (three feet) apart in the rows, which were also about a meter apart.30 These mezzadri constructed drystone walls from the rocks that they labored to clear to make the land arable. These walls ran along the contour of the hillside, particularly where the gradient was steep, creating terraces, where vines, olives, and other crops (typically wheat or beans) were planted.31 Hedge maples could not root or grow in this shallow, infertile, and rocky land.32 Small trees, such as olive and fruit trees, however, can grow in this sandy type of soil. Apple or cherry trees were sometimes planted among the vines.33 Olive trees were prized because the value of olives and olive oil was second only to that of wine (grapes were the sharecroppers’ most important cash crop). Though vines may have been trained up them, the principle value of these small trees to the sharecropping family was the fruit that they provided. Paolo Socci, the winegrower at Fattoria di Lamole, explained to us that before phylloxera, the vineyards of Lamole were specialized (except for scattered olive and fruit trees) and planted densely, at more than ten thousand vines per hectare (4,047 per acre). Other areas in Chianti, particularly where the soils were less sandy, supported more interplanting. The area was so associated with low training that this system (and the resulting wine) came to be called all’uso del Chianti (in the style of Chianti) when it was employed outside Chianti.34 In 1773, Tuscany’s grand duke Peter Leopold observed that in the hilly areas of Chianti the vines were trained low and the space between their rows was tight.35 During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the demand for wines that were of higher

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quality and that could be shipped made those of Chianti valuable. The superiority of the grapes grown in the Chianti manner naturally distinguished them from those of other areas.

T E R R A C E S YS T E M S H A R N E S S C H I A N T I ’ S H I L L S I D E S

When low-trained vines are planted on hills, there is a steady, if not sudden, erosion of topsoil that can destroy the hillside’s productivity and usefulness. Since Roman times, the practice of rittochino, planting rows down slopes, has been recognized as producing high-quality fruit, but at the expense of the topsoil. The combination of steep gradients, fast-draining soils, and planting in rittochino inevitably results in the ruin of the slope’s farming potential. The traditional system in Chianti of planting rows of vines along the contour of the slope impeded the rapid runoff of rainwater, allowing much of it to filter into the soil. Steeper slopes required the building of stone walls that would hold back the land to create terraces. On these terraces, vine rows ran parallel to the curve of the walls. The walls preferably faced south. This offered the vines cover from cold north winds. The radiant heat stored in the rocks warmed the vines, advancing their ripeness. Moisture that seeped through the walls was a natural form of irrigation.36 In Chianti in the eighteenth century, terraces were between five and twelve meters (sixteen and thirty-nine feet) wide—the steeper the incline, the narrower the width.37 Constructing them required the backbreaking work of countless sharecroppers to break up and excavate the rocks and strata of hardened clay, limestone, and sandstone below the topsoil. Rainwater flowed down to the edges of rows and terraces and had to be channeled to be evacuated. Where there were terraces, it filtered through the topsoil into rockier soil banked against the lower, back side of each wall. Then the water trickled into, through, and down the terrace walls, at whose bases were stone troughs in which it collected before flowing into stone-lined ditches running down the hill’s slope. Firenzuola placed such importance on the management of rainfall that he addressed it in the first chapter of his treatise. He advised farmers to build ditches, either open and lined with stones or covered channels called gattaiole (the plural of gattaiola), to channel runoff water into aqueducts. Gattaiola means “cat door” in Italian, and the channel was just wide enough for a cat to pass through. Firenzuola also recommended organizing the channels “à spinapesce.” Spinapesce, or “spine of the fish,” is a herringbone pattern. In this arrangement, small channels run diagonally down the gradient, emptying their contents into larger channels that run straight down.38 A little more than 150 years later, Falchini in his treatise emphasized the importance of creating aqueducts, “so that the water does not carry away the soil,” and of integrating stone terraces into drainage networks.39 He described two methods of constructing drainage ditches. One was to dig a ditch and fill it with rocks. The spaces between them would allow water to run off and would be less likely to become clogged by fine soil. The other was to make a gattaiola, as Firenzuola had directed.40

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Villifranchi’s treatise also underscored the necessity of building a drainage system to protect the soil. He described how rain can destroy walls and carry away both soil and vines.41 Citing the advice of a noted French enologist, M. Bourgeois, he recommended removing, however, grass from near the vine to limit proliferation of harmful insects during rainy periods.42 He also recommended building drainage ditches across and at an oblique angle to the downslope.43 He warned against landslides, saying that channels for water evacuation were the best defense. His agricultural treatise also advises that planting trees and hedgerows, along with building strong rock walls, will help to protect the soil from erosion.44 Giovan Battista Landeschi in the late eighteenth century and Cosimo Ridolfi and Agostino Testaferrata in the early nineteenth developed systems of land restructuring for moderate and slight slopes. Since they minimized stone wall construction, they dramatically reduced the amount of labor required. In place of stone walls, Landeschi used embankments called ciglioni (the plural of ciglione, derived from ciglio, “eyelash,” because ciglioni look like eyelashes from a distance). Low-lying vegetation held their soil in place. A pescaiolo, essentially a sieve or net, was placed in a drainage ditch, to catch eroded dirt for reclamation. Landeschi’s system of ciglioni was being used by at least 1842 in Chianti Senese, as reported by Leonida Landucci, who called them piote, “turfs,” and mentioned pescaioli (the plural of pescaiolo).45 Ridolfi and Testaferrata’s system, called colmate di monte (landfills of the hill), integrated reshaped hillsides and an efficient drainage system called a spina (spine), perhaps inspired by what Firenzuola had described as à spinapesce three centuries before. Colmate di monte was most useful in the clay-rich, mudslidesusceptible areas of Tuscany, such as San Miniato, Empoli, and Castelfiorentino. The remnants of Chianti’s viticultural past are hidden in plain sight for anyone who knows what to look for in these age-old hills. In restoring the terraces on his land, Socci uncovered a drainage system that sharecroppers had installed centuries before. He showed us the channels built into the terraces, in which water collected and drained down the hill. Following them to the base of his vineyards, Socci brought us to a pond that mezzadri had dug to collect the water. A stream had run downslope from it. Scrambling over brush, we followed him into a dark grotto. Stones were artfully positioned to form an arched ceiling. Through a hole we could see the sky. Socci explained that this was where an ancient turbine had spun. Powered by the flowing water, it had rotated one millstone above another. One of them was now lodged in the grass a few feet away. Runoff that could have ruined the vineyards had helped the mezzadri to transform their grain into flour!

P L A N T I N G A N D P R O PA G AT I O N

At least since the Roman era, a layering system (propagginazione in Italian) has been utilized to replace old and dead vines in vineyards.46 Essentially, a farmer would dig a small trench about thirty centimeters (one foot) wide from a vine to a vacant spot that he wanted to fill with a new vine. In this trench he would bury a cane from the existing plant,

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with the apex rising out of the ground at the desired location. Shoots that grew from the apical buds would become the replacement vine. Underground, the “new” vine would grow its own root system, eventually separating from its mother vine. Firenzuola described a variation, calling it capogatto (capo referring to the “head” cane bent down and its tip buried, although how the cat [gatto] was involved in the process is a mystery).47 Falchini gave advice concerning what he referred to as “propagini” but did not use the term capogatto: ditches for canes must be no longer than “an arm and a half” for vines planted in a vineyard, an anguillare, or a pancata.48 Villifranchi advised burying the cane deeply but in light soil, so as to protect it from being dried by the rays of the sun but not entirely shielded from them. Putting manure in the ditch where the cane was buried would help nourish it while it grew underground.49 This was a foolproof method until phylloxera arrived (in the 1880s in Chianti), poisoning the soil for Vitis vinifera. A less successful method was to bury maglioli (budwood). A magliolo (the singular of maglioli) looks like a mallet, maglio in Italian, and is a two-year-old cane about one meter (three feet) in length. At one end is a short stub of a one-year-old cane, the head of the mallet. The farmer would push the two-year-old cane underground with a long iron implement with a deep slit at one end,50 leaving the one-year-old cane with its live buds exposed to the air and the sun. In this system, there was no mother plant to support the new plant in its infancy. It was used for planting a vineyard or a row of vines and particularly for replanting a vine next to a tree, such as a testucchio. In such a spot, the soil is very difficult to excavate. Two years before planting a new vineyard or row of vines, the farmer would establish barbatelle. To create a barbatella (the singular of barbatelle), the farmer would remove a length of cane from a piece of two-year-old wood. The end with the older wood would be put into loose, moist soil, perhaps indoors in a stall, where the soil would be warm and there would be little light. With time, perhaps ten months or a year, a tuft of roots would develop around the wood underground. Removed from the soil, the tuft of roots looked like a beard. The Italian for “beard” is barba, and hence the name barbatella, “little beard,” the word still in use for vine wood ready for planting. In the fall before planting or earlier, the farmer would dig trenches one meter (about three feet) deep and one meter wide along the contour of the hillside or straight if the elevation was constant. He would pile large rocks at the bottom of the trench, then successively smaller ones until it was half filled. The stones allowed for drainage. The farmer would position the barbatelle in the middle of the trenches, equidistant from one another, and put loose, rich dirt around their roots. One could use maglioli instead of barbatelle, but the success rate was lower. Firenzuola was particularly protective of young plants: Do not plant the seeds of certain plants near maglioli or barbatelle. The worst enemy is cabbage, but also lavender, rosemary, sage, and other plants, which, though attractive, impoverish the soil and dry out and weaken the maglioli and continue to hurt the vines until they grow old.51 The vines were often planted in a quincunx (quinconce) pattern, an old Roman system that staggers their positions from row to row, making the rows visible when viewed from

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any angle. From an aesthetic perspective, the symmetry of the vine rows contrasts beautifully with the natural sweep of the terraces along the gradient. Vines planted quincuncially use space more efficiently than quadratic systems. Quincunx therefore allows for greater densities of vines, provided they are kept low to the ground, as is the case with alberello. Within several years, the vine would take the shape of a small tree and would be pruned back to the desired size whenever necessary. Retaining the same size from year to year is standard practice for all training systems, unless one is changed for another.

B E T T I N O R I C A S O L I ’ S L O W-T R A I N I N G S YS T E M

As early as 1833, Bettino Ricasoli concluded that mistakes were endemic to vine growing in Chianti. He believed that vines were planted too densely within each row, that leaving their heads without cordons forced canes to grow directly from the trunk, that sowing crops among the rows allowed vegetation to bury grape bunches, and that leaves were stripped from low-trained vines too early.52 In his Regolamento agrario of 1843, he advised that vines be trained low on hills and where exposures were excellent and that the testucchio system be used with discretion, near streams and in flat areas.53 On May 5, 1844, at a meeting of the Accademia dei Georgofili, he described how, under his direction, the mezzadri worked in the vineyards of Brolio: They prune in March, leaving on each cane two buds; it is rare for them to leave four buds, and they do so only when the vines are very vigorous, responding to the fertility of the soil. In April they hoe furrows around the vines; they do so to turn over the soil and cut those roots that are near the surface, employing that useful tool the two-pronged hoe. Next, at the appropriate time they remove excess shoots, so that the vegetative force will not be diverted from the two or four buds that have been left. They carefully tie the canes [near the top of ] the supporting stake and cut them off there. In July, they perform another task at the base of the vine’s trunk. This is the simple removal of weeds. This would be the last task if it were not our principal goal to divert all the plant’s vigor to the maturing grape bunches. In mid-September, using a machete, they cut off the canes growing down from the top of the stake, but they do not cut away the vine leaves near the grape bunches until the harvest.54

Ricasoli understood that channeling the energy of the plant at the right time was the way to get concentrated and ripe fruit. Leaving two gemme (buds) per tralcio (cane) essentially made that stubby cane a sperone, “spur,” and hence what he described was more similar to a head-trained cordon system such as alberello than to typical cane pruning. He was known to inspect his sharecroppers’ vineyards and to order that they correct their transgressions and mistakes. His reputation as a scolding dogmatist has become part of Castello di Brolio’s terroir. There are legends that when the moon is full, he 14 2

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returns to the castle to ascertain that everything is in order. Giovanna Morganti of Le Boncie recounted that as a child growing up not far from Brolio she was afraid to go out at night for fear that she would be confronted by the ghost of the Iron Baron riding a white stallion through the countryside. T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY: A P E R I O D O F V I N E D I S E A S E S A N D I N F E S TAT I O N

According to the encyclopedic Villifranchi, various snails, spiders, beetles, moths, and butterflies were among the enemies of the vine farmer. The remedy he prescribed was basic: the men, women, and children of the sharecropping family should go out into the vineyards periodically and crush or burn whatever bugs they could find.55 Powdery mildew (called oidium in Europe) would not be as easy to extinguish. It is a mold that thrives in dry, windy conditions. Powdery mildew arrived in Chianti in 1851. In that year it was found at Brolio.56 It spread throughout Italy and caused massive devastation in 1852 and 1853. Three-quarters of the Tuscan grape production was lost in 1853. Desperate farmers tried to rinse off the mold or clean it off with soap.57 The crisis persisted for about five years. Ricasoli looked to mechanical farming in the Maremma as an alternative means of support.58 Sulfur dust was employed against powdery mildew in Tuscany beginning in 1853. By 1855, Ricasoli had noted its protective effect and regarded it as the solution to the problem. Its use, however, was slow to be implemented.59 Downy mildew (called peronospora in Europe) was noted in 1876 in the vineyards of Castello di Brolio.60 It propagates best in still air and warm, humid conditions. Because Chianti has a dry and ventilated growing environment, it gets only sporadic downy mildew infestations, such as where dew or fog collects. Copper sulfate, part of the wellknown Bordeaux mixture (with lime and water), was recognized as an effective prophylactic. But because the occurrences of downy mildew were relatively rare, farmers did not apply regular treatments, leaving their vineyards vulnerable to those occasional circumstances when conditions for downy mildew were favorable. Woe to them! When downy mildew hits an unprotected vineyard, the devastation is rapid and can be complete. Downy mildew was followed by phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae), a vine louse. The first recorded infestation in Chianti was at Castello di Brolio in 1885.61 However, the spread into the surrounding areas was slow. Each podere was isolated from its neighbors, and since most of Chianti’s vines were interplanted with other crops, the vine louse had farther to go to get from one vine to the next. Additionally, the fast-draining, sandy soils of many areas of Chianti were not hospitable to the louse. Still, phylloxera began a slow but steady march through Chianti. By the 1930s, the infestation, from whatever source, had affected all of the townships in the provinces of Florence and Siena. The successive vineyard scourges of the nineteenth century forced Tuscans to take a more scientific approach to viticulture. The mezzadri (and their padroni) were helpless in the face of these diseases. The reason became clear. The fungus in the cases of powdery mildew and downy mildew and the tiny insect in the case of phylloxera came from

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a place, eastern North America, where the native vines had developed resistance to them. In Europe they attacked the European vine variety, Vitis vinifera, which was not resistant. The prophylactic measures to protect Vitis vinifera had to be the result of scientific analysis and experimentation.

L AT E N I N E T E E N T H - C E N T U RY V I T I C U LT U R E

The replanting of Chianti’s vineyards in the wake of the phylloxera infestation gradually replaced diseased vines with vines on resistant rootstocks. The varieties grafted on to these rootstocks were more consistent with the Ricasoli wine formula than ever before, leading to a loss of diversity of vine biotypes in Chianti during the late 1800s and the first half of the twentieth century. Pompeo Trentin, writing in 1895, described the Chianti blend of his time as 70 percent Sangiovese, 20 percent Canaiolo Nero, and 10 percent Trebbiano or Malvasia (or a blend of the two).62 As a result, Sangiovese became dominant in the vineyards. Trebbiano Toscano was increasingly substituted for Malvasia Bianca because it was easier to grow, gave higher yields, and, when vinified, was more resistant to oxidation. During the 1870s, there were reports in Italy of a flattened alberello configuration of vines supported on steel wires strung between oak and chestnut stakes. Two or three buds were left on each of three, four, or more spurs per vine.63 The objective was to provide enough space between the rows to allow the movement of ox-drawn implements and machines. In France, this system is called éventail (fan), because it has a fan-shaped appearance. In Italy today it is called candelabra, because the vines look like flattened candelabra.

F O R E I G N VA R I E T I E S FA I L TO TA K E R O OT

Villifranchi had reported that “uv[e] forestier[e]” (foreign grapes) were planted in the Medici estates and gardens surrounding Florence.64 In the preface to his translation of the Burgundian viticultural treatise that Gaetano Gozzoli had brought to Tuscany, Domenico Sestini described how this Cistercian monk had also collected the best cuttings of vine wood that he could find during his two-year stay in Burgundy and had sent twenty thousand in two shipments to the Medici fattorie of Artimino, Ginestre, Lappeggi, Castello, and Boboli and to the Villa della Querce. Some of these cuttings had been given to other prominent estates around Florence and elsewhere in Tuscany.65 Giuseppe Acerbi in 1825 compiled a list of varieties grown in the vicinity of Florence. He listed Borgogna Nera (black Burgundy) and Borgogna Bianca (white Burgundy), along with Rossetto di Francia (French red) and Bianchetto di Francia (French white).66 Ricasoli traveled to France in 1851, and on his return to Brolio he purchased cuttings of foreign vine varieties to create an experimental vineyard.67 In 1876, Egidio Pollacci listed the ones that Ricasoli had planted around 1870. The baron had collected cuttings and had planted Tinto Morello,

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Alvalhao, Maurisca, Pandura, and Malvagia from Portugal; Alicante, Dorcalados, Moscadello Ulter, and Morastello from Spain; Carignon, Carmenet, Provenza Nero, Provenza Bianco, Hermitage, Terret San Giorgio, Ulliade San Giorgio, and Alicante San Giorgio from France; and Harsevelii Tokai and Furmint from Hungary. The table of data that Pollacci compiled compared the sugar levels of musts from Ricasoli’s experimental international varietal wines with corresponding data from Ricasoli’s Sangioveto, Canaiuolo, and Malvagia wines.68 In 1895, Trentin identified the Pinots of Burgundy, the Cabernets of Bordeaux, the Gamay of Beaujolais, and the Riesling of the Rhine area as of recent importation into Tuscany and reported that they were being used in blends with local varieties to introduce new aromas.69 Salvatore Mondini wrote in 1903 that Ippolito Pestellini at Bagno a Ripoli just southeast of Florence was cultivating Gamay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and Roussanne.70 To make his “vini uso Chianti” ready to drink and to stabilize their color, he blended in Syrah with the Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Trebbiano.71 He blended Cabernet Sauvignon with Sangiovese to increase the finesse of his Chianti-type wines. Mondini wrote that Cabernet Sauvignon had been introduced “on a large scale” in the province of Siena and was recognized as the one French variety that blended with Sangiovese to produce a wine “veramente fino ed apprezzabile” (truly fine and appreciable).72 Nonetheless, these attempts to root foreign vines in Chianti did not succeed. Among the many forces against their introduction were the chaos and hardship caused by the phylloxera infestation, two world wars, and the eventual dissolution of the mezzadria system.

T H E F I R S T H A L F O F T H E T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY

In the early 1900s, small, high-density, specialized vineyards began to be planted in Chianti. According to Paolo Nanni, a researcher in the history of agriculture at the University of Florence, the average price of “Chianti” wine per hectoliter was very high during the first third of the twentieth century, which helped some padroni and mezzadri to make the switch to monoculture. Though there were many variations of intervine and interrow spacings, rows were generally 1.5 to 2 meters (4.9 to 6.6 feet) apart and vines in the row 0.8 meters (2.6 feet) apart. Professor Nino Breviglieri, who was the viticultural expert for the Georgofili’s 1957 conference on Chianti, listed some fifteen sites that were planted in this manner from 1900 to 1920.73 Sharecroppers usually resisted the efforts of proprietors to convince them to do the same. With few exceptions, most mezzadri clung to promiscuous plantings, because these suited their needs for self-sufficiency. They replaced each vine as it died. Given that propaggine was no longer a viable method, because of the phylloxera infestation, sharecroppers became skilled at dry grafting (also known as field grafting). The planting of specialized vineyards and the replacement of vines killed by phylloxera were achieved by dry-grafting Sangiovese, Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Malvasia Bianca, Trebbiano, and Colorino on to phylloxera-resistant rootstocks, most commonly 420A.

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The high prices of Casole and Lamole wine during the 1930s allowed mezzadri families living there to subsist on their wine production.74 Socci, the present-day resident historian-winegrower of Fattoria di Lamole, reported that there were two planting arrangements in Lamole in the postphylloxera period. In flatter vineyards, the rows of vines were three meters (ten feet) apart, wide enough for a pair of oxen to pull a plow between the rows, where grain was planted. On steeper slopes, the rows were closer together, with about 5,500 vines per hectare (2,226 per acre). At that time, grain also was planted in these narrower rows (unlike in the prephylloxera period). Olive trees were planted here and there. On these steeper slopes, all the cultivation was done by hand, with either a hoe or a shovel.

V I N E YA R D R E C O N S T R U C T I O N B E G I N S I N T H E 1 9 6 0 S A N D 1 9 7 0 S

From 1950 to the mid-1970s, sharecropping families abandoned Chianti, taking with them generations of unwritten knowledge about every aspect of their farms and their vines. They alone knew the land stone by stone. Mezzadri families had given names to each of their vineyards. Not only were almost all of these names lost to history, but so were many vineyards, since they went into disuse and disappeared. The genetic reservoir of Chianti’s vine population was severely depleted, reducing the potential of the zone. The terraces, which required regular upkeep, began to crumble. Without sharecropper manpower, the fattorie could no longer function as they had done for centuries. Many landholders sold their fattorie, poderi, and villas because they could not imagine a way forward. The agricultural system that was left over from sharecropping days was not adaptable to mechanization. In 1962, 99 percent of vineyard areas in the province of Siena and 96 percent in the province of Florence were still planted in the promiscuous system.75 Before 1964, there were little more than 900 hectares (2,224 acres) of specialized vineyards in the Chianti Classico appellation, while promiscuous culture extended over 8,277 hectares (20,453 acres).76 The decade of conversion from promiscuous to specialized cultivation (i.e., vineyards) was the 1970s. Before then, the area under specialized cultivation had increased only gradually, while that under promiscuous cultivation had remained stable. But from 1970 to 1977, promiscuous cultivation declined, from 8,178 to 6,122 hectares (20,208 to 15,127 acres), and there was a sudden increase in the surface of specialized cultivation, from 2,648 to 6,877 hectares (6,543 to 16,993 acres).77 Large agricultural machines were first introduced to Chianti at this time. Bulldozers plowed through ancient stone terraces and altered the contours of hillsides. There was little thought given to replacing the centuries-old drainage systems. Vineyards were planted at densities of 2,500 vines per hectare (1,012 per acre) because the associated spacing allowed easy access for tractors. New Fiat tractors needed rows at least 2.7 meters (9 feet) wide. The typical spacing became 3 meters (9.8 feet) between rows and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) separating vines in the row.78 The small terraced vineyards of Chianti were

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replaced by larger vineyards, often in valleys or with exposures that did not allow ripening before the onset of autumn rains. Viticulture of the 1960s and 1970s espoused the dogma of clean cultivation—“cleaning” the topsoil of all vegetation except the vines. This minimized competition for soil nutrients and water, thus, maximizing yields. It also, however, encouraged farmers to use the faster and less expensive but also less environmentally friendly option of herbicide application rather than the mechanical removal of weeds. Clean cultivation, by whatever means, increased erosion rates and destroyed natural flora and fauna in the topsoil. Synthetic fertilizers replaced natural ones such as manure. Combining synthetic chemicals with compaction by heavy machinery was a death sentence for the ecological diversity of the topsoil. While new vineyards occupied Chianti’s lower and middle slopes, the higher slopes, where grapes were less likely to consistently ripen, were left to oak, chestnut, and coniferous trees.79 Vine rows were planted down the slopes in rittochino. Where the gradient was too steep and the soil loose, erosion became a problem. The present-day winegrower Jurij Fiore at Poggio Scalette in Ruffoli reported that one vineyard where he worked had lost all its topsoil. He realized that whoever had prepared the vineyard in the 1970s had simply dumped a layer of topsoil on the hard rocks below. It had gradually washed away. During and after World War II, vine nurseries sprang up to meet the demand for barbatelle. Though those in Friuli led the field in technology and volume of grafts, others appeared throughout Tuscany. In 1940, a nursery started at Settimo in Scandicci.80 There was another at Ferrone at the northern end of Chianti Classico and one at Pianella at the southern end. With the advent of these nurseries, field grafters disappeared in Chianti. The most popular rootstock of the first half of the century was 420A, followed by Kober 5BB. Rootstock 420A had good drought and high active lime resistance. Because it reduced the vegetative growth of the scion, it also reduced labor costs. Kober 5BB, which Breviglieri praised as “the rootstock well adapted for good ecopedologic conditions in our climate,” dominated 1960s and 1970s vineyard plantings.81 It encouraged high yields per plant. The Vitiarium project at San Felice, however, in the 1990s showed this rootstock to have been one of the causes of the lack of concentration of Chianti Classico wines in the 1960s and 1970s. Any arrangement of branches or poles and wires supporting a vine is called a trellis. The vine does best with this kind of structure because it is a clinging plant. Bracciali alla chiantigiana is an example of a trellis with living support, a tree. A pergola is an example using an overhead network of wood or metal poles. Late nineteenth-century row trellises were quite basic, with perhaps only stakes and one wire. Twentieth-century systems became more complicated, employing a bottom, or cordon, wire; a second, or shoot, wire or a pair of wires, called catch wires, above the cordon wire; and another set of catch wires above them, through which foliage and fruit were channeled. There could even be another set of catch wires at the top of the trellis. Training systems rely on trellises because of the vine’s need for support. Until the 1990s, the system of choice in the newly planted vineyards of Chianti was Tuscan arched

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cane, called capovolto, named for the dominant fruit-bearing cane, or capo, and the process of bending it to tie it to the bottom wire in the row, volto (from the verb voltare, meaning “to turn or to round”). Each vine could have one or two capi (the plural of capo), one being best for a lower-vigor growing situation. One or two renewal spurs could also be positioned on the trunk below the capi. The arching allowed denser foliage and higher yields. Because the cane was arched, its bunches were at different heights, a problem for machine harvesting. This system required skill for proper training, a surprising choice given the other strides toward mechanization in this period. Though it was criticized in the 1990s, it is now having a revival. Single and double Guyot (widely used in Bordeaux) are similar to capovolto, with one or two canes, respectively, tied flat along the bottom wire. Guyot was used contemporaneously with capovolto. Cordone speronato, a system once common in Burgundy, where it is known as cordon de Royat, was subsequently adopted. Short spurs (speroni, the plural of sperone) bearing buds grew from one or two low-lying permanent branches called cordone (cordons). The buds became fruit- and leafbearing shoots. Like Guyot, there are single and double cordon versions. The capovolto, Guyot, and cordone speronato systems remain in use today.

V I T I C U LT U R E D E V E L O P S A S A S P E C I A L I Z E D F I E L D

During the 1970s, Valerio Barbieri became the first freelance consulting agronomist in Chianti. He had graduated from Arezzo’s Istituto Tecnico Agrario (Technical agrarian institute) with a specialty in viticulture. His first job was as a technician in the University of Florence’s experimental farm. In the late 1960s, Giacomo Tachis recommended him to Isole e Olena, in Barberino Val d’Elsa, where he became the manager. While he was there, his friendship with Tachis grew. In 1972 he left Isole e Olena and began to consult for individual estates, principally in the Chianti Classico zone and often at Tachis’s recommendation. Since Tachis needed high-quality grapes, he advised growers who sold wine to Antinori to have Barbieri select the exposures, design the preparatory work (including digging up the vineyard to provide a long-lasting base for the vines), choose the vine material such as rootstocks and scions, determine the vine spacing and the training system, and hire the necessary people. Barbieri started off recommending many of the same choices that were being made across the zone in this period, such as the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and fungicides. Tachis needed vine varieties to give color and structure to his wines. Beginning in the 1970s, he suggested to vineyard owners that they hire Barbieri to plant Cabernet Sauvignon; soon after, Merlot, and later, Petit Verdot, joined Cabernet. Tachis and Barbieri advised replacing Canaiolo and white grape varieties, particularly Trebbiano and Malvasia Bianca, with these Bordeaux varieties. Syrah, a variety that Tachis was less familiar with, arrived later. During the 1990s Barbieri planted Syrah for several of his clients. Barbieri now considers himself a viticulturalist of “precision and quality,” which means one who takes carefully targeted and measured actions that result in high-quality

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outcomes. With one word, Basta! (enough!), he describes how much his viticultural philosophy has changed. Gone are the days of massive chemical sprays, excessive soil additions, and vineyards designed to produce a high volume of grapes with an absolute minimum of labor. Instead of removing all the competing vegetation in a vineyard, he now advocates selecting cover crops to meet the needs of the topsoil. By his own admission, Barbieri has planted most of the vineyards in Chianti Classico. Given the impact of his work, one would think that he would be as well known as Tachis. This shows how much the role of viticulture has been overlooked. Gradually easing into retirement, he has given up clients far from home, such as in Sardinia and Apulia. His daughter Elisabetta, with a University of Florence degree in agrarian sciences, has increasingly helped to support and advise his clients (in both their vineyards and their cellars). One consulting agronomist who has had a limited but important impact during the 1990s and 2000s is Remigio Bordini. From 1968 to 1982, he was the technical director of the Experimental Institute of Tebano, a wing of the University of Bologna. There he developed the T19 clone, also called RL Bosche. Working in tandem in Tuscany with the consulting enologist Vittorio Fiore, he provided agronomic advice to several of Fiore’s client estates. During the late 1980s, Bordini made his mark at Podere Il Carnasciale in the Valdarno di Sopra area. There he advised the creation of a small vineyard with densely planted, staked alberello of a variety, Caberlot, that he had discovered and developed. Il Carnasciale became an example of how alberello could play a role in Chianti Classico. Along with Fiore, Bordini was also engaged, as a consulting agronomist, at Terrabianca, Le Miccine, and Candialle.

VITIARIUM

Roberto Bandinelli has been one of the key researchers of the Vitiarium project at the San Felice wine estate in Castelnuovo Berardenga since the mid-1980s. He is well known for his dedicated and passionate interest in the viticulture of Chianti. He drives around Chianti’s vineyards so often that one of his colleagues at the University of Florence has joked that if you get into a car accident in Chianti, it could very well involve Bandinelli. Seeing the light in Bandinelli’s eyes when he speaks about the vines that he has studied reveals more than any viticultural treatise ever could about his commitment to Chianti’s vineyards. In 1974, Enzo Morganti, the manager of the San Felice estate, invited the University of Florence’s Department of Horticulture to collaborate in research, using San Felice as its base. Bandinelli later joined the professors Piero Luigi Pisani Barbacciani and Franco Scaramuzzi in developing protocols, and San Felice hosted a vineyard called the Vitiarium (Nursery of vine varieties) and offered the use of other vineyards, all for practical viticultural research and innovation. The program had six areas of study: clonal selection; the relative importance of different aspects of viticulture, such as vine density, rootstock selection, vine training methods, and pruning methods; the selection, classification, and

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preservation of native varieties called viziati (from vizzati, varieties); the performance of non-Tuscan and other nonnative varieties at San Felice; the improvement of grafting over to other varieties; and the examination of how Sangiovese, Trebbiano Toscano, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay vines planted on their own roots fared given the presence of phylloxera in the soils of Chianti. The third project, that of the old native vines, or viziati, was the most ambitious. Its goal was to reclaim the genetic heritage of Chianti. Three hundred vines were selected for study. Every podere and fattoria in Chianti had its own unique population of vine varieties. Some of them had been commonly identified. Many had not. These varieties had been selected by generations of mezzadri families or promoted by fattori. They were used as “spices” to give color, aroma, alcohol, acid, or structure to a podere’s or fattoria’s wines. The mezzadri and fattori often kept their viziati secret so they could differentiate their wines from those of others. The Vitiarium is a two-hectare (five-acre) vineyard. Dozens of viziati have been propagated and studied there, and subsequently microvinified. Among them was Foglia Tonda. By the 1870s, Brolio had a significant quantity of this variety in its vineyards.82 According to Bandinelli, it can still be found in vineyards both in the vicinity of Tenuta di Arceno in Castelnuovo Berardenga in southeast Chianti Classico and near Castellina Scalo in southwest Chianti Classico. Pugnitello was another variety that the Vitiarium team selected for investigation, because of its unique characteristics. Because it was difficult to grow, to ripen, and to achieve abundant yields of Pugnitello, winegrowers used this viziato (the singular of viziati) in limited amounts, as a secret weapon to give their wines deeper color, spicier smells, and greater structure. Two other viziati, Abrusco and Abrostine, have gone through vinification trials. They both strongly tint and add astringency to wine. The work of Bandinelli and other Vitiarium researchers has made it possible for viziati biotypes to be inscribed in Italy’s National Registry of Grape Varieties.

B E YO N D S A N G I O V E S E

Since the 2006 Brunello scandal, which brought attention to the fact that international varieties were masking the character of Sangiovese wine, the trend has been to increase the percentage of Sangiovese in Chianti Classico blends. Annatas now average about 90 percent Sangiovese. Producers can use any of forty-nine complementary red grape varieties, both native and international, suited for cultivation in the region of Tuscany, per the Chianti Classico discipline.83 Another trend since 2006 has been to increase the percentage of native varieties that fill out the blend. The following list of the ten most important native and international varieties in Chianti Classico blends does not include white grape varieties such as Malvasia Bianca Lunga (alias Malvasia del Chianti) or Trebbiano Toscano, as their use in Chianti Classico has been forbidden since 2006 and was insignificant for several decades before then. The three international varieties, grouped at the bottom of the list, are all of French origin.

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CANAIOLO

Canaiolo plantings have been on a steady downturn in Chianti Classico since the 1970s, when between 10 and 30 percent of the vines planted were of this variety. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot took its place in the Chianti Classico blend. Canaiolo ripens earlier than Sangiovese, but it is harder to grow. According to Luca Martini di Cigala at San Giusto a Rentennano, “Canaiolo is very sensitive to weather. One year it is good; another year it is bad.” Canaiolo wine today tends to be pale, to brown quickly, and to have a perfume that is at first vibrant but then diminishes after a year. Its acidity is usually lower than that of Sangiovese. It tastes bitter rather than astringent. Maybe we are missing the real Canaiolo. Giulio Gambelli, the master taster and wine consultant, thought that it was put on the wrong rootstocks after the phylloxera epidemic. Many of its best biotypes have disappeared. The consulting enologist Marco Chellini believes that before phylloxera, two biotypes of Canaiolo were used, Canaiolo grande, which made a wine that resembled Sangiovese, and Canaiolo piccolo, which had small, dark berries and made darker wine. Canaiolo grande may be the one that has survived, and Canaiolo piccolo may have been lost. This explains why commentators of the nineteenth century wrote about how dark, full in body, and bitter with aging Canaiolo wine could be.84 Chellini has begun using more Canaiolo in the blend when he needs alcohol levels lower than what Sangiovese has been giving him. He also likes its red-currant bouquet. Martini di Cigala reports that during the 1970s, a lot of low-quality Canaiolo was planted. He identifies Cacchiano, on the other hand, as a site with excellent Canaiolo genetic material. Ormanni, Castello della Paneretta, I Sodi, and Villa Calcinaia are other Chianti Classico estates that make Canaiolo varietal wines.

CILIEGIOLO

Ciliegiolo, an ancient variety, is one of the genetic parents of Sangiovese. There is a significant amount of it planted along the southwestern coastline of Tuscany, and it is more widely planted in Chianti Classico than most people recognize. Since it is difficult to tell them apart by appearance, many winegrowers mistake Ciliegiolo for Sangiovese. Its lower acidity and astringency usefully soften Sangiovese’s harder acidic and tannic edge. According to Fabrizio Bianchi of Monsanto, in Chianti it is found higher than Sangiovese because of its tendency to ripen earlier. In 1911, Vittorio Racah advised that it be planted at elevations between five hundred and eight hundred meters (1,640 to 2,625 feet) along with international varieties such as Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon.85 At Monteraponi in Radda, Michele Braganti reports that it ripens a few days before Sangiovese. Quercia al Poggio in Barberino Val d’Elsa near the western edge of Chianti Classico takes a particular interest in Ciliegiolo. It produces a 50–50 Ciliegiolo-Sangiovese IGT blend, Le Cataste. At Badia a Coltibuono in Gaiole, Roberto Stucchi says that Ciliegiolo ripens as many as fifteen days earlier than Sangiovese. He adds that its wine also has more color

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initially but becomes pale quickly unless it is blended with Sangiovese, which helps to stabilize it. Racah, a professor and viticultural researcher with an intimate knowledge of central Tuscany, particularly Chianti, wrote of Ciliegiolo in 1911, “Only for a few years has it been cultivated in Tuscany, and its provenance is unknown.”86 A few years earlier, he had proposed that Chianti be delimited by its geology. Perhaps Ciliegiolo was present there then, but he had not culled it from Sangiovese. As early as 1600, the Florentine Giovan Vettorio Soderini had mentioned a variety, Ciregiuolo, that grew well in hot locations and made a sweet and aromatic wine. He cited a variety, Ceruelliera (also called Orzese), whose secondary bunches resembled Ciregiuolo, and “like Sangioueto” produced an enormous volume of wine.87 Villifranchi mentioned a Ciliegiana and both an Orzese comune (common) and an Orzese piccolo (small).88 Pier Antonio Micheli, writing around 1730, listed a Ciliegiona “tonda, rossa di Spagna” (round, red of Spain), whose description corresponds with that of Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti’s “Vite Ciliegio’na Tonda di Spagna.”89 The characteristics that these commentators noted, regular and high productivity and roundish grapes, are both consistent with today’s Ciliegiolo. Given its predilection for high altitudes and ability to balance Sangiovese in wine blends, one wonders why Ciliegiolo either was not recognized or did not exist in Chianti prior to Racah. In the early twentieth century, the southwestern coast of Tuscany, where it has a strong presence now, was not the focus of winemaking. One reason for its presence there and not in the interior might have been the Spanish. Micheli and Targioni Tozzetti indicate a Spanish origin. Micheli believed that Cosimo III de’ Medici brought the variety from Madrid. It could have arrived in Tuscany via the south of Italy or Sardinia, both of which were under Spanish control for centuries. Given their genetic relationship, to understand Sangiovese, it is essential to understand Ciliegiolo.

COLORINO

As early as 1843, Ricasoli advised his mezzadri to use “qualche vitigno di colore” (some coloring vine variety) to give color (and structure) to the lesser wines.90 Colorino (whose name means “little colorful one” in Italian) is the variety that contemporary traditionalists have used to darken and give structure to Sangiovese wine, including Chianti Classico blends. (Chianti Classico color can be deepened by small amounts of a wide range of varietal wines, made from grapes including Abrusco, Alicante Bouschet, Ancellotta, Bracciola Nera, Lambrusco Maestri, Mondeuse Noire, Refosco dal Penduncolo Rosso, and Teroldego Nero.) There are a number of Colorinos, each being a separate variety.91 Several have pigmented pulp. The type that is most present in Chianti Classico is Colorino del Valdarno. Its pulp contains little or no pigment. The skin, however, has plenty, and a great deal of tannins. Gambelli advised his clients to use it when they had color problems. In 1997, Montevertine planted Colorino to counter the criticism of many journalists and customers that its wines were too pale. Socci says that Colorino was not traditional

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in the Lamole uvaggio (grape blend). Bandinelli confirms this, although Lamole, with its characteristically pale wines, would seem to have needed it. Lorenzo Landi is a consulting enologist who has used the variety often to darken and give structure to wines. He has even registered his own clones. Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi has planted 1,500 Colorino vines to add color to his vineyards at Bibbiano. In the autumn, their leaves turn a brilliant red.

FOGLIA TONDA

Brolio has had Foglia Tonda planted since at least the late nineteenth century. Giovanna Morganti reports that it is native to Chianti Senese. According to her, it was planted at Brolio in the most calcareous spots, to give delicacy to the wine. Francesco Ricasoli at Brolio reports that there was some Foglia Tonda in the vineyards there until the 1990s, when it was removed. Also in Gaiole, Badia a Coltibuono has Foglia Tonda in its vineyards. In Castelnuovo Berardenga, Morganti has some at her estate, Le Boncie. So does the San Felice estate. Renzo Marinai in Panzano lists Foglia Tonda first among the varieties in his Kádár, a red wine that is macerated on its skins for several months. According to Vittorio Fiore, it is less productive than Sangiovese.

M A LVA S I A N E R A

Malvasia Nera is a group of vine varieties. The first “Malvasia Nera” came from Greece via Venetian merchants sometime during the Renaissance. The current list of allowed Chianti Classico varieties includes three Malvasias: Malvasia Nera, Malvasia Nera di Brindisi, and Malvasia Nera di Lecce. Malvasia Nera is likely the Greek variety originally introduced by the Venetians. There might not be much of it planted in Tuscany today.92 In 2008, DNA profiling showed that Malvasia Nera di Brindisi and Malvasia Nera di Lecce are identical.93 More and more, producers in Chianti agree that what they call Malvasia Nera is closely related or identical to the Spanish variety Tempranillo. They say that it adds a smooth middle-mouth texture to Sangiovese and that it has low acidity and a high pH. Tempranillo could have come to Tuscany via southern Italy, which the Spanish controlled for centuries, or via Sardinia, which Aragon occupied in 1324. Cosimo Trinci, writing in 1738, praised a variety that he called both Navarrino and Navarra. He described it as an early ripener that had “almost black” grape skins and served as an excellent component in wine blends. His description recalls Tempranillo.94 Malvasia Nera is an increasingly popular filler in the Chianti Classico and Tuscan IGT wine blends. Castello di Ama’s Bellavista Chianti Classico and Capannelle’s Solare, an IGP, are usually about 80 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Malvasia Nera. Castellare’s I Sodi di San Niccolò, an IGP, contains 85 percent Sangiovese and 15 percent Malvasia. Malvasia Nera has been replacing nonnative varieties in Chianti Classico’s vineyards.

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MAMMOLO

Mammolo buds after Sangiovese, but ripens its bunches around the same time. Morganti reports that it grows well in fertile soil. It has big berries and a high pH and makes a pale wine that is easy to drink. Badia a Coltibuono and Le Boncie use it in their blend. Though an old Tuscan variety, Mammolo has increasingly lost favor, since it makes wines that are pale, low in alcohol (not such a bad thing!), and subject to oxidation.

PUGNITELLO

Pugnitello, hidden like a secret weapon in some old vineyards, attracted interest at the Vitiarium. San Felice produces an excellent varietal example that is dark purple and very spicy in the nose. The samples since 2003 have not had a distinct profile. The acidity and the astringency change year by year. Leonardo Bellaccini, the winemaker, reports that because the first few buds on the San Felice Pugnitello canes do not produce fruit, he uses the cane-pruning system Guyot. Montemaggio has made one barrique of Pugnitello. Ilaria Anichini, its manager and winemaker, says this is a risky variety because it ripens very late and is sensitive to disease.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON

During the first years of the 2000s, Cabernet Sauvignon went out of favor in Chianti Classico. Its bell pepper smell is less and less present in finished wine blends. Marinai makes a very dark and juicy Chianti Classico that is 10 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 90 percent Sangiovese. He harvests Cabernet very late, even at the beginning of November. Since it has a long growing season, it matures more regularly in the warmer areas of Chianti Classico. For this reason, Enrico Pozzesi says it does better than Merlot at Rodano in southwestern Castellina.

M E R L OT

Merlot is widespread throughout Chianti Classico. It ripens about ten days ahead of Sangiovese and is usually planted in richer, wetter, and less stony soils and in cooler spots. It is more frost resistant than Sangiovese. Thus, it usually gets planted at the base of hills. The variety gives color, thickness in the mouth, and structure to Sangiovese. Ripe Merlot wine has little smell. Anichini at Montemaggio believes that 5 to 7 percent does not noticeably alter the flavor of Sangiovese wine.

SYRAH

During the 1980s, Paolo De Marchi at Isole e Olena brought Syrah back into Chianti Classico after an absence of eighty years. It is harvested earlier than Sangiovese, to whose

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wine it adds color and structure. Its wine is more violet-tinted than Merlot, yet has a stronger, earthier smell and is coarser in the mouth. In the late 1980s and 1990s, De Marchi was making Chianti Classico with 10 percent Syrah. Now he uses 5 percent or less. Interest in Syrah has been on the wane in Chianti Classico since the early 2000s.

CHIANTI CLASSICO 2000

By the late 1980s it was clear, particularly in the light of the success of Super Tuscans and Brunello di Montalcino, that Chianti Classico wines had failed to represent the highest aspirations of the zone’s producers. The vineyards of the 1960s and 1970s would need to be replanted by the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1987, the Chianti Classico consortium launched the Chianti Classico 2000 project. It took sixteen years to complete and involved sixteen experimental vineyards encompassing twenty-five hectares (sixty-two acres) and eighty-nine thousand vines. Moreover, the project set up ten meteorological stations to collect climatic data. The topics studied in these vineyards were the characteristics of scion clonal material (particularly that of Sangiovese), vine density, techniques of soil cultivation, vine training systems, rootstock selection, and the impact of viral diseases and botrytis on the vines in the zone. The project focused on traditional Chianti Classico varieties: Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Colorino. Researchers initially identified 239 presumptive biotypes for consideration. Of these, thirty-four were determined to be free of viruses and hence qualified for further study, including twenty-four Sangiovese, eight Canaiolo, and two Colorino.95 At the conclusion of the project, seven Sangiovese CCL clones and one Colorino clone (COLO-RO 2000/8) were listed in Italy’s National Registry of Grape Varieties and released at no cost to nurseries for propagation and sale to the public.

COVER CROPS

The Chianti Classico 2000 project showed that if it was planted at the right time, cover crop could stress vines and advance their ripening. Cover crops such as legumes, called sovescio (“green manure” in English), are grown to increase soil vigor. Barley is grown to foster humus, stable organic matter, for vine growth. Other grains tend to reduce soil vigor. Native grasses secure the soil against erosion and provide a biodiverse ecosystem for microflora and microfauna. Viticulturalists rotate cover crops between the rows so as to control their fertility and capacity for drainage. The winegrowers at Monte Bernardi, Montemaggio, Poggerino, Querciabella, San Giusto a Rentennano, and Vignamaggio, among others, have developed cover crop strategies that are integral to their sustainable or organic farming practices and sensitive to their vineyard sites and soils. Marinai prefers coplanting, growing wheat between the vine rows. Olive trees are scattered here and there in his vineyards as well. He makes not only excellent wine but also organic pasta from a particular strain of wheat, Cappelli, that he raises. Planting cover crops reduces the use of heavy machines and, as a consequence, the compaction of soil. Looser soil provides a

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better habitat for insects, and the reduction of synthetic chemical treatments allows them to repopulate—particularly worms, which burrow into the soil, making it even less compact and breaking down nutritive elements, facilitating their uptake by rootlets.

REDISCOVERING TERRACES

In 1991, when De Marchi decided to reconstruct some terraces at Isole e Olena, several other wine producers derided him. Terraces were considered too expensive to build and to maintain. Those that De Marchi constructed with land-moving equipment were larger than the ones that generations of mezzadri had built in earlier centuries, and they turned out to be more expensive than he had imagined. He has not been able to determine if his terraces by themselves have improved his grapes and wines. Socci believes that before the destruction of the terraces, the wines of Lamole were some of the most highly prized in Chianti. He reasoned that if he could restore the stone terraces that the vineyard renovations of the 1960s and 1970s had destroyed, Lamole’s visual patrimony and the fame of its wines would be restored. His project began in 2003. Five vineyards were terraced. The first vintages of their wines have become available. Time will tell whether Socci’s financially risky experiment will bring Lamole and his estate the desired returns. Other estates, such as I Fabbri at Casole, Il Tagliato at Ruffoli, and Le Regge and Villa Calcinaia at Greve, have also built and renovated terraces. Current laws prohibit the destruction of terraces. Socci has installed ciglioni where the vineyard slope permits. They are used at San Giusto a Rentennano in Gaiole too. Valerio Barbieri’s rendition at Rocca delle Macìe is spectacular, with a drainage system skillfully integrated into the embanked terraces. Rocca delle Macìe’s resculpted vineyards are a monument to the work of Landeschi, Ridolfi, and Testaferrata.

N O N N AT I V E V I N E YA R D W O R K F O R C E

After the departure of the mezzadri, native Tuscans were unwilling to do agricultural work. During the 1960s and 1970s, Sicilians and southern Italians helped to fill the gap. Later, non-Italian Europeans and Africans came to work. Many had vine-tending expertise, though many others did not. The excessive pruning cuts made in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by untrained and poorly managed workers may have helped to establish the incurable vine-wood disease known as mal dell’esca. Today, many agricultural workers have organized themselves in cooperatives. Enological consultants make it their business to select the best teams of vineyard workers for their client estates. Valerio Marconi, the enologist at Cinciano, related his experience: “I wanted local Italian people to harvest the grapes, but they all had excuses not to work. It is a shame. I tried it for two years, and then I gave up. They had excuses. But the grapes don’t. So last harvest I used temporary workers from Albania and Greece.” Foreigners of one kind own much of Chianti. Foreigners of another do the work.

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V I N E T R A I N I N G S YS T E M S : B A C K T O T H E P A S T CORDON PRU N IN G

The presence of mal dell’esca, an incurable disease caused by a complex fungus population that enters the vine’s trunk, and the increasing interest in hands-on viticulture as a factor in the quality of wine have led to a revision of the way that vines are pruned. From 1995 to 2010, low cordon-spur pruning was the status quo. It remains popular, but now many producers are moving back to cane pruning. Cordon pruning involves training one or two permanent lateral extensions in line with the row from each trunk. This system helps to regularize the canopy, yield, and fruit quality along these cordons. Each spur, a small branch off a lateral trunk, usually carries two buds. The number of spurs varies with soil and plant vigor and the desired yield. Pruning can be done mechanically. One problem with cordon-spur is that as the spurs get longer, they force the grower to cut them back dramatically at a certain point, leaving large wounds in the cordon. Because these cuts are in older wood, where sap circulation is slower and more limited, mal dell’esca can easily enter the vine through them. Vines are especially vulnerable during the dormant winter period, when they have no sap to thwart a fungus attack.

CANE PRUNING

Vines trained in Guyot or Tuscan arched cane (capovolto) resist mal dell’esca better than those in cordon-spur (cordone speronato). Guyot involves one or two canes tied flat along the trellis’s bottom wire. Tuscan arched cane has a similar configuration, but the one or two canes are arched, as the name says. The canes are bent over a higher wire, and the end of each is tied to the lower wire. With Guyot, because there is more vigor near the trunk and at the tip of the cane than in the center of the cane, the bunch maturity varies along the fruiting cane. Arching the cane redistributes the vigor of the plant, adding more to the center of the cane and reducing it at the cane’s tip and base. Guyot can easily be mechanically harvested, but Tuscan arched cane cannot, because its bunches are at different heights. Hence, Tuscan arched cane entails more handwork than Guyot. In both systems, selecting the right canes from the former season to use for the current season’s fruiting requires experience. The fruiting canes have to be renewed each year. The pruning cuts are small and are made in young wood. In both Guyot and capovolto, the sap flows more vigorously through the canes with cuts. Hence, these vines are more resistant to mal dell’esca. The cuts are also fewer and smaller than in cordon pruning, thus reducing the points where mal dell’esca can enter the trunk. Cane systems usually yield more than cordon ones, but their output can be regulated by using a shorter fruiting cane with fewer buds. Green-harvesting techniques, such as picking and discarding bunches before they ripen, can also reduce yields. For high-quality grapes, the one cane of a vine in single Guyot is left with six to eight buds. Given that wine alcohol levels tend to be excessive nowadays, some producers welcome higher yields and the fact that, particularly with

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Guyot, some fruit will be less ripe along the cane, with some bunches having a lot of sugar and skin development and other bunches having less sugar and more acidity. In addition, because Sangiovese buds early, early spring frost can destroy those buds (and their future crop). In cane pruning systems, the canes can be left in their upward growing positions, away from the soil, where frost first occurs. Later in the spring, they can be tied down closer to the earth, to take advantage of radiant heat rising from the sun-warmed soil.

ALBERELLO

Alberello (“little bush”) is a system that is very low to the ground. Its round bush configuration makes it difficult to use machines without damaging the branches. Hence, workers must tend it by hand, hunching over the vine. It is backbreaking work. This system helps advance ripening, because the leaves can absorb heat from all directions, including from the ground, allowing for greater photosynthesis. Because the bunches are close to and equidistant from the roots, they are triggered more quickly and more evenly by rising sap, which carries nutritive elements, water, and hormones that regulate growth. These factors so increase vigor that the grapes can mature several days earlier than those in a cordon or cane system pruned to the same number of buds. Alberello gives a regular and low production of small, compact bunches. It is particularly good for dry growing environments where the soil is rocky and fast draining but there is water deep underneath. The low-lying foliage can also absorb moisture rising from the subsoil. Each vine usually supports two to four cordons, which grow up from a central trunk. Each cordon carries two spurs, each with two buds. Hence, this is an in-the-round, cordon-spur training system. Alberello is trained higher in Chianti than in southern Italy, perhaps because the hills of Chianti and Sangiovese are more subject to spring frost. Since the shoots rise higher, they need the support of a stake. In southern Italy, where the vines are trained lower, stakes are not used. The alberello system in Chianti resembles the staked-gobelet system practiced on the Hermitage hill in France’s Rhône valley. Ilaria Anichini at Montemaggio in Radda has planted a small plot of alberello quincuncially. She has positioned it in a cool spot with a northerly exposure. She finds that alberello training advances ripening by seven to ten days compared with other systems. This enhances her chances of bringing in a ripe crop. The places to see classic alberello in Chianti are many sites in Lamole and Casole, Le Boncie in Castelnuovo Berardenga, Castello di Cacchiano in Gaiole, and Candialle in Panzano. Castello dei Rampolla in Panzano and Poggio al Sole in Tavarnelle use the candelabra (éventail) configuration so that the vegetation can be tied to row wires and the labor costs are lower.

CANOPY MANAGEMENT

Today vineyard management relies on more than a single-bullet solution such as clonal selection. There was a pair of vintages that sent a clear message to Chianti Classico

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producers: one of the coolest and wettest, 2002, followed by one of the most ferociously hottest and driest, 2003. During the 2002 vintage, producers tried to channel much of the energy of the vine away from canopy development and toward fruit maturation. One method was to reduce the canopy before the harvest, particularly to strip leaves from around the ripening bunches. For the 2003 season, producers had to put their 2002 strategy into reverse, leaving vegetation on the flank of the vine most exposed to the sun and removing leaves and shoots on the shaded side. The stripping of leaves from around the ripening bunches had to be delayed until just before the harvest, to keep the bunches in the shade. Typically, growth at the top of the vine is trimmed off in June in a process called cimatura, or “topping.” This results in the lateral growth of secondary shoots, reducing airflow around the fruit and necessitating their removal. Michael Schmelzer of Monte Bernardi introduced a new technique into Chianti Classico: twirling shoot growth into braids. He rolls the tender green shoots around the top wire or wires of the trellis. The Italian for “to braid” is intrecciare, and this operation is called intrecciatura. It preserves apical dominance, allowing the vine to express its growth. This leads to higher yields, better tannin ripeness in the ripened fruit, and earlier ripening by one or two weeks. Moreover, Schmelzer reports that the resulting wines have lower alcohol and higher polyphenolic compound measurements, expressed as more color and structure. Piero Lanza at Poggerino also practices intrecciatura.

O R G A N I C A N D B I O DY N A M I C

During the 1990s, Querciabella in Ruffoli was an early adopter of organic and biodynamic agriculture. Sebastiano Castiglioni was the force behind this change. He brought in Leonello Anello, one of Italy’s first biodynamic consultants, who is now helping the estate to become 100 percent vegan (i.e., abstaining from the use of products derived from animals, such as manure). Another pioneer in bringing biodynamic viticulture to Chianti Classico is Luca di Napoli. In 1994 he introduced this philosophy and practice to Castello dei Rampolla. There are also less visible champions of the organic and biodynamic movements in Chianti Classico, such as Morganti of Le Boncie, but the pursuit of “off-road” viticultural strategies has been rare in the region. That is now changing. It began with Panzano. The agronomist Ruggero Mazzilli, in conjunction with Panzano’s union of winegrowers, the Unione Viticoltori di Panzano in Chianti (UVP), is showing that almost an entire district of winegrowers can work together to become organic. This group was born in 1992, when a cadre of young winemakers joined together to form a lobby. Because they had similar volumes of production and were all interested in producing top-quality wines, they easily found common cause. In 2005 a leafhopper, Scaphoideus titanus, that is a vector of the incurable and deadly vine disease flavescence dorée was discovered in the township of Greve. A ministerial decree of

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five years earlier obliged the spraying of insecticides in all townships where the vector was present. Treating their vineyards in this manner would have compromised the organic principles of the UVP. Mazzilli, a consultant who specializes in organic viticulture, happened to be in Greve in 2005. The UVP consulted him about the situation. Together with professors from the Universities of Pisa and Florence and the UVP, he set up a program to monitor the insect’s presence in all the vineyards of Panzano and obtained a derogation from the government. The condition for this exception was that if the leafhopper was discovered, insecticides would have to be used. Mazzilli and his wife, Amelia Perego, set up the consulting company SPEVIS (Stazione Sperimentale per la Viticoltura Sostenibile, “Experimental research station for sustainable viticulture”), which operates a monitoring and research vineyard in coordination with the UVP and informs the government of any sightings of Scaphoideus titanus. As of early 2016, the government has not forced Panzano winegrowers to spray insecticides. Organically farmed vineyards dominate the Panzano landscape. Mazzilli also helps farmers there (at no cost to them) to become organic. When they achieve that goal, they can hire him as their consulting organic agronomist. He also has clients elsewhere in Tuscany and in many other regions of Italy. Mazzilli argues that to be effective from a biological perspective and competitive with conventional farming from a cost perspective, organic practice must involve large areas rather than isolated plots. In 2016 he reported that about 93 percent of Panzano’s six hundred hectares (1,483 acres) are organic. Zonin’s Castello di Albola in Radda is also consulting him, showing that the sustainable and organic movement is beginning to penetrate the larger estates in Chianti Classico. Mazzilli’s idea is that producers have to unite and act in concert to protect their vineyards from disease and insect infestations. They must recycle “waste” such as spent vegetation so that they can intensify, rather than dilute, their terroir. What Mazzilli and the winegrowers of Panzano have done has inspired all of Chianti Classico. Thankfully, Chianti is a natural environment that is much less intensively farmed than other famous viticultural areas. Chianti Classico vineyards occupy a small fraction of its surface area. Woods dominate the landscape, cleaning the air, filtering the water, and housing a diversity of flora and fauna. If producers unite to protect their environment, they can secure that aspect of Chianti Classico’s future—and magnify the potential of their wines to express its terroir.

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9 ENOLOGY IN CHIANTI

THE FRENCH MODEL

How, when, and where the technology of controlling fermentation first evolved remains a mystery. It probably occurred in southern Germany or in eastern France during the Middle Ages. Since low temperatures during harvest, vinification, and maturation increase the possibility of controlling fermentation and maturation, the generally cooler temperatures that southern Germany experiences make it the most likely germination  point. While the lower alcohol content of such wines would have challenged fermentation control, the lower temperatures and higher wine acidities would have assisted it. Germany’s reputation for fruity, delicate, and durable wines could not have existed without the early development of techniques that limited the contact of the skins with the fermenting wine and effectively separated the finished wine from the lees. Italy’s medieval urban centers may have sourced wines from nearby areas with climates that were too warm to set the stage for the development of wine stabilization technologies. Antonio Saltini, whose lifework has been understanding how agriculture evolved throughout history, reveals an incident in volume 1 of his Agrarian Sciences in the West that highlights the disparity between French and Italian perspectives on the style and stability of wine. He refers to a passage from Agostino Gallo’s Le dieci giornate della vera agricoltura, e piaceri della villa (Ten days of agriculture and the pleasures of the villa), written in the 1550s, that describes how French visitors to Milan, accustomed to pale,

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clear, and delicate wines, found Italian wines so dark, coarse, and bitter as to be undrinkable.1 In response, the Milanese adopted French preferences and began fermenting must on the skins for a shorter time.2 This illustrates the chasm between Italian and French enology. Recipes for making wine in the French style evidence the Italian fascination with French culture during the reign of the Medicis. In 1552, Girolamo da Firenzuola presented his recipe for a “vino alla franzesi detto vin claretto” (wine in the French style, called claretto [clairet]). It was made similar to how Tuscans made verdea (a green-tinted, delicately sweet wine) or other white wines, but because their soil and vine varieties were different from those of France, he admitted that this wine could never be as good as the original. He advised using only red grapes, as whites would have a “malissimo effetto” (horrible effect). One must gently macerate the grapes by hand in bigoncie, small wooden pails, pour the fresh juice and skins into barrels for fermentation for one or as many days as needed to achieve the desired tint, and then drain the fermenting juice off the skins into other barrels. The barrels must be checked each night and topped up until the boiling of the fermentation diminishes, at which point the wine must be poured into fiaschi, because it stays fresher there than in barrels. Firenzuola mentioned that in his country these wines were light in body, while in France the wines were more powerful and more safely racked between barrels. If his clairets became “ill,” he could restore them with a remedy, a governo, or by letting them lie on the lees.3 More than four centuries later, Niccolò Capponi of Villa Calcinaia in Greve in Chianti memorialized a family recipe dated 1613 for a “way to make a wine in the French style, according to the manner of the best villages of France.” It too emphasized the gentle pressing of the grapes and a brief fermentation on the skins in a vat for about one day. However, it called for an indifferent mix of white and red grapes.4 Domenico Falchini had a recipe for “vino alla francese in Chianti,” which directed the blend of lightly dried red and white grapes. Again, it called for a delicate, short maceration on the skins. Falchini chose Chianti because its high-altitude vineyards would result in “wild” wines with “sour, raw, and sweet” flavors. The wines of “Chianti,” he added, “are more durable than those of every other place.”5 After displaying his knowledge of the wines of Champagne, Bordeaux, and Burgundy, Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi (the pen name of Saverio Manetti) identified Arbois as a French wine region “where the climate is harsh” and where a white wine was made in the delicate style that the other authors had associated with France. Arbois is between Burgundy and Switzerland. To produce the wine, bunches were destemmed and pressed. The must clarified for two days in a vat. It was moved into barrels. After fermentation, it was bottled in March.6 Tuscans have long had a fascination with French wine, which they saw as delicate, pure, refined, and age worthy. The way to make this wine in the French style changed little from the midsixteenth century, the time of Gallo and Firenzuola, to the end of the eighteenth, the time of Villifranchi.

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RENAISSANCE AND LORENA-PERIOD CHIANTI GIROLAMO DA FIRENZUOLA: PRECIOUS CHIANTI WINE, CIRCA 1550

Firenzuola’s detailed masterpiece Sopra la agricultura establishes a pre–Bettino Ricasoli connection between Sangiovese and Chianti.7 He described how to make a Chianti using Sangiovese in a chapter titled “How to Make a Precious Wine.” He began his exposition with the passion of a true enophile: “You must use this rule, if you want to make at least a barrel of precious and admirable wine, which upon first swirling it in the glass and then sipping it, you either can instantly recognize it as precious wine and swallow it, or, because it lacks quality and power in the mouth, you spit it out.” His directions read like those in a manual for making a grand cru. First, it was imperative to harvest grapes from old vineyards in towns in or near the Chianti hills, such as “Lucolena, Montescalari, Radda, Panzano, Lamole, and Civitella.” The grapes must be perfectly mature and in pristine condition, ideally from vineyards which faced east. The vineyard had to be impeccably managed. Firenzuola’s instruction was to take the first cluster that grows out of the principal cane of the vine. This is always the ripest one, the one that ripens before all the others, and the one closest to the roots. He then recommended the selection of only the choicest part of the bunch, professing that the upper half makes better wine than the lower half.8 His recipe continued: Put the bunches in clean used wooden pails. Remove dried leaves, bugs, and damaged and shriveled grapes. Bring the pails quickly to a vat, “wide at the base, narrow at the top” (i.e., conical). Mix the skins in the juice often so that the skins rising to the top after the start of the fermentation do not form a hard cap. Mixing it breaks up the cap, keeping it warm instead of hot.9 A hardened fermentation cap reduces the extraction of substances from the skins. It can also overheat, stopping fermentation, which some winemakers fear so much that they sleep in the winery during this period, rising occasionally to check the vats and break up the caps. More instructions followed. We paraphrase: If you intend to drink the wine soon after the fermentation, drain it off the skins and into a vat not long after the fermentation starts, where it will lose some color but quickly develop flavor. If you want the wine to last until the winter, keep it on the skins until the fermentation is over. When all the sugar has transformed into alcohol—which takes from five to fourteen days, depending on many factors such as the temperature of the must, the yeast populations, and the nutrients available to them—the cap will sink to the bottom and the wine will become clear and still. Then drain it into barrels, always keeping them topped up with the best wine that you have. Every evening until the Festival of San Martino, check the wine. This festival occurs on November 11. An Italian proverb memorializes what happens on that day: “A San Martino ogni mosto diventa vino” (On the Festival of San Martino, every must becomes wine). The farmer families then celebrate by drinking the novello, “new,” wine— the wine that Firenzuola recommended be drained off early in the fermentation. After

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that, you should cover the bunghole with a large cotton cloth soaked in cinders so that air does not penetrate the barrel and the wine does not absorb mold or “bad smells.”10 What is amazing about this advice is how far ahead of his time Firenzuola was in recognizing that the bunghole is a site where all sorts of problems can occur. It is a point where spoilage yeasts and bacteria can enter and contaminate the wine. He understood that it was necessary to top off the barrels, lest oxidation and microbial contamination occur there. He cautioned staying alert for “cuoio, muffa, et simili odori et sapori che guaston’ le botti” (leather, mold, and similar odors and flavors that destroy the barrels). Maintenance of barrel cleanliness was his constant concern, and he gave many remedies for resuscitating barrels. He recommended, “Nettar’ le botte co’ alquanto d’invogla di pa’no lino ogni volta che le si riempino accio stien’ pulite” (Clean the barrels with linen cloth every time that they are refilled so that they keep clean). He identified the dangerous period for keeping wine in barrels as the summertime. This was when the wine warmed up and was more susceptible to microbial attack, which could cause acetification and other problems. At that time, the wine was likely to pigliare “il fuoco,” which meant “develop volatile acidity,” identified by the acrid smell of ethyl acetate (as in fingernail polish).11 When reading his directions, one can sense Firenzuola’s confidence in talking about growing and harvesting the grapes and his uncertainty in describing the dark, uncontrollable world of the wine postvinification. Though he sensed what was going on through observation and intuition, he had no scientific understanding of microbial activity and thus little ability to control it. He and all the other winemakers who followed him for three centuries faced this vulnerability until the pioneering work of Louis Pasteur and other French researchers raised the veil on this subject. Early in his treatise, Firenzuola showed his respect for the great durability of Chianti wines. Blending in those of “Torsoli, Lamole, and Lucolena,” all Chianti towns, would protect the “vini dintorno à Firenze” (wines from the outskirts of Florence) from the deleterious impact of summer heat in that lowland area. Though the Florentine wines were “admirable” during the winter months, they needed the “vini bruschi, sottili, et aspri bene” (austere, delicate, and very sour wines) of these highland Chianti towns to become wines “previso per la state” (expected to last the summer).12 Firenzuola finished his recipe for a precious wine with an anthem to great wine and the people who drink it: “Good wine makes good blood; the good blood then makes good and perfect men. These men are loved and desired by everyone, and at the end of their lives, they go to paradise. They are those who maintain the cities, the kingdoms, and the republics.”13

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Falchini, the fattore at Lappeggi, a Medici estate, put a wide range of recipes in his Trattato di agricoltura, including how to make a red wine “in Chianti or in other mountainous places where the season is cool.”14

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He advised harvesting the grapes in dry weather, putting them in vats, and leaving them there for one day. However, if the grapes were sour and thin skinned, they should remain in the vats for two days. Falchini seemed to be recommending what is today called a prefermentation maceration. Upon fermentation, he gave precise maceration instructions. He advised punching down the cap once on the first day and twice on the second, third, and fourth days, once in the morning and once in the evening. For the fifth, sixth, and seventh days, he increased the punch-down frequency to three times per day. On the eighth day, he punched down only once. The next day, the ninth, was a day for no punchdowns. If, however, fermentation was strong at this point, he advised punching down twice on the tenth day and perhaps also on the eleventh. When the fermentation abated, he recommended stirring the skins in the turbid must in order to extend active maceration. The falling of the cap to the bottom of the tank meant that fermentation was over. This was the right moment to drain the wine off into barrels. When the wine was ready to leave the barrel, to avoid waste it had to be taken off the sediments quickly so that they were left behind in a compact condition at the bottom of the barrel.15 What is particularly interesting about Falchini’s recipe is the maceration of the skins for up to thirteen days, including a two-day cold maceration. He was quite specific about how it should be done. His emphasis on maceration shows an increase in interest in the impact of having the stems, seeds, and skins in contact with both the nonalcoholic, aqueous solution of the juice before fermentation and the alcoholic one during and after fermentation. While an aqueous solution extracts bluish-red anthocyanins and soft-tasting tannic substances, alcohol extracts brownish-red compounds from stems and seeds, plus more-astringent tannins.

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Half a century after Falchini’s treatise appeared, Villifranchi wrote directions for making an “ottimo vino di Chianti” (a great Chianti wine). He identified “Ama, Broglio, la Castellina, San-Sano, e Cacchiano” as representative Chianti towns.16 All except Castellina are localities in today’s Gaiole in Chianti. Villifranchi admitted that the quality of certain wines had deteriorated in recent years and explained why. He described the color of red Chianti wine as “rubino molto pieno” (full ruby). Firenzuola had described the color of Chianti similarly, as “chiaro et rubinante come le granella delle Malegrane” (clear and ruby tinted, like the seeds of pomegranates).17 Villifranchi omitted to mention whether the grapes were first crushed in the field in bigoncie, as was customary. According to him, the harvested “uve” (“grapes,” though he likely meant “bunches”) were put in a vat and moved around with a three-pronged pitchfork. This punch-down was performed three times per day, but during the tumultuous part of the fermentation a fourth punch-down could be added. After the first three or four days, as the fermentation slowed, the mixing was reduced to two times per day. When the cap sank, on the twelfth day, all mixing with the fork stopped. After this, the wine

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remained on the sunken skins, seeds, and dead yeasts for eight more days. (Postfermentation cold maceration is quite common in Chianti today. It can be done if the ambient temperature is low and the skins are fully mature.) Thus, the must and wine were on skins, seeds, and dead yeasts for at least twenty days. The wine was then racked (drained off its sediments) into barrels. Once there, it was not racked again until it was drained into fiaschi. Villifranchi said that this had to be done by September 8 of the year following the harvest (thus the barrels would be ready for the incoming harvest.)18 Writing about seventeen years later, Adamo Fabbroni confirmed the duration of the macerations that Villifranchi described. He reported that while the wines made from grapes grown on the Florentine plains macerated for about ten days, those grown on hills required fifteen days and those from the higher areas of Chianti eighteen to twenty-one days. Sensorial assessment of the wine determined the duration of skin contact.19 Villifranchi described the way of making superior red Chianti wine that was common in his time. This is also how an artisanal “ottimo vino di Chianti” could be made today. Villifranchi’s description differs from the accounts of Firenzuola and Falchini principally in his use of a postfermentation maceration on the skins, seeds, and yeasts. As Fabbroni knew, only an experienced winemaker can tell from the color, smell, and taste of maceration when to pull the wine off the fermentation sediments. Pulling it off too late can result in pale color, acetic and earthy smells lacking fruit, and a bitter and harshly astringent taste. Villifranchi knew, however, that Tuscan wine sold in foreign countries had to be in a style closer to the French model: pale and limpid to the eye, delicate, fresh, and fruity in the nose, and textured, but not coarsely so, in the mouth. His prescription for such wines was different from that for “ottimo vino di Chianti”; the winemaker needed above all to shorten the time in which maceration occurs during the alcoholic fermentation in the vats of grapes; by using the press to separate the fermenting must from the skins and put it in a small tank; to add honey to the must so as to support its fermentation, and thus enhance the generation of alcohol; to sulfite in advance the tanks that will receive the wine and to sulfite the wine further as it is transferred into those vats; draining it off the lees, or should it happen, to stop the fermentation, as happens rather often, and according to how much is your need, especially according to French practice.20

Villifranchi’s perspective on how Tuscan wines needed to be modified to appeal to export markets was successfully put into practice two centuries later when Giacomo Tachis transformed Chianti.

F R E N C H I N F L U E N C E C H A N G E S I TA L I A N E N O L O G Y

The beginning of the nineteenth century saw enormous advances in enology. They were based on a chemical approach pioneered at the end of the eighteenth century in France by Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier. He analyzed the chemical transformation of prefermenta-

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tion sugared water to which yeast had been added into postfermentation water containing alcohol and a yeast-derived residue. He measured the masses of the reactants and products to show that they were equal within an experiential margin of error. In doing so, he affirmed his theory of stoichiometry, that chemical reactions can be analyzed in a way similar to mathematical equations. He used a quantitative and scientific method in the field of vinification, which prior to his research was for the most part experientially based. Lavoisier’s work had a great effect on Jean-Antoine Chaptal. In 1801, Chaptal’s treatise L’art de faire, de gouverner, et de perfectionner les vins (The art of making, managing, and perfecting wines) was published. It showed that the addition of sugar to must could support fermentation and increase final alcohol concentrations. So great was the interest in this book in Italy that it was translated and published in the same year in Venice as Trattato chimico ed economico sopra i vini (Treatise on the chemistry and economy of wine). It remained for Louis Pasteur to open the door to the world of microbiology. In the 1850s, he discovered that it was yeast, a single-celled microorganism, that converted grape sugar to ethanol. He also demonstrated that bacteria, smaller microorganisms, could be responsible for wine degradation. The works of these French researchers were well known in professional circles in Italy. In 1818, Cosimo Ridolfi published his “Memoria sulla preparazione dei vini toscani” (Instructions on the production of Tuscan wine) in the proceedings of the Accademia dei Georgofili. The practices he advised were in line with contemporary French practices. Most important, among the work’s fifty-three recommendations are directions to reduce maceration time during fermentation to as little as forty hours for light wines, to limit the time the wine spent on the marc so as to preserve its color, to ferment in a closed vat to preserve aromas, to increase the fermentation time if the must was sweeter and denser, and to avoid unnecessary contact of air with the maturing wine.21

THE RICASOLI METHOD

That Bettino Ricasoli was scrupulous about how wine should be vinified is evident from this advisory to his mezzadri in his Regolamento agrario of 1843: “Wine is a particular product, sensitive to the air and even light and noise. The slightest things overlooked because of neglect can cause serious damage.”22 Though he made sure that the sharecroppers delivered their best grapes to him, and left it up to no one but himself and his immediate staff to ferment, mature, and bottle the wine, he gave them instructions on how to maintain their own vat houses and barrels.23 Ricasoli yearned to see his wines on the dining tables of the European, particularly the English, upper class. To that end, he followed developments in enology and integrated French techniques into the traditional world of Chianti winemaking. Aware of enology’s movement toward chemical analysis, he engaged the Pisan physician and chemist Cesare Studiati as a consultant. On July 16, 1868, Ricasoli sent Studiati several samples of wine for chemical analysis, along with a letter outlining how he had made wine for twenty years. After carefully selecting perfectly ripe grapes, he gently crushed the bunches, filling

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a wooden tank with the juice and skins to about thirty to thirty-five centimeters (twelve to fourteen inches) below the lid. The space above the must was to allow for its expansion during fermentation. The lid was weighed down with a layer of sand. Ricasoli racked the wine off the skins after five or six days, then pressed the skins twice. He added the first pressing to the free run wine, which he put in cask, making sure to top it up. He added the second pressing to lower-quality wine. While the wine in cask fermented, the bunghole was lightly sealed. When the fermentation was complete, the bung was inserted firmly. When the wine settled and became clear, Ricasoli racked it off its sediments. He did so again in March, August, and then in December and the following March, making sure to top off the barrels every fifteen days during the first year of maturation.24 This method followed Ridolfi’s recommendations such as fermenting in a closed vat, reducing skin contact to less than a week, and making every effort to avoid oxygen contact. Compared to that of Villifranchi’s ottimo Chianti wine, Ricasoli’s maceration period was briefer and more passive, though he added wine from the first pressing to enhance color and astringency. His recommended maturation period in cask was six months longer than that of Villifranchi’s Chianti. He would, however, shorten the sixteen-month aging period if an earlier-release Chianti was desired. Ricasoli was concerned that his wines were too dark at bottling and slow to become pale during aging in bottle. As evidence, he mentioned the continuing vivid color of the 1841 after twenty-seven years of aging. This concern is opposite to the objective of modern winemakers. Ricasoli also thought that the acidity of his wines was too high and suspected that chestnut vats and barrels, the traditional vessels in Chianti, were responsible. At the time of writing his letter to Studiati, he had introduced oak barrels and was awaiting the results of that change. The high acidity of his wines would have caused them to age very slowly. Castello di Brolio was recognized as a wine that needed bottle age, several years at least. The characteristic that Ricasoli most appreciated in it was how it “raschia il palato,” “scrapes the palate.”25 After Ricasoli died in 1880, a large merchant industry quickly developed. It made light, vapid Chianti fiasco wine for the world market. It was a dilute version of the Ricasoli formula, with a greater proportion of white grapes, particularly Trebbiano, in the blend, usually 70 percent red and 30 percent white. By the early twentieth century, increasing additions of southern Italian cutting wine were darkening and boosting the alcohol of pallid and weak Chianti. After merchants constructed their blend, they used a governo to give it fizz, fruitiness, and some richness. These wines had a short life, but that was intentional. Chianti’s image had suddenly transformed, from the stern, age-worthy wine of Ricasoli into a light, quaffing wine that would conquer the world.

MAL GOVERNO

One of the old Italian meanings of governare is “to feed.” Feeding livestock is to “govern” them. With respect to wine production, governo refers to an addition of fresh or dried

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grapes, their sweet juice, or a mash of the two. It is also the name for what is added. If inserted early in the fermentation, it was an enrichment, to make the wine deeper in color, astringency, and alcohol. If added later, it could extend the fermentation, increasing the maceration time. The resulting wine would be even darker, more structured, and more alcoholic than if the governo had gone in earlier. If added after the fermentation, it could not only have these effects but also incite refermentation. If bottled soon thereafter, the wine would have an aroma enhanced by fruity fermentation odors. It would also be slightly fizzy, because of the carbonic gas created by the second fermentation. Though Firenzuola wrote often about the benefits of adding fresh coloring grapes to must, he did not suggest this for the production of Chianti. Chianti was too good and too precious. However, to sweet vermigli, which he held in less high regard, he mentioned adding “2 ò 3 giumelle” (two or three handsful) of dried grapes per barrel of wine in order to make the wine “frizzi” (fizzy) and “chiaro” (clear), adjustments which would have been the result of a second process of fermentation.26 These grapes were precursors of what became the governo of Chianti wine in the following centuries. Firenzuola compared the addition of fresh Abrostine grapes to “medicina alli a’malati per restaurare i mal’ co’plessionati” (medicine given to the sick to restore their pale complexion). Abrostine is a native Italian variety that gives color and tannins to wine. Though he recognized that these grapes could be put to positive use to increase the structure and longevity of weak wine, Firenzuola also worried that some producers were using them so much to cover deficiencies that the resulting wines could actually be unhealthy to drink.27 Falchini warned against a governo of a must of Abrostine grapes for Chianti and wines from other mountainous areas, as it did not allow wine “to maintain its alcohol from one year to the next.” This type of governo, he said, was in common use. If no governo at all was added, however, the wine would lose both its alcohol and its “grana” (courage) and become “piuttosto scepito” (rather flavorless). He thus recommended a governo of selected and destemmed grapes called granella, which “would render the wine more colored and mature and able to be ready to leave sooner” from the winery. Not just that, but a wine with this addition “would become more alcoholic and would last longer.” His recipe paraphrased is this: To conduct a governo by adding granella, fill a bigoncia (the singular of bigoncie) with Colore Dolce (Colorino) or Abrostine grapes, gently crush them by hand, and then let the skins rise to the top of the sweet juice. Optionally, put the bigoncia in some sunlight, but not for so long that it prevents fermentation from beginning. Leave this bigoncia of crushed granella alone for one day. If it begins to ferment during this time, quickly pour it into the barrel of wine, making sure to fill the barrel to the top. Top off the barrel every eight days and seal it in the same way that you seal the other barrels. “And you will recognize the effect of my governo, because the wine will be more colored, more mature, and more garnet colored and be able to leave the winery and please all tastes, according to the occasion. And if you want to age the wine, don’t crush the governo grapes in the bigoncia but leave them whole, and let the botte of wine mature in a cool underground cellar.”28 When it came to making a wine “al usanza del Chianti”

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(i.e., pseudo-Chianti), Falchini recommended different recipes for the governo depending on the desired style of wine, such as early drinking or sweet. One of his recipes is for a product not too dissimilar from the Chianti in flask produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: “This should be drunk in cold weather as would be throughout February, because then it will easily bubble in the barrel, and once it becomes clear, limpid, put it in flasks and put some olive oil on top of the wine in the flasks.”29 More than half a century later, Filippo Mazzei, who was living in England at about the same time that Villifranchi was writing his treatise, suspected that governo made wines more vulnerable to spoilage during shipping. He understood, however, that “the Chianti wine-growers did not treat theirs as much and some not at all.”30 Villifranchi reported that the must of dried Colorino, Canaiolo Bianco, or Trebbiano was added as a governo. He said that a small governo of Abrostine gave structure to the wine of grapes overmature at harvest, offsetting any of their residual sweetness with the astringency and bitterness of the governo grapes.31 However, he added that “generally this kind of governo is abhorred in Chianti, unlike in some other places, because when the wine in Chianti is governed in such a manner that makes it more prone to spoil, it never loses its sharp edge.”32 Beginning in the early nineteenth century, authors published arguments for and against the governo. At that time, the mezzadria system was firmly institutionalized in Chianti and in Tuscany as a whole, and à testucchio was increasingly used in place of other vine training systems. The result was higher yields of pale, vapid, low-alcohol wine. While the mezzadri were forced by contract to share the wine produced from these grapes with their padroni, they early-harvested grapes and dried them into raisins for home use. These too were a part of their diet. They used semidried grapes to make their own specialty wine, vin santo, and as additions to enrich and refresh their wines before sale. For the mezzadri, a governo of dried grapes was a natural fit for their home winemaking practice. Inevitably, the need to enrich pale and weak wine encouraged fattorie and eventually wine companies to install their own drying rooms for desiccating grapes for the governo. The use of a governo of the juice of dried grapes became de rigueur when making Chianti. In 1905, Napoleone Passerini authored the monograph Il governo del vino come si pratica in Toscana (The governo of wine as it is practiced in Tuscany). He questioned if adding dried grapes or their juice after the primary fermentation was a long established practice, citing its mention by authors only so far back as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Yet Firenzuola had recommended the addition of destemmed, dried grapes to enrich wine after the first fermentation, so knowledge of the practice existed in the sixteenth century, if not sooner. He reserved this type of governo, however, for vermigli. Using a governo of the juice of dried grapes was increasingly popular throughout the expansion of the mezzadria system. Whether or not this was beneficial became a source of debate. The root issue animating the discussion was very likely the continuing sustainability of the mezzadria system. Since the semidried grape governo was a corrective for defective viticulture, those who favored the mezzadria system would have had a reason to support its use. Those against it were open to the rationale

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that growing more-concentrated and riper grapes would remove the need for the governo.33 In 1839, Giorgio Gallesio, the respected pomologist who was a forerunner of the modern enologist, advised the assembled Georgofili how to make “fine wines.” One of his four precepts was renouncing the governo. Another went one step further: clarifying the wine so as to avoid refermentation.34 From the early eighteenth until the late twentieth century, only the minority of producers, such as Bettino Ricasoli, who desired highquality, exportable wine eschewed the use of a governo of dried grapes. During the boom of cheap “Chianti” sold in fiaschi from the late 1800s to the 1970s, must from pressed dried grapes was generally used in the governo. The grapes were dried for thirty to forty days beforehand. In the Chianti Classico area, Canaiolo, Trebbiano, and occasionally Sangiovese were the principally employed varieties. Contrary to common conception, Colorino was not commonly used in the governo of this period, at least in Chianti Classico, though Pier Giovanni Garoglio reported that it was often added to apply a second governo, at the moment of the spring racking before bottling. This technique, rigoverno, was used in cellars in Pontassieve.35 It was principally done to revive freshness and restore or add more carbonation to the wine before bottling. As if one revival were not enough! The governo died out during the 1970s and 1980s. There were many reasons for its demise. The fashion for fizzy Chianti faded. The DOC discipline allowed the use of concentrated rectified must to raise wine alcohol levels. The governo was no longer needed for enrichment. Starting a second fermentation with sweet juice was a risky procedure, because it might not entirely ferment out, might ferment in the bottle, or might be attacked by bacteria. There were safer ways to make stable wine. Conducting a governo of dried grapes required the cheap labor of the mezzadria system. The harvesting and drying of the grapes were labor intensive. Hence, governo using dried grapes was increasingly prevalent as the mezzadria system became entrenched and went into disuse as it fell apart. The San Giusto a Rentennano 1990 Percarlo was that estate’s last governo wine. Luca Martini di Cigala reported that it had problems finishing the fermentation. As of 2005, the governo was disallowed for Chianti Classico DOCG wines. Castellare still makes an IGT wine called Governo di Castellare. Le Masse di Lamole also makes an archtraditional governo wine, I Cortacci di Lamole, an IGT Alta Valle della Greve with a blend of 15 percent Malvasia and Trebbiano complementing 80 percent Sangiovese and 5 percent Canaiolo, and with one year of maturation in large chestnut barrels. But no fiasco!

P O S T-1 9 5 0 S V I N I F I C AT I O N

Following the massive, socioeconomic changes of the 1950s, industrial enological technologies moved into Chianti during the 1960s and 1970s. Reinforced cement replaced the old chestnut tini (the plural of tino). This was a positive change, because the concrete tanks were easier to clean and gave no flavor to wine, unlike the chestnut, which imparted a bitter taste. Steel tanks, even easier to manage, were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Chestnut casks lingered until oak barrels and barriques replaced them during the 1970s and 1980s. Local cooperage companies closed their doors one by one. By the 1980s, nearly all enological equipment was designed and made in northern Italy or imported from other countries. Tuscany and particularly Chianti were isolated from enological education and research for a time. In the years after World War II, a technical agricultural school was created in Siena. It ran more and more enology courses and eventually offered a technical degree in enology. In 2013 that school renamed itself Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “Bettino Ricasoli.” The University of Florence also offered classes relevant to enology in the postwar period, principally in its agronomy school, but not an enology degree. From 1951 to 1970, Garoglio was influential as a professor of agronomy at this university, authoring a widely used and highly regarded textbook, La nuova enologia. He was a confidant of the Folonaris and Antinoris, two of the most powerful merchant families in Tuscany. Most know-how filtered down from Piedmont, where there was an enological school at Alba, and from the Veneto, where there was an enological program at Conegliano. In the 1990s the Universities of Pisa and Florence began to offer degrees that combined viticultural and enological study. The winemaker had transitioned from a farm manager with rudimentary training through an agronomist with some enological training to an enologist with a technical or university degree.

T H E C O N TA I N E R R E V O L U T I O N

Since about 2000, stainless steel tanks have been unfashionable and concrete vats have come back into favor. Stainless steel is a poor insulator, and its electrostatic nature has a tendency to encourage reduction in wine. Concrete has good insulation properties and does not amplify reduction. While some producers buy concrete that is coated with wax or another inert material, there is always a risk of a crack developing in the lining, and others such as Riecine and Monte Bernardi prefer unlined concrete. Poggerino and Villa Calcinaia are playing with the egg-shaped concrete tank made by the French company Nomblot. Candialle and Borghetto have unlined 250-liter (66-gallon) spherical ceramic vinification tanks made by the Italian company Clayver. Castello dei Rampolla and Fontodi are making Sangiovese wine in terra-cotta urns. The problem with terra-cotta is that it is gas and liquid permeable. Rampolla buys its urns from Artenova of Impruneta. Fontodi’s family owns a terra-cotta factory, Fornace Manetti Gusmano e Figli in Ferrone, that makes urns too. Toasted-oak French barriques of 225 liters (59 gallons) entered Chianti Classico like a tidal wave in the 1980s and 1990s. Flavor and texture can be extracted from new oak for three years, after which it becomes difficult to keep clean. Sangiovese, unlike Cabernet Sauvignon, is easily overwhelmed by new oak. During the late 1990s, 500-liter (132-gallon) tonneaux, also called double barriques, came into use. They were quickly seen as a more suitable container for Sangiovese wine, giving it character without masking it. The

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word tonneaux in Italy applies to any Bordeaux- or Burgundy-style barrel with greater than 228 liters of capacity. During our research in 2014, tonneaux were rapidly replacing barriques in wineries across Chianti Classico. Few tonneaux or casks with capacities from 750 to 1,000 liters (198 to 264 gallons) are in use there. Oval barrels called botti (the plural of botte) have always been in use. Their capacities vary from ten to three hundred hectoliters (264 to 7,925 gallons). Chestnut casks largely disappeared during the 1970s. In addition to Le Masse di Lamole, Antica Podere Casanova in Castellina has used chestnut barrels. The other traditional choice for wood is oak. French oak has been popular since the 1970s and remains popular, but it is very expensive, as much as $1,000 per 225-liter barrique. Oak from Slavonia, an area in Croatia, has become a cost-effective substitute. It imparts little flavor. Very few producers use American oak. It gives too strong a flavor to Sangiovese wine. Most producers order oak barrels with a medium toast, from suppliers such as Gamba in Piedmont. Toasting adds a burned, spicy flavor. Garbellotto, a cooper in the Veneto, uses fire to bend the staves but does not char them unless requested to do so by the buyer.

THE PROBLEM OF HIGH ALCOHOL

According to the winemaker Stefano Porcinai, fifteen years ago Chianti Classico wines had on average 13 to 13.5 percent alcohol by volume, but in 2014 this had risen to 14.5 percent. Though many tasters like high-alcohol wines because they taste more extracted and rounder, others complain that it is difficult to drink more than one glass and that the extra calories add to the worldwide obesity problem. Some blame higher alcohol levels on climate warming and others on new clones that mature earlier and with higher sugar levels. In response, the consulting enologist Marco Chellini prefers to harvest at higher yields per plant than in the past and to make wine with 5 percent Canaiolo, which lightens up the structure. To solve this problem, one producer has resumed the practice of adding some white grapes to the must, about 1 to 1.5 percent. However, this has been illegal since 2006.

WINEMAKING TRENDS

Unlike in other industries, production strategies and techniques are common knowledge throughout the entire wine world. Across the world, waves of interest in various techniques rise and fall. These waves move across Chianti Classico as freely as anywhere else. Salasso (called saignée in French), draining unfermented must off the skins, is done less often now than it was in the 1990s. Though it increased color, it also increased tannicity, making wines too coarse. Also in the 1990s, rotating fermentation vats were tried, but they were not as effective for Sangiovese as for other Italian grapes such as Nebbiolo. Prefermentation maceration was in vogue after 2000. It works much better with Pinot Noir than with Sangiovese, and few Chianti Classico producers now use this process.

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Malolactic fermentation in barrique has died out. This practice stabilized color in the short term, but depth of color is less important now than it was ten years ago. Malolactic fermentation is temperamental and more effectively triggered and completed in larger containers. Michael Schmelzer, however, is willing to baby his barriques as the wine inside each goes through malolactic fermentation. He finds that the result is less reduction. Leaving wine on the lees during maturation can make it smoother in the mouth and reduce the need to add sulfites. This practice is more common now than it was in the past. In our recent trips to Italy we did not see microoxygenation machines, nor did anyone mention their use. There is less filtration now than there was twenty years ago. Most Chianti Classico producers use ambient yeast and bacteria, or say they do. Vinifying in terra-cotta amphorae, which have pointed conical bottoms, or urns, which have flat bottoms, has garnered interest in Italy, perhaps because of its ties to an ancient Mediterranean culture in which such vessels were the basis of commerce and domestic life. At present, this activity is experimental, small scale, and associated with artisanal winemaking. It has arrived in Chianti Classico, more specifically at two wineries in Panzano. Giovanni Manetti at Fontodi leaves his urn wine, Dino, on its skins for more than a year and adds no sulfites. For his urn wines, Luca di Napoli at Castello dei Rampolla racks after six months and adds no sulfites. He has been playing with no-sulfite wines since 1985. Renzo Marinai uses open-top tonneaux in his “off-road” approach to winemaking, one that also looks back to the ancient past and to nature for inspiration. When we visited him at the eponymous winery in February 2015, he showed us one of his tonneaux filled with a wide variety of native grapes, all whole berry, still fermenting since the last harvest. The grapes had simply been piled in the barrel, and the fermentation was proceeding without human intervention. When the resulting sediment-rich free run wine Kádár tastes right, it will be racked into glass demijohns to enhance and speed up its clarification. Risk-taking vignerons like Manetti, Di Napoli, and Marinai (all from Panzano) show that personal involvement in winemaking produces true and original wines of the territory, even if they cannot by law be bottled as Chianti Classico.

G I A C O M O TA C H I S : T H E B R I D G E O V E R C H I A N T I ’ S T R O U B L E D WAT E R S

Giacomo Tachis (see figure 1) was one of many Piedmontese who came to Tuscany to make wine. He was born in 1933 in Poirino, a small village in the province of Turin. His father repaired textile machines, while his mother raised him and his brother, Antonio Mario. Tachis’s first wish was to become a butcher. His brother became a scholar, earning multiple doctoral degrees. Tachis’s friends and family did not acknowledge him as endowed with great intellect, perhaps because he was, on the outside, quiet and humble. On the outside! While he was at a college run by priests, he ran away twice, showing his other side: strength, obstinacy, and rebelliousness. Encouraged by a relative’s promise to

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FIGURE 1 Giacomo Tachis at Brolio Castle, Gaiole in Chianti, in 2000. Photograph by Bill Nesto.

employ him in the wine industry, Tachis attended the Scuola Enologica di Alba (Alba enological school) and earned his degree in 1954. When he was a student there, he wrote a letter to one of his idols, Émile Peynaud, a famous Bordeaux enologist and professor, with a question about fermentation and yeast. Peynaud immediately answered.36 Receiving that letter was the beginning of Tachis’s romance with the wines of Bordeaux. Because his relative’s job offer did not materialize, after getting his degree, Tachis worked first at a distillery, then at a cooperative cellar, and then at another distillery, where he was responsible for developing a range of products such as vermouth and liqueurs.37 His daughter, Ilaria, recounted that, relaxing at home, he mixed various beverages to understand and appreciate the resulting smells and tastes. He called himself a mescolavino, “wine mixer.” His first jobs helped him develop his exceptional blending skills. Ilaria believes that “he could see the future of wine.” Garoglio recommended Tachis to Niccolò Antinori, who hired him in 1961 as a junior winemaker.38 Tachis looked up to the elder Antinori because he was a man of the world. They also shared a love of the wines of Bordeaux. In the mid-1960s, Piero Antinori, Niccolò’s son, entered the business and, with the help of Tachis, dramatically increased production. It was in Antinori’s interest to help his grower-suppliers improve their fruit and wine, and Tachis crisscrossed Chianti getting to know which farms grew good grapes and which fattorie were making good wine.

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In 1966, Piero took over the direction of the company from his father. The next year, Tachis was promoted to technical director. In 1968, Antinori told Tachis that he wanted to hire a Bordeaux wine consultant. Tachis recommended the person whom he thought was the most authoritative, Jean Ribéreau-Gayon, the author of the most famous enological textbook of the period, Traité d’oenologie. Antinori and Tachis traveled to Bordeaux to hire him, but he happened to be out of town. Instead they met with Peynaud. Tachis was pleased that Peynaud remembered the letter he had sent while he was an enological student. Peynaud was invited to visit the Antinori winery at San Casciano, which he did, and Antinori hired him. Thus began a period in the early 1970s when Tachis visited Bordeaux every three or four months to learn from Peynaud and Peynaud visited Antinori about once a year.39 This was an exciting time for Tachis. He learned at the side of his mentor. The picking of riper grapes, the role of malolactic fermentation and how to control it, the efficacy of maturing full-bodied, tannic red wines in 225-liter (59-gallon) French barrels, and the importance of blending to achieve balance, suppleness, and complexity were some of the many topics that they discussed. Peynaud’s top-level advice for Antinori was that he should stop using white grapes in the red wines, that he should mature red wines for less time than three or four years, which was then the norm for prestige Italian red wines, that he should renew barrels frequently, and that he should use barrels made of oak instead of chestnut. In the late 1960s, Antinori had sent Tachis to a relative’s estate on the coast to make its wine, Sassicaia, more suitable for commerce. While Tachis worked on Sassicaia, he developed a close relationship with Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta, the son of Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, the creator of the wine. When Nicolò took over from the Antinori company the responsibility of bottling and marketing Sassicaia in 1982, Tachis stayed with him as a consultant and maintained his full-time employment with Antinori. Sassicaia was the pilot project for Tachis’s creation of Tignanello and Solaia, made from grapes grown on the Antinoris’ Santa Cristina estate in the Chianti Classico zone. Early in the 1980s, after some adjustments to the blend, Tignanello stabilized at 80 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. It was not a Chianti Classico. It looked, smelled, and tasted like no Chianti of its day, which were pale and high in acidity and had a coarse, bitter-astringent edge. Tachis wanted to make a wine that was dark, low in acidity, and high in polymerized, soft-textured tannins. His ultimate goal was suppleness, a concept that was central to Peynaud’s aesthetic for quality red wine. Tachis honed his skill at achieving this characteristic with Peynaud at his side. With the 1978 vintage, he fashioned Solaia, a “Super Tignanello,” representing a further step toward a Bordeauxinspired Tuscan wine. By 1982, its blend had become a mirror image of Tignanello, with 80 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 20 percent Sangiovese.40 Tignanello and Solaia allowed Antinori to bypass the low prestige and price ceiling of wines with Chianti on the label. They were essential to the firm’s enormous success in the 1970s and early 1980s. Beginning in 1975, Piero Antinori allowed Tachis to work as a consultant with his friend

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Alceo di Napoli of Castello dei Rampolla. This was his only formal consultancy with an estate in Chianti Classico until after his retirement from Antinori in the early 1990s. Tachis understood the palates of modern consumers, particularly those of wine journalists who had been weaned on Bordeaux-classified growths. He had a dim view of Sangiovese’s potential to make a wine that could rival those of the French. It made a light, pleasant wine, yes, but a dark, structured one that aged, no. On the other hand, he was not one to make wines that were exaggerations. His wines never tasted overripe or overoaked. Some of the outlandishly dark, ripe, and astringent Super Tuscans of the late 1990s and early 2000s were engineered by consulting enologists who used his techniques but made caricatures of his style. Tachis was unaffected by his fame. He had to live in the world of chic but was not of it. Italo Moretti, an architectural historian, told us that at a conference in 2004, he asked Tachis why consumers would pay two hundred dollars for one bottle of wine and twenty dollars for another that by Moretti’s taste was as good. Tachis replied, “Il prezzo del vino è l’imbecillità del cliente” (The imbecility of the client makes the price.) He was ridiculing not the common man and his taste of wine but rather image-conscious consumers and trophy-hunting collectors, who did not appreciate the cultural role of wine. Tachis understood that the job of the enologist was to help his clients achieve their goals. In the circles that he worked in, those goals were both profit and prestige. Tachis retired from Antinori in 1993. He felt that it was time for the company to have a new technical director, who could bring in new ideas. Yet he hardly “retired.” In Chianti Classico, he continued to consult at Rampolla and began consulting for Querciabella. His work and influence extended throughout Italy. During the 2000s, he began to slowly withdraw from enological consulting. He finally retired in 2010. His last client was Tenuta San Guido, the estate that produces Sassicaia, the Cabernet Sauvignon wine that showed him the level of quality that could be reached in Tuscany. He died in February 2016. In the mid-1990s, Maurizio Castelli said, “We are the sons of Tachis.” He was the role model for his generation of consulting enologists and inspired the next generation, that of Castelli, to be something more than lab-coated technicians. He showed them that they could make a living doing what they loved, making wine. And unlike those before Tachis, they could also get credit and respect for their work.

G I U L I O G A M B E L L I : “ M Y S TO RY I S S I M P L E ”

Our interest in Giulio Gambelli (see figure 2) arose from our search for true Chianti. It was the late 1990s, and I was looking for something more than the fashion-driven flavors of the Chianti Classicos that I was tasting. (Frances and I met in 2002.) When I published an article about Gambelli in 1999, the wine media was flush with stories about Tachis, Carlo Ferrini, Riccardo Cotarella, and so on. Nobody knew about Gambelli outside limited circles in the vicinity of Chianti Classico and Montalcino. As a journalist, I understood

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FIGURE 2 Giulio Gambelli at Tenuta di Bibbiano, Castellina in Chianti, in 2000. Photograph by Bill Nesto.

that the lead generally determines whether or not an article is read. It is the hook that catches the fish. For that reason, I started not with Gambelli’s name but with a name that would catch the reader’s attention: “Giacomo Tachis and Giulio Gambelli are the two greatest living exponents of Tuscan winemaking.” Once the hook was in, I pulled in the fish: “While many of us in the wine trade recognize Tachis, the gifted enologist who brought the ideas of Bordeaux enologist, Émile Peynaud, to Tuscany and helped create Tignanello, Sassicaia and other famous wines, very few of us have ever heard of Giulio Gambelli.”41 Who was Gambelli? He was known as a maestro assaggiatore, another name for a palatista, a master wine taster, someone who could taste a wine blind and know its condition, its varietal makeup, and its origin. I learned that chemists calibrated their machines according to his palate. Given that his laboratory was his palate, he paid little attention to chemical analyses. Paola Brini Batacchi of the Ormanni wine estate related an incident that showed his remarkable capacity: “There is an indigenous grape here called Prugnolino. Gambelli tasted wine from a particular 160-hectoliter [4,227-gallon] vat. Gambelli then asked my father, Paolo [Brini Batacchi], if he had any Prugnolino planted. Gambelli thought that he tasted it. My father said no. Later he mentioned what Gambelli had said to his workers. They confirmed that yes, there was a little Prugnolino planted and those grapes had been put in that particular vat.” That Gambelli could recognize a small amount of a rare variety in such a large vat is incredible. I met Gambelli in the fall of 1994. He was in the cellar of Lilliano. He wore a fedora hat and a long coat. He did not speak English, and at the time, I could not understand or speak Italian. So we talked with our eyes, facial expressions, and gestures. Once he

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started taking me from barrel to barrel, I quickly understood that he knew the wines as if they were his children. The barrels had holes for sampling wine that were sealed with wax. He pushed a feather into the wax, pulled it out, put a glass at the puncture point, let wine drain into it, and then sealed the hole with the warmth of his finger. I had never seen this done before and never saw it again. Over the years, I accompanied Gambelli to visit several of his clients. I learned that he was hard of hearing. When I returned to Lilliano about a decade after my first visit, I wanted to show him that I had begun to learn Italian. He told me through Stefano Porcinai, who accompanied us that day, that he had just returned from a funeral of one of his relatives, someone very close. I meant to say “Mi dispiace“ (I am sorry), but instead “Mi piace” (I like it) came out. He smiled and thanked me. If he did not hear the words of men, he seemed to understand the speech of their hearts. He understood wine in a similar way. Gambelli’s nickname was Bicchierino, “Little glass.” Most people, even many who knew him well, believed that this was an honorific bestowed upon him. Professional wine tasters, such as sommeliers, are often associated with a tool of their trade, in this case a small tasting cup. This was, however, a nickname that Gambelli disliked. It had become associated with his family 150 years earlier, when his mother’s grandfather had owned a trattoria, from which the family sold wine in a small glass called a bicchierino. The nickname was handed down from his mother’s grandfather to Gambelli. This type of name is common in Tuscany. It is called a soprannóme, an informal, additional name that attaches itself to a person. It is a nickname, not an honorific title. Gambelli never trained to be an enologist. In fact, he had no formal training, like many palatistas. He learned by experience, examining red wines maturing in cellars and reporting their condition to the cellarman or owners. In particular, he looked for problems and would recommend how to correct them. He was also an expert in determining which lots of wine should be used for what labels and how to blend them before bottling. Less often, he gave advice on the moment to harvest and how to conduct the vinification. Like Tachis, he focused on red wine production, not viticulture. Gambelli was born in 1925 in Poggibonsi. The tobacco and small-goods store that his parents owned gave the family a small but dependable income. At fourteen years of age in 1939, he started as a cellar worker at the Enopolio, the main facility of the Consorzio Agrario di Siena e Grosseto (Siena and Grosseto farm consortium), in Poggibonsi. Besides doing menial jobs during his first year, such as cleaning vats, he tasted the wines as they were moved from barrel to barrel. The Enopolio’s enological consultant, Tancredi Biondi Santi, noticed Gambelli’s fascination with the flavor of wine. He called Gambelli into his laboratory. There were several unlabeled samples on a table. He asked Gambelli to choose the best wine. Gambelli tasted each and pointed to his choice. Biondi Santi told him, “Good, starting tomorrow, you will work for me in the laboratory.” Biondi Santi was the son of Ferruccio Biondi-Santi, who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had developed the Biondi-Santi Sangiovese selection on the family estate, Il Greppo, in Montalcino. After studying enology in Conegliano and earning a

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degree in agriculture from the University of Pisa, Tancredi went back to manage Il Greppo in the 1920s. From 1925 to 1945 the estate did not bottle wine. During that time, he was the technical director of a cooperative of Montalcino producers, Biondi Santi and Co. His son, Franco Biondi Santi, in 1998 reported that Tancredi had traveled as a wine consultant from Milan to Calabria. These experiences gave him expertise and a national reputation. During the 1930s and World War II, the Enopolio was one of the largest vinification and wine storage facilities in Italy. It consolidated wines and sold them in bulk to merchants. During the war, Biondi Santi consulted for the Enopolio. Its wines were considered some of the best in Chianti. This was the ideal situation for young Gambelli to taste and learn about wine. He and Biondi Santi would walk side by side among the casks and vats of the Enopolio. As each tasted a sample, Gambelli would assess the wine for Biondi Santi and, of course, get lessons from the master. Biondi Santi also taught him to conduct basic chemical analyses. During the 1950s, the Enopolio sent Gambelli to Apulia to buy bulk wine to darken and give body to its wines. Later in his life, he traveled to wine regions around the world under the auspices of other enological organizations. He was not a stranger to modern enology. While Gambelli was employed at the Enopolio, he made the acquaintance of many of the proprietors who brought their wine there. He loved to hunt and would hunt with them on their properties. He began to consult for many of them on an informal basis. In many cases, there was no exchange of money. On his own initiative, he regularly visited some proprietors and merchants for decades to taste their wines and offer his observations. He did this simply out of friendship and his own interest. In Gambelli’s work, the word client lacks a precise definition. In an article by Sergio Manetti, Gambelli names the producers whom he got to know during his Enopolio days and then worked with after leaving in 1965: “Brandini Marcolini of Rencine, Marzi of Bibbiano, Gaggelli of Santedame, and Lucherini of Villarosa; then came Lilliano, Pagliarese, San Felice, Cacchiano, Fonterutoli, Soldera, Manetti.”42 He was proudest of his association with Manetti. They had known each other since they were boys in Poggibonsi. Gambelli convinced Manetti to buy Montevertine and was at his side at the start of its winery in 1967. He midwifed the first vintage, the 1971.43 He also helped Manetti create a controversial 100 percent Sangiovese wine, the Pergole Torte 1977, and supported him when he decided to stop labeling his estate wine as a Chianti Classico. Gambelli’s other important Chianti Classico clients were Ormanni, Rodano, Straccali (a merchant at Rocca delle Macìe), Lo Spugnaccio, Villa a Sesta, and Colle ai Lecci. At the end of his career, he took on Rignana and Porta di Vertine. He also tasted wines for the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico and the Consorzio della Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Beginning in the early 1970s, he developed clients in Montalcino. Among the first were Soldera’s Case Basse and the Brunello di Montalcino consortium. Typically, he would spend his mornings making his consulting rounds in Montalcino and then finish his day in the afternoon by dropping in, usually unannounced, on his Chianti clients. Almost all

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of Gambelli’s clients were in the province of Siena, particularly its southwestern corner. This was his world. This was in contrast to Tachis, whose relationships connected him to Florence. Biondi Santi had left the Enopolio in 1945, reassumed his post in 1950, and left again in 1961.44 Gambelli missed their regular contact. Though he left the Enopolio four years after Biondi Santi’s final exit, he continued to accompany Biondi Santi, “out of friendship and for the pleasure of his company.”45 As Gambelli’s parents became elderly, he was forced to spend more time managing the family tobacco and dry-goods shop. On selling it in 1972, he became a freelance consultant.46 His timing was good. The market was changing. Chianti Classico was shifting from a pale, light, slightly frizzante (fizzy) wine in a fiasco to a more structured wine in a bottle. More and more property owners were beginning to bottle their own wine and needed to adopt the new style. With Biondi Santi’s training, Gambelli knew how to create that kind of wine. During the 1970s and 1980s, he developed as many as eighty clients and worked out of three offices in the Poggibonsi area. He needed a trained enologist to chemically analyze wines, so he worked with the consulting enologist Andrea Mazzoni, who was certified to conduct chemical analyses. The consulting enologist Attilio Pagli was eager to learn from the master taster. So beginning in 1982 he conducted analyses in a small studio that Gambelli had set up.47 In 1986, an association of professional enologists brought a legal case against Gambelli on behalf of an enotecnico (wine technician), accusing him of claiming to be an enologist. The case was dropped later that year, but the attention mortified Gambelli. In 1990, he was given an office at Consulente Enologica in Poggibonsi, and thereafter one at the Istituto per lo Sviluppo Viticolo Enologico ed Agroindustriale (ISVEA), now one of the most advanced enological laboratories in Italy. He participated in tastings two or three times per week with enologists there, such as Luciano Bandini, who was based in Poggibonsi. At that point, Paolo Caciorgna was helping him informally. Paolo Salvi also worked at the ISVEA laboratory, assisting Gambelli until Gambelli passed away on January 3, 2012, at the age of eighty-six. For many years, the citizens of Poggibonsi who had seen him driving in and out of the town couldn’t understand how he made a living. At an event in 2007 celebrating the release of Carlo Macchi’s book Giulio Gambelli: L’uomo che sa ascoltare il vino (The man who knows how to listen to wine), the whole town came out to honor him. They bought all the available copies. Suddenly, Gambelli was famous. He was not interested in money. His daughter, Matilde, told us that her mother pleaded with him to ask his clients to pay. Many never did. Brini Batacchi explained to me in 2000 how her family handled the delicate issue of what to pay Gambelli: “He doesn’t have a contract. Every year we decide how much to give him. He would never ask you for money. Never. We call him and tell him, ‘Giulio, come over, we have to give you something.’ If he thinks what he is given is enough, he smiles. If he doesn’t smile, we give him something more. We take this year by year. And if you ask him how many times he will visit the estate, he will say, ‘When I can.’ By this he means two or three times per

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week. That’s Giulio.” Clients devised their own ways of paying. Enrico Pozzesi of Rodano personally brought money to Gambelli’s wife, Cosetta, until her death in 1999. Then he brought it to Salvi, with the understanding that Salvi would take half to Gambelli and keep the rest for himself as payment for assisting Gambelli. Gambelli was loyal to and protective of his clients. He felt like part of their family rather than an employee. On hearing that someone at a bar had “found” a hunting dog matching the description of one that had gone missing from a loyal client, he confronted the suspect. The next day, the dog appeared at his client’s home. However, Gambelli was uncompromising when it came to the care of the cellar and the wines he shepherded. In the cellar, his motto was “Cleanliness, cleanliness, and cleanliness,” and he would be disturbed if he saw something that was not up to standards. Brini Batacchi recounted another incident: “One day Giulio was at the door of the winery. Behind a second door about five meters [sixteen feet] away, a worker was opening a tank of olive oil. Giulio’s nose detected something suspicious. Giulio asked the worker, ‘You washed the tank with vinegar?’ The worker retorted, ‘No, I didn’t.’ Giulio retorted angrily, ‘Yes, you did, and I told you not to.’ The worker confessed.” Gambelli’s feelings were hurt when his clients did not reciprocate his loyalty. After 1985, a new generation of young enologists began to look for jobs and Tachis-like fame. Some of Gambelli’s clients peeled away to hire the “rock stars” of this new wave. He felt betrayed. He was attached to the wines that he had nurtured. After the publication of Macchi’s book, producers who had never given him credit or money identified him as their consultant. This offended those who had never taken him for granted. Giovanna Morganti of Le Boncie smiled when she recalled Gambelli’s many visits to San Felice when she was a child and her father was working there. This was in the late 1960s. Enzo Morganti had left Lilliano to become the director of San Felice. As Gambelli had worked with him at Lilliano, Morganti asked him to consult at San Felice too. Gambelli would drive up in his dusty Renault Quatro (R4) with a spaniel, Jimmy, sticking his head out the window. Gambelli always gave his dogs American nicknames. In the back of the Quatro he carried samples, testing equipment, and canisters of sulfur dioxide gas used to treat wine. When the car’s door opened, Gambelli, a tall man, stepped out as if it were a toy. Though he took care to dress neatly, as Tuscan gentlemen do, the stench of dog sweat and sulfur dioxide would follow him out the car door. Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi of Bibbiano recalls a boyhood-memory; riding with Gambelli in the R4, he followed the lead of Tommy (another Gambelli spaniel) and kept his nose at the slit of an open window. Leaving then the car behind, Gambelli would enter the cantina and taste wine from all the casks. There he would assume the role of a doctor. When he put a wine to his nose, he immediately understood its condition. If it had defects, they were immediately evident, and he would treat it with the cellarman at his side. After nosing the wine, he tasted it. He then understood its general characteristics, particularly its structure and how it would age. He would say short phrases, such as Fai travasso! (Rack it!), lactico gusto (lactic taste), non male (not bad), and discreto (fairly good). Pointing at a glass and shaking

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his head meant “that one is not good enough.” He was a man of few but meaningful words. His visits normally took about thirty minutes. He never wrote anything down, instead keeping track by memory of all the wines and what had to be done. He enchanted young Giovanna Morganti, to whom he was il mago Merlino (the magician Merlin). He knew that Sangiovese was a difficult variety to work with, but he embraced it. At the 2007 ceremony for the release of Macchi’s book, he told his audience that he had dedicated his life to exalting Sangiovese. But he had nothing against the “foreign” varieties. In the early 1980s, he had recommended to Filippo Mazzei that Fonterutoli plant Merlot. Several years later, he advised the Brandini Marcolini family at Rencine to do the same. Gambelli even had Merlot planted at Bibbiano at the end of the 1990s. However, according to him, Sangiovese should not be mixed with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, or other non-Tuscan varieties. He did not see a big difference between the clones used in Chianti Classico and those used in Montalcino. He also had a fondness for Canaiolo, but he thought that after the phylloxera infestation its replantings had been on unsuitable rootstocks. When Pozzesi wanted more color in his Sangiovese wine, Gambelli advised him to add a little Colorino. In the first two weeks of the fermentation, Gambelli would advise pumping over as many as four times a day, for thirty to sixty minutes each. He also recommended rackand-return, known in Italy by its French name, délestage, in which the fermenting must is drained from under the cap, loosening seeds so that they can be removed, and then pumped on to the cap. This increases extraction and aeration and cools down the cap and must. As the alcoholic fermentation wound down, Gambelli would reduce the pumpovers gradually over two weeks. He preferred open-top tanks and long macerations, thirty to thirty-five days for Riserva, twenty for annata, and ten to fifteen for an early-drinking wine. Such techniques subject the must and wine to a lot of oxygen contact and hence can produce greater amounts of volatile acidity. That did not bother Gambelli. He felt that the resulting volatile smell was accompanied by a more supple taste and increased roundness. The enological trend to reduce volatile acidity as much as possible annoyed him. If the skins were fully developed and in excellent condition, if the conditions were clean, a vigorous and long maceration in air produced the kind of structured wine that he valued. The structure would allow the wine to age even if the acidity was low because of a ripe harvest. The enologist Fred Staderini reported that when he asked Gambelli whether he should pull the wine off the skins, Gambelli would egg him on to give them a bagnatina, “little bath,” which meant macerating them for several more days. Gambelli’s mentor Biondi Santi had often conducted macerations of two months. Gambelli did not recommend the governo. He told Pozzesi, “When you use the governo, you take two risks instead of one.” Managing two fermentations was twice as risky as managing one. Gambelli preferred the malolactic fermentation to finish immediately after the alcoholic fermentation. He advised raising the cellar’s ambient temperature to encourage the malolactic fermentation. He preferred conducting it in barrique, but he realized this was too labor intensive for his estates, so he advised them to use small botti.

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He was not opposed to maturing wine in barriques. In fact, he told me that they could benefit wines that needed the structure. Most important, they had to be clean. Because wood soaks up wine, which spoilage yeasts and bacteria can infect, he believed it was important to buy new barrels as soon as older ones became more difficult to maintain. When it came to neutral containers, he preferred concrete over stainless steel because stainless steel causes wine to reduce too easily and hence to need more frequent racking. How long to mature the wine in oak depended on its structure—usually anywhere from fourteen to twenty months in French barrels, preferably Allier, of thirty hectoliters (793 gallons). He liked to rack in air by draining into a tub and then pumping the wine into a clean, sulfited barrel or tank. He advised three or four rackings in the first year, then one or two more, depending on the vine variety: more for Merlot, less for Sangiovese. On the other hand, if a wine was maturing well, Gambelli advised fewer rackings. His reasoning was that “lo sporco fa bene al Sangiovese,” “the muck is good for Sangiovese.” He was a humble and sensitive man who understood the essence of Sangiovese and Chianti Classico.

T H E S E C O N D G E N E R AT I O N O F C O N S U LT I N G E N O L O G I S T S

Vittorio Fiore, Maurizio Castelli, and Franco Bernabei best represent the consultant enologists in the next generation after Gambelli’s. They picked up their initial clients in the late 1970s and have been important enological forces ever since. When they arrived on the scene, the international market for Chianti Classico was becoming a reality, and they were charged with making wines suitable to sell to it. Fiore, a native of Alto Adige, studied first at the Istituto Agrario di San Michele in Adige and then in Conegliano in the Veneto until 1961. For the next decade, he worked in northern Italy. Then, during the 1970s, he directed the Association of Italian Enologists, which allowed him to travel around the wine world. His intent is to make the best possible wine from the raw materials that are available to him. In the cases of many of his clients and at his family estate in Greve, Poggio Scalette, this has entailed working with Sangiovese. However, Fiore is not wed to tradition. For example, he is not philosophically against the concept promulgated in the early 2000s of a “Super Chianti Classico,” parallel to Super Tuscans. This proposal would have freed winemakers to use all grape varieties in any proportion they desired to make the best Chianti Classico wine they could. Fiore is an outspoken freethinker in the conservative world of Chianti Classico. He considers wine production the sum of a thousand educated decisions that lead to his intended result: clean wines that tend to be dark and structured on the palate. His first consultancy in Chianti Classico was for Le Bocce in 1974, though he did not move to Tuscany until 1979. For many years, he consulted for Agricoltori del Chianti Geografico. His other long-time clients in Chianti Classico are Vecchie Terre di Montefili, Terrabianca, La Madonnina, and tiny Podere Capaccia. His generosity of spirit and knowledge have allowed him to mentor many of the next generation of enologists, including Stefano Chioccioli, Gabriella Tani, Luciano Bandini, and Barbara Tamburini.

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Castelli earned his agronomy degree from the University of Milan. He came to Tuscany in 1972. During the 1970s, as the Chianti Classico consortium’s technical director, he visited members’ estates and learned about their viticultural and enological issues. He learned enology by taking courses at the University of Bordeaux. In 1981, he spent two days in Bordeaux with Peynaud, whom he calls “the lord of wine.” Also in that year, Castelli wrote a book on the use of oak. Despite this French influence, the wines he makes show local character. They are never too dark, never too oaky, and are clean but with a hint of earthiness, just enough to remind the taster these are wines of the soil. While Gambelli and Tachis were men of the cellar, Castelli was the first consultant who was comfortable giving advice both there and in the vineyard. He loves to travel and has international clients not only for wine but for olive oil. The 1980 vintage was his first as a consultant at Badia a Coltibuono. He picked up more clients during the 1980s. In the 1990s, his important ones were Castellare, Castello di Volpaia, Castello di San Polo in Rosso, and Badia a Coltibuono. Of these, he remains working with Badia a Coltibuono. Though its fruity but traditional wines may be the best reference point for the Castelli style, he adjusts to the needs of every client. At Castello di Radda, he demonstrates that he can also fashion wines with deeper color, more power, and some new-oak nuances, a style that a young estate without a strong image in the market needs. Yet he points to the clay-rich soil of Castello di Radda as the determinant of its character. He feels that after many years, he has arrived at what he calls a “no-speedy” winemaking approach: After the skins have been pressed and the stems removed, he recommends brief pump-overs to get the fermentation started and then one rack-and-return per day, followed by one rack-and-return every other day and macerating for thirty to forty days. He racks the wine off the skins when there is no residual sugar left. He prefers to do the malolactic fermentation in steel, to avoid any Brettanomyces contamination from oak contact. Using steel also keeps the wine more reductive, allowing him to add a lower level of sulfites when the malolactic fermentation finishes. He likes this fermentation to go fast and to end completely, after which he cleans up the wine somewhat by fining with isinglass and bentonite and filtering lightly. Then he puts it into oak barrels and leaves it undisturbed for two years. Castelli says that this method best preserves the wine’s fruit. Bernabei graduated from the University of Padua in 1974 after studying agricultural science and enology and next pursued a specialization in enology in Conegliano. His first visit to Bordeaux was in 1976. In 1978 and 1979 he visited Burgundy, whose wines he greatly admired. Fontodi became his client in 1979 and Fèlsina in 1981. These two estates have remained his most important clients in Chianti Classico. His great interest and challenge is making varietal wines, and he likens Sangiovese to Pinot Noir. After earning his enological degree, he worked alongside Ambrogio Folonari, crafting the wines of Ruffino. He spends little time advising in the vineyard, focusing instead on the cellar. During the mid-1990s, he financed the renovation of his office in Greve, where he can now conduct his own laboratory analysis. He was an early adopter of using computers in his work. With such tools, he can keep track of various grape, must, and wine

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constituents as they change. One might think, based on this approach, that the wines he makes would have a single character and be divorced from the land. In fact, the opposite is true. Each one is unique. Bernabei lets the style and location of his clients’ estates shine through in the end products. In 2002, one of his assistants lined up eight of his clients’ wines at his office. They had no labels. He identified all eight. Following Castelli, Fiore, and Bernabei, Carlo Ferrini had an enormous impact on Chianti Classico wine culture. After earning his agronomy degree from the University of Florence, this native Florentine became the technical director of the Chianti Classico consortium in the late 1970s. Like Castelli, he made frequent trips to Bordeaux to learn about vinification. However, whereas Castelli left the Bordeaux model behind, Ferrini has remained a lover of that style of wine. He helped organize the protocol for the Chianti Classico 2000 project and set up its initial studies. In 1992 he left the consortium to become an independent consultant. He said that he wanted to make good wine and that this goal was more important than following recipes. He added that he wanted to make great Sangiovese but for the time being needed to blend it with other varieties. In 2007 he said, “Today it is possible to make a rich Sangiovese.” Thanks to his pioneering work with Chianti Classico 2000, many factors, among them better Sangiovese clonal selections, have helped wine producers to rely less on “ameliorating” varieties. In 1997 the consulting enologist Gioia Cresti began to collaborate with Ferrini. His most important early client, beginning in the winter of 1991, was Fonterutoli, where he developed a close working relationship with Filippo Mazzei. Other early clients were Nittardi and Petroio. Among his many clients, the biggest are Castello di Brolio and Le Corti Corsini. Brancaia has been another high-profile client. At San Fabiano Calcinaia he makes big, dark, powerful wines. The soil there is clay, which helps him achieve that concentration. Meanwhile, San Vicenti, high in the Chianti hills facing the Pratomagno, presents Ferrini with the challenge of high altitude. Like Castelli, he has great experience in the vineyard. He develops a strong rapport with those who work for him, taking the time to teach them how to prune vines exactly the way he likes them. As a lover of Bordeaux wine, he, like Tachis, is a master of enhancing color, power, and body with French varieties. His favorite blending variety is Merlot, though he uses Petit Verdot too, as a spice. He has studied the impact of barrels made in various ways by different coopers. The smell of new oak marks his wines, but it is always well integrated. In tune with the post-2006 turn away from international-style traditional wines such as Chianti Classico, he has moved from barriques to tonneaux for the maturation of Sangiovese. Years ago I asked Federico Carletti, the winemaker-owner of Poliziano in Montepulciano, why he used Ferrini as a wine consultant while he himself was more than adequately trained to make his own wine. He told me that whenever Ferrini and he have each constructed a final blend for bottling, he has always preferred Ferrini’s to his own. The Ferrini style, which some tasters say they can easily identify blind, is strong but well-integrated oak nose, dense but soft middle mouth, and solid, toothsome astringency in the finish, plus darker than average pigmentation.

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Several consulting enologists working in Tuscany have, since about fifteen years ago, developed collaborative relationships with Bordeaux enologists, such as Paolo Vagaggini with Yves Glories and Lorenzo Landi with Denis Dubourdieu. This has brought new ideas into Chianti Classico. Glories in particular has introduced perspectives on maturation that have helped producers to harvest at the optimal moment. But there are few new entrants into the field of consulting enology in Chianti Classico, a sign that it is at the saturation point for such professionals. Consulting enologists have filled a void. Nearly all Chianti Classico proprietors started with no experience growing grapes or making wine. Consulting enologists have helped to bring up the quality of Chianti Classico wine across the board. It may now be the most consistent Italian wine category in style and quality. Too much consistency, however, leads to homogeneity. But consultants keep their jobs because they make wines that do well on the market, and they have to aim closely for the dominant style. Many occupy the seats on DOCG tasting certification panels, and while it is comforting to know that there are professionals in such positions, on the negative side, the consulting enologists bring their market-driven mentality to this test. Their reflexive belief that normal Chianti Classico wines should be at least moderate in color and structure has led such committees to reject genuine but pale and delicate wines. A promising sign is that several proprietors have been working independent of consulting help. Piero Lanza of Poggerino in Radda is the outstanding example of this, having made his own wine since the late 1990s. Jarkko Markus Di Peränen and Josephin Cramer of Candialle and Michael Schmelzer of Monte Bernardi, both in Panzano, do not employ consulting enologists. While Peränen and Cramer are self-taught, Schmelzer has an enology degree. Chianti Classico needs a culture of vignerons to better root its identity in the zone.

I N S E A R C H O F N AT I V E C H I A N T I

Chianti has been known for centuries as a wine area where vinifications took place late in the season under cold conditions, where enrichment practices such as the governo were generally not used for its quality wines, and where macerations and periods of maturation in large barrel were unusually long. The resulting wines were not very fruity and might have been on the volatile side. As early as the sixteenth century, Italians were aware that French vinification produced lighter, fresher, fruitier, and more stable wines. One key factor was shorter maceration periods, from one to ten days. The topic of how to improve the stability and increase the quality of Chianti wine was hotly debated during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century. The solution that Chianti producers settled on was to adopt contemporaneous French techniques. Unfortunately, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chianti never achieved its potential as a wine of quality, because a commercial style took the attention away from quality Chianti wine and from Chianti the place.

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During the 1970s, the desire to overcome the low-quality image of Chianti led to another wave of importation of French technology, through the medium of Giacomo Tachis. Bordeaux vinification technology helped to establish quality and stability in Tuscan wine. Because of the low value of Chianti wine, these improvements were experienced primarily in the Super Tuscan category. During the 1980s, the great Bordeaux chateaux increased their use of new oak, because American journalists rendered strongly oaked wines the most sought after ones in the marketplace. Following the lead of the French, during the 1990s Tuscan producers, aided by consulting enologists, also increased their use of new oak. Moreover, as in Bordeaux, their wines had to be dark and thick textured. Tuscan wine became fashionable and in step with the world market. Super Tuscans, unencumbered by Chianti’s image or the Chianti Classico regulations, stole the lion’s share of the attention. Meanwhile, the infusion of interest and money into Tuscany allowed Chianti Classico producers to improve their raw materials and rethink the way forward. Finally, after neglecting Sangiovese for centuries, they have a laser focus on the variety. The pendulum has now shifted away from the French, particularly the Bordeaux, way of vinification and has returned to the more ancient, indigenous style of centuries of Chianti vignaioli: longer macerations and longer maturations in large oak barrels. Young winegrowers should look to the legacy of Giulio Gambelli for inspiration and direction. He was Chianti’s link to its true identity.

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10 CHIANTI CLASSICO WINEGROWERS BY SUBZONE

We cannot profile all the grower-bottlers of Chianti Classico, which number about 380, only a selection. We list them below by subzone (see chapter 6 for an explanation of our system of subzones). Our rationale for selection follows from our preference for small to midsize artisanal producers who farm their own vineyards and make their own wine, particularly those who make a living off their wine. If we were to use only these criteria, however, we would not be revealing Chianti Classico, because such producers are a small minority there. When we visited, we were also in search of the history and culture of Chianti. Hence, we cast a broader net and followed leads that we discovered along the way. We let our itinerary evolve organically. During our research period, from early 2014 to mid-2015, we focused on tasting Chianti Classico and Sangiovese-based IGT wines. In the spring of 2015, producers voluntarily submitted wines to the Chianti Classico consortium in response to my request for the 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 vintages. I wanted five samples from each producer. I chose 2011, 2012, and 2013 because they were the most recent vintages that would be in the cellars. I skipped the 2009 vintage because its growing season was warmer than 2008, hence less likely to represent typical Chianti Classico. Vintages older than 2008 were unlikely to be in the cellars of most producers. I tasted these wines blind. We also sampled wines, blind or otherwise, at various public events and producer visits. GROWING SEASON WEATHER

2013: cool, wet spring; warm late July, August; then mild; rain late September, early October

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2012: April, May rainy and cool; July, August very hot and dry; early September rain 2011: mild and rainy spring; hot end of June, early July; very hot August; mild September 2010: cool and rainy spring; sunny and dry end of June, early July; cool rest of season 2009: abundant spring rain; warm early May; June rain; hot and dry July, August 2008: mild and rainy May, June; hot and dry July, August; dry and mild September

RADDA IN CHIANTI CAPAR S A

The first time I visited Caparsa was in June 2003. At the time, I was in search of wines made by vignaioli that were so pure that they would show their origin. In those days, nearly all Chianti Classicos included international varieties. Cristiano Castagno, a winemaker in San Casciano, had been helping Paolo Cianferoni with a wine called Caparsino. He wrote to me recommending Cianferoni as making “exceptional traditional and purist wines. He is a no-compromise guy.” It is difficult to get the inside word about what is going on in the cellars of Chianti Classico, and Castagno is someone to listen to. I went to Caparsa and met Paolo, who gave me a bottle of Caparsino. It was made of Sangiovese and Canaiolo. A few days later, at a blind tasting of “true Chianti wine” (i.e., made only from native grapes) hosted by nearby Poggerino, the wine held its own against the likes of Montevertine, Isole e Olena, and Le Boncie. Its pale color and delicate fruit showed its cool-climate Radda origin. Fast-forward eleven years, to May 2014. We arrived at Caparsa and knocked on the door. Cianferoni came out to greet us. His dark brown hair now had streaks of gray. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and had a flashlight strapped to his forehead. He brought us into his cellar. On a barrel was a blowtorch. He was in the midst of conducting some sort of chemical test for acidity, sulfites, or another component of the wine. He excused himself and finished the test. The cavelike room was the reception room for his wine cellar. Behind him was a vivid drawing of two contadini waving their arms in front of a fiasco. Part of the drawing is reproduced on the label of Caparsino. Off to the left, we could see deeper into his cellar, where there were several passageways with large barrels, concrete tanks, and steel tanks. The cellar was pristinely clean but old, from a very old podere. Cianferoni’s father, Reginaldo, came from a mezzadro family, became a professor of agriculture at the University of Florence, and wrote about Chianti’s troubled economy of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He bought the estate in 1965. When Paolo was eight years old, he began to work there, learning how to tend plants from the resident farmer. By 1982, he was running it. His wife Gianna, who grew up in a local mezzadro family, helps him. Since those early days, Cianferoni said, “fatto contadino” (I have been a farmer). He excused himself so that he could dress in garb suitable for receiving journalists: clean baggy jeans and a chamois shirt. He took us into his vineyards, which face north and are at about four hundred meters (1,312 feet) of elevation, and showed us one vineyard with white alberese stones with streaks of quartz and a second vineyard loaded with 190

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fine gray chips of galestro. “The galestro always stays dry. There is never any mold here,” he told us. Galestro is his favorite soil type. We came back to visit six months later with his consulting enologist, Fred Staderini. This time Cianferoni appeared in a brilliant red jumpsuit. We descended into the cellar, into a warren of tanks and barrels. Staderini grabbed a book from a desk and wrote the date. This is the winery diary, into which he puts all his observations and advice. The 2014 harvest had been a challenge. Rain had fallen just before, and botrytis had attacked some of the grapes. From the affected Sangiovese, Cianferoni had made a base wine for rosé. Since botrytis affects only the skin, the juice inside was fine, and so was the wine, very crisp. We also tasted an IGT red wine from that year. Cianferoni was surprised by how much color he had been able to get from the grapes. The four of us continued going from tank to tank. Staderini would sample the wine, write in the diary, and discuss his observations. Cianferoni would quizzically look up, sometimes to disagree as if his children had been criticized and he was defending them. After draining wine from a tank into our glasses, he would clean off the spigot by blowing on it. ( I can still hear that high-pitched whistle!) Then we would move on to the next tank, and to the tanks in another cellar. Finally we ended up in the deepest and oldest cellar in the house and tasted Chianti Classico wines from big barrels. Cianferoni said that he had abandoned barriques. There was a shiny red mold on one spot on a wall. Maybe it was red from drinking the Chianti Classico in the air. Before we left, we sampled some Chianti Classico. Though he lost 75 percent of his crop in 2010, his Chianti Classico for that year was complex and astringent, a wine to put away. The loss of part of the crop can allow the vines to concentrate elements in the juice as the remainder ripens. Cianferoni’s 2009, from a hotter year, had a woodsy smell, like balsam wood, and was earthy. His 2008 was like the 2010, very astringent and in need of more time in bottle. His 2006 was spicier but also astringent. The earthy nuances came from the place and from Paolo. On our way out, we shook hands, and Cianferoni, turning off to go to work, said, “Lavoro qui non ci manca,” “There is always work to do here.” Caparsino is a Chianti Classico Riserva. It is now about 95 percent Sangiovese, the balance being other native grapes. About twenty thousand bottles are produced each year.

CASTELLO DI VOLPAIA

When Giovannella Stianti married Carlo Mascheroni from Milan in 1972, her father, Raffaello, the owner of a San Casciano printing company, gave them a large part of the fortified village of Volpaia as a wedding present. Today the couple owns about two-thirds of the village, including its most impressive palace. They named their estate, Castello di Volpaia, after the village’s castle, which is now home to the estate’s wine shop and osteria. Over the years, they have renovated most of its structures, including the winemaking facility. I remember walking into the nave of a deconsecrated church in the center of Volpaia. Looking up, I saw the clear blue sky. There was something silvery spinning

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down. Was this the epiphany I had been waiting for? No, it was a new stainless steel tank being lowered through the roof by a huge crane. This deconsecrated church and two others now house maturing wine. The next time you have a glass of Volpaia, be mindful that its maturation probably occurred where wine was once part of a sacrament. Underneath the medieval alleys, pipes take wine from two vinification areas to the basements of buildings where it matures in thirty-hectoliter (793-gallon) barrels and barriques. A winding road brings one down to Volpaia from the high hills that reach over to Panzano. Another winding road brings one up from the Pesa River under the village of Radda. Radda faces off against the diminutive Volpaia like a hawk glaring at a sparrow. Periodically along the road up to the fortified village, signs, like sentinels, stand watch over vineyards, identifying each by name. In the 1990s, Maurizio Castelli, who was then the estate’s consulting enologist, drove me up to Volpaia, explaining that the soil was sandier as we climbed. He told me that because of the sand, the wines of Volpaia are pale and delicate. Castelli, Volpaia, and most of all a glass of Coltassala, Volpaia’s single-vineyard Sangiovese-Mammolo blend, taught me that fine Chianti Classico is not necessarily better if it is darker, more alcoholic, and more astringent. In the mid-1990s, Coltassala was a vino da tavola. It had no white grapes and could not be classified as a Chianti Classico. In those years, the Super Tuscan marketing category was the rage. Now it is a Chianti Classico Riserva. Yes! Because the grapes for Coltassala are grown near the top of a hill on sandy soil, these wines are extremely light. To commemorate my first visit, I recently opened a 1994 and a 1995 from my cellar. The 1994 was pale and delicate, at the end of its life and the beginning of its spiritual journey. The 1995, though also pale, had a steely acidity and astringency. This wine was perfect and could go on for years more. Who says pale Sangiovese is short lived? Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, journalists considered the pale color and delicate structure of Volpaia wines signs of weakness. At the beginning of the new millennium, the production team changed. Castelli left. Lorenzo Regoli became the fulltime winemaker and Riccardo Cotarella the consulting enologist. Right off the bat, I noticed that the wines were darker and thicker. I am happy to report, however, that they have returned to their former style, and I love them. Volpaia’s entry in the Gran Selezione category is its Il Puro. The grapes are one hundred percent Sangiovese and come from a vineyard site just below Coltassala, Casanuova, which is slightly warmer. These two factors, among others, make this wine richer and more structured than the Coltassala. Both the 2010 and the 2011 Il Puro have more oak in the nose than I tend to like. I slightly preferred the 2010 to the 2011, which had tooripe fruit in the nose. I remain faithful to Coltassala. The 2011, though a notch down in the Riserva category, was one of the best wines that I tasted in 2015. It had spicy red fruit and was sour and sinewy in the mouth, chewy but good. A 2008 Coltassala was even better. The additional age had smoothed it out, and it was moving into its sweet spot. The

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2011 Chianti Classico Riserva was similar to the 2011 Coltassala but had a riper fruit nose. The 2008 Chianti Classico Riserva was as good as the 2008 Coltassala. Try the 2011 Chianti Classico annata, nearly as good as the 2011 Il Puro, but lower in cost.

MONTEMAGGIO

You get to Montemaggio by driving on a dirt road that runs through the hills between Panzano and Radda. During the dry summer your car stirs up a cloud of dust. Mounds of gray galestro pop up along the way. Near Montemaggio, Radda perches, owl-like, on a forested ridge to the south of the road. After a right turn, there is an imperious iron gate, then another one. Then you arrive at a hamlet, Montemaggio. Vineyards, about eight hectares (twenty acres), spread out in a fan below. You are at five hundred meters (1,640 feet) above sea level. A short stone tower built in the fourteenth century rises amid the estate’s buildings. It is pictured in Piante di popoli e strade, a road map first published in the late sixteenth century. The road leading to the estate was built by the Romans. After arriving, you will likely meet Valeria Zavadnikova, born in Vladivostok, raised in Moscow, schooled in law in London, and here to manage the estate, particularly the commercial side, for her Russian parents, the owners. Her hobby is gardening, and the gardens around the hamlet are lush. You may also meet Ilaria Anichini, whose ancestors have been landholding farmers in the Ruffoli area of Greve since 1424. Her uncle Beppe still farms several hectares there. She is Chianti-Chianti. She has an agronomy degree from the University of Florence and did a stint at a winery in Grampians, Australia. She also assisted with the Chianti Classico 2000 project. Anichini manages the estate on a day-to-day basis, specifically everything to do with growing the grapes and making the wine. That this is an estate powered by women is underlined by the Montemaggio wine label, which features an Etruscan woman carrying a basket of black grapes. Unlike their counterparts in ancient Greek and Roman culture, Etruscan women were equal in status to men. The estate features three Chianti Classicos, one annata, one Riserva, and one Gran Selezione, all of which have a blend of Sangiovese with 5 to 7 percent Merlot. The average age of the vines used for the annata is less, about seventeen years versus about twentytwo for the Riserva and Gran Selezione. The wines are made in similar ways, using stainless steel and cement tanks for vinification and different oak barrel formats for maturation: barriques, tonneaux, and increasingly thirty-hectoliter (793-gallon) casks. The Riserva and Gran Selezione may “pass through” (i.e., be briefly stored in) barriques, to pick up additional aroma and texture. The concern, though, is to keep new-oak influence low. The maturation periods in large cask are long for Chianti Classico, two years for annata and three for Riserva. Differences are slight between Riserva and Gran Selezione, showing that for small-to-medium estates like Montemaggio, a new product tier such as Gran Selezione can mean two’s company, three’s a crowd. Montemaggio wines

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usually have two to three years of bottle aging before commercialization. Hence, they reach markets when they are near maturity. The Chianti Classicos become more nuanced in aroma and softer on the palate with age. In the spring of 2015, I tasted the 2010 annata and the 2009 Riserva. Both were pale reddish-brown, with floral and fruity aromas, high acidity, and higher than average astringency.

M O N T E V E RT I N E

At noon on June 1, 1967, the church bell at Radda rang. A hand extending from a white cuff broke the seal on the only envelope left at the church. It enclosed a bid for a podere built in the eleventh century on forty hectares (ninety-nine acres) of land. The church owned this podere, Montevertine, and was selling it to the highest bidder, Sergio Manetti. The next year, Le Pergole Torte, “The twisted pergolas,” was planted, two hectares (five acres) with the coldest exposure imaginable in Chianti, north-northeast. By 1973, Manetti had sold his metal goods factory in Poggibonsi and invested all his money in Montevertine. Bruno Bini, born at the farm, stayed on as its manager. In May 2015, Martino Manetti, Sergio’s son, shook his head while recalling Bini: “He did everything.” Bini died in 2013. Manetti shook things up. With the shiest man on the planet, Giulio Gambelli, at his side, he made the 1977 Le Pergole Torte, a single-vineyard, 100 percent Sangiovese. Unable to call it Chianti Classico because it contained no white grapes, he bottled it as a vino da tavola. Martino told me that his father had wanted to make a Brunello without calling it a Brunello. Such is the quiet battle that Chianti Classico wages with its Sienese rival. Manetti attracted much attention. Vittorio Fiore recalled that in the 1970s, when the average price for wine was three hundred lire per bottle, Manetti was selling his for seven thousand. When he sent a sample of the 1981 Montevertine to the Chamber of Commerce for certification as a Chianti Classico, however, the tasters deemed, according to Martino, that it was “not perfect, especially if already bottled.” Manetti believed this was one of his best vintages. In anger, he took Montevertine out of the Chianti Classico consortium and labeled all his wine as vini da tavola. Martino vowed to his father, who died in 2000, that Montevertine would never rejoin the consortium. Iconoclasm flows in Manetti veins. Montevertine sits defiantly atop a little hill in the valley north of the village of Radda. With eighteen hectares (forty-four acres) of vineyards at 425 meters (1,394 feet) of elevation, Martino, with the help of the consulting enologist Paolo Salvi, makes three “Chiantilike” wines: Le Pergole Torte, 100 percent Sangiovese and now a blend of the estate’s best grapes, 60 percent of which come from the Pergole Torte vineyard; Montevertine; and Pian del Ciampolo. The last two have a little Canaiolo and Colorino added. The winemaking is simple. The length of skin contact is based on the condition of the skins and the taste of the wine. Le Pergole Torte matures for twenty-four months, eighteen in

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large barrel and six in barrique. Montevertine has twenty-four months in large barrel and Pian del Ciampolo, Manetti’s easy-drinking “Chianti,” twelve. In March 2015, I tasted the 2011 and 2012 Montevertines. Both were a pale garnet color. The 2011 had cherry and balsam wood smells that were more attention getting than those of the floral 2012. Astringency was light in both. My notes for both were “Delicate but alcoholic.” The 2008 and 2010 Le Pergole Tortes were both paler than the two Montevertines. The nose of the 2010 was closed; that of the 2008, open. For the latter, I wrote, “Delicate, woodsy, reticent.” Both wines had plenty of acidity and astringency. The 2010 had more astringency and is a wine to put away. Recently I pulled a 1982 Le Pergole Torte out of my cellar to taste: “Light brown-red, orange rim; mature woodsy nose, delicate with no signs of oxidation; acid dominates with light astringency; almost refreshing to drink.” The price tag on the bottle said $13.99. A current vintage of Pian del Ciampolo is twice that price now.

POGGERINO

On my first visit to Chianti Classico, in 1992, I met Piero Lanza at Poggerino. He was with his consultant, Nicolò d’Afflitto. D’Afflitto had told me in advance that Lanza was not a typical Tuscan proprietor. Most hire professionals to do the work, which they perceive as lowly, on the estates they own, particularly in the vineyards. D’Afflitto, however, mentioned that Lanza preferred to do his own vineyard work. I learned in 2014 that while he was in high school earning a technical degree in agronomy, his organic chemistry teacher had inspired him to make Poggerino into something special. I remember shaking Lanza’s hand. The thick calluses confirmed what D’Afflitto had told me. Though from a shy person, it was a determined handshake. Though he had lived in Naples as a boy, Lanza’s family had moved to the city of Florence in 1980 to provide him with a better education and a safer environment. He was a descendent of the Ginori Contis, a famous Florentine noble family of the Middle Ages. In 1940, his grandfather had bought the palace just up the road from Poggerino, Castello d’Albola. His uncle managed it until 1979, when it was sold to Zonin. Chickens were running loose in the palace at the time of purchase, Michele Zonin later recalled. Lanza’s mother inherited the much smaller Poggerino estate down the hill, which he and his sister, Benedetta, now own. At that first visit, Lanza shook his head, saying that if he had only inherited Castello d’Albola’s vineyards, he could really make great wine. Soon after, I learned that D’Afflitto had taken on more responsibility at Frescobaldi and had to stop consulting at Poggerino. Over the years, whenever I shook Lanza’s hand, the calluses were there. Nevertheless, I would tease him that his hands were getting softer. He would smile, wag his finger, and shake his head. Lanza has step by step perfected every aspect of the estate. The wines are now so good that he no longer envies Castello d’Albola. During our October 2014 visit, he brought us into his vineyards. Poggerino comprises eleven hectares (twenty-seven acres) of vineyards at about 450 meters (1,476 feet) of

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altitude. Its production is now about forty-five thousand bottles per year. The first thing that Lanza took us to see was a pile of pastel-gray galestro. He picked up a chunk and dropped it on the ground. It exploded into a thousand slivers of clay. “This is galestro.” he said. Not a leaf seemed out of place. Cover crops varied row by row and up and down the gradient. Some gave the soil vigor, some used it up, and others just protected against erosion. Instead of pruning the tops off the vines in June, Lanza braids them around their row’s upper wire. This keeps them from pushing out lateral shoots into the fruit zone, which would restrict its airflow and take nutrients away from fruit development. Lanza gave us a demonstration of how to braid the shoots and how to prune a vine trained in the Guyot system. Unlike other farmers, who generally prefer low-vigor rootstocks to reduce vegetation and hence labor, he prefers higher-vigor ones, even SO4, because he would rather have extra vigor to reduce than have to enhance it through fertilization or another means. In the winery, as impeccably maintained as the vineyards, he is evolving from barriques and even tonneaux toward larger-format wood, particularly twenty-fivehectoliter (660-gallon) ovals of Slavonian oak. We tasted barrel samples from the 2013 vintage that Lanza had selected to become part of his Riserva Chianti Classico blend, Bugialla. He pulled a column of dark wine from a new 500-liter (132-gallon) French barrel. It was thick, velvety. Then we tasted the same wine from a large two-year-old Slavonian oak cask. Lanza exclaimed, “What acidity! This is Radda.” We agreed that it was more elegant, less thick, and less wood scented. It seemed a crime to us to mix it with the more strongly oaked portion. Though we understand that it is not wise to shock customers with sudden changes, we hope someday to taste Bugialla that has matured in only Slavonian oak. Typically, 90 percent of Lanza’s Chianti Classico annata matures in such casks. We prefer it to his other wines. When he has excellent skin ripeness, he is willing to do macerations up to sixty days. This is risky, but it makes great Chianti. His 2011 Chianti Classico annata was one of the purest and most refreshing wines that we tasted in Chianti. Surprisingly, that growing season was unrelentingly hot and dry. The wine’s high acidity, however, complemented a brilliant cherry smell and the nuances of wild yeast fermentation. In comparison, the 2009 Bugialla Riserva, also from a hot vintage, had more licorice from the oak and was coarser and more astringent, probably also from the oak. The Bugialla vineyard is the most prized of the estate. It was planted in 1973. In 2003 and 2006, four of the five hectares of Bugialla were replanted, leaving the remaining one hectare (1.5 acres) with the original vines. One of Lanza’s interests outside winemaking is following Formula 1 racing. Being a winner in Formula 1 requires paying attention to detail and constantly making improvements. Lanza has done just this since our first meeting in the early 1990s. Though he may dream of being a driver on the Ferrari team, the calluses on his hands identify him as a farmer.

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GAIOLE IN CHIANTI B ADIA A COLTIBU ON O

We drove up a winding road through woods. Badia a Coltibuon0, an isolated, walled abbey, rose out of a clearing. The abbey has been here, in the northeastern corner of Gaiole, since 1051. Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti greeted us. She had just arrived from Hong Kong and was excited because the Hong Kong Jockey Club had showcased Badia a Coltibuono wines in an event and put the annata on its wine list. A few minutes later, her brother Roberto arrived. He has studied agronomy in Italy and viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. Initially, Emanuela helped her mother, Lorenza de’ Medici, to establish the Badia cooking school and to write books. Later, her enthusiasm and marketing skills got Badia on to the world stage. Roberto, whose energy is hidden beneath a quiet demeanor, has been a pioneer in biologic agriculture. Moreover, he has protected the genetic patrimony of the estate’s vineyards by overseeing the mass selection of its oldest vines. His search for purity has always been reflected in the wines. They are simply complex. If you ever visit the estate, allow enough time to have lunch or dinner at its restaurant, Coltibuono, where brother Paolo, the creative Stucchi Prinetti, shows how perfectly Badia’s wines and famous olive oils, homegrown ingredients, and his kitchen’s creations take the word terroir to another level. The badia is at 625 meters (2,051 feet) of altitude, too high for grapes to regularly mature. Its vineyards and winery are at the southern end of Gaiole and a much lower altitude, about 350 meters (1,148 feet). The topsoil there is calcareous clay, not sand like at the nearby San Giusto a Rentennano, an estate that was formerly a nunnery. These factors make Badia a Coltibuono’s wines richer and fuller than one would expect. Its annata wines mature for one year and its Riserva wines for two, all in large oak casks. The use of large casks and the absence of international varieties bring the taster directly into the flavor and sensorial world of Chianti Classico: cherries, refreshing tartness, and a sharp edge of astringency. I tasted the 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2008 annatas. My notes were similar for all of these except the 2008, in which woodsy and rose-water smells had pushed in front of the cherry ones. This is just a sign of age. I also tasted the 2010, 2009, and 2008 Riservas. The 2009 had some orange at the rim and smelled of cinders and iron filings. The 2010 and 2008 were fresher and livelier, though the 2010 had riper fruit flavors. It may be that since the 2009 vintage was hotter than both the 2010 and the 2008, it had matured more rapidly, possibly because of lower acidity or any of several other factors. In any case, it showcased the tertiary aromas of aging, cinders and iron filings, rather than the fresher fruit of a “younger” wine. The Coltus Boni Chianti Classico 2010 is a mix of the zone’s historic and most promising native blending varieties—Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Foglia Tonda, Malvasia Nera, Mammolo, Pugnitello, and Sanforte—with a balance of 80 percent Sangiovese. It was dark for a Chianti Classico, probably because of the Pugnitello, and had a spicy, floral, minty character from new toasted oak. Though its texture was thick and unfiltered, it was low in astringency.

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GREVE IN CHIANTI M

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RADDA IN CHIANTI

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SP408

Badia a Coltibuono

Monte Cetamura 695 m (2,280 ft) SR429

Radda in Chianti

Montegrossi

San Donato in Perano

Vistarenni

SR429

Riecine

La Porta di Vertine

r e ek

Gaiole in Chianti Massello ne C

Agricoltori Chianti Geografico

Castello di Ama

Monte Muro 809 m (2,654 ft)

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Castello di Meleto

GAIOLE IN CHIANTI

ia

er Riv

Poggio di Civitella 643 m (2,110 ft)

Fattoria Rietine

SS484

San Sano

SP408

Castello di Starda

Il Colombaio di Cencio

Castello di Brolio– Barone Ricasoli

San Vincenti

Castello di Cacchiano Monti in Chianti

Rocca di Montegrossi

CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA CLASSICO

Siena

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0

1 mile

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MAP 4 Gaiole in Chianti.

Castelnuovo Berardenga

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Ar b i a

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San Giusto a Rentennano Pianella

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The wine named Sangioveto is a 100 percent Sangiovese Super Tuscan. I sampled the 2010 and 2009. Both lacked fruit and had celery in the nose, an indication of age, and were soft and round in the mouth. Perhaps macerations of a month or more and two-year maturations in toasted barriques had conquered the fruit.

BARONE RICASOLI

In the mid-nineteenth century, Bettino Ricasoli’s dream was that his beloved Brolio wine would be on the dinner tables of the world’s most sophisticated consumers, but it seemed to evaporate a century later when Castello di Brolio passed from one multinational company to another. As a professional photographer, Francesco Ricasoli had no premonition that he might have to fill in as winegrower for Bettino, his direct ancestor. When a contractual loophole gave him the opportunity to purchase Barone Ricasoli from Hardys, an Australian wine company, at a bargain price, for a moment he did not know what to do. He sought advice from Ser Lapo Mazzei of Fonterutoli, who replied without hesitation, “You must get it back.” So Ricasoli leaped, and in 1993, after all hope had seemed lost, the third greatgrandson of the architect of Chianti wine gained ownership of Castello di Brolio. His venture had the support of an economic boom and a skyrocketing interest in Tuscan wine. There could not have been a better moment to make the deal. The Mazzei family’s background in banking was a helpful resource when Ricasoli needed know-how and contacts to assemble a small group of investors. Filippo Mazzei, Lapo’s son, became a minority investor and brought to Brolio the benefits of his experience managing Fonterutoli, along with specialists from the team there to ensure a smooth takeoff. By keeping a tight budget and paying debts on schedule, Barone Ricasoli emerged as a profitable business. Over the years, Ricasoli has bought out several of the investors and now owns about 95 percent of the company’s shares. He also reestablished Bettino Ricasoli’s focus on experimentation and practical research. With the financial assistance of the Italian government, Ricasoli supported a three-year zonation study that described in detail the agronomic potential of the Castello di Brolio property.1 This could become the model for the zonation study that Chianti Classico currently lacks. Moreover, he supported the publication of Alla ricerca del “vino perfetto”: Il Chianti del barone di Brolio, a study by Zeffiro Ciuffoletti that clarifies Bettino Ricasoli’s work in arriving at the Chianti recipe.2 The estate’s viticultural team has undertaken the challenge of recovering the genetic identity of what was resident at Brolio in the late nineteenth century. They made trial plantings of fifty selected Sangiovese biotypes, then a further selection based on performance in the vineyard and in microvinification. Of those fifty, two were eventually selected and added to Italy’s National Registry of Grape Varieties, as clone I-CRA-BR1872 and clone I-CRA-BR1141, respectively. Ricasoli will allow nurseries to make them available to everyone.

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Barone Ricasoli’s 230 hectares (568 acres) of vineyards are more than any other private estate owns in Chianti Classico. They are nearly all in Gaiole, with a small number of hectares extending into Castelnuovo Berardenga. Altitudes vary greatly, from 190 to 490 meters (623 to 1,608 feet) above sea level. Exposures are mostly south and southwest. Most of Brolio’s vineyards have been replanted since the mid-1990s in modern cultivation systems. The soils are predominantly calcareous clay with alberese stone. Altitude is the principal variant. Hence, vineyards at different altitudes excel in different years. The combination of the soils, excellent air drainage, and mostly southern exposures facing an unobstructed horizon provides Ricasoli with the potential to make wines that are full-bodied, powerful, and elegant. Barone Ricasoli has five Chianti Classico labels. One of them, the Rocca Guicciarda Chianti Classico Riserva, I have not tasted recently. The estate technical sheet for the 2013 vintage, which is downloadable from the Castello di Brolio website, says that it’s in a “traditional style.” The blend is at least 80 percent Sangiovese, with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon filling it out. While the blend is not “traditional,” its listed maturation is fifteen months in tonneaux and big barrels. I sampled a wine from each of the four other labels. A 2012 Brolio Chianti Classico annata had a floral, minty, ripe-fruit, and oaky nose. In the mouth, the wine had dominant alcohol and low astringency. Overall, it was pleasant, with well-integrated components, a wine to drink within a few years. A 2011 Brolio Chianti Classico Riserva had more new oak in the nose, plus cocoa and toasted notes, smells associated with oak more than fruit. It had considerably more structure than the previous wine in the mouth, with more astringency and slightly more viscosity. The “château” wine is simply called Castello di Brolio. Château labeling is the French châteaux’ practice of marketing and labeling what they deem is their best wine. The name of the château—for example, Château Margaux—is both the name of the brand and the calling card wine. Its production is usually the château’s greatest. In Brolio’s case, the word castello stands in for the word château. The Castello di Brolio château label has a historic image of Brolio castle. It is grand. I sampled the 2010 Castello di Brolio, a Gran Selezione. Charred oak and flowers are dominant in the nose, the icing atop a wine with a soft, complex texture. The blend is 80 percent Sangiovese, 15 percent Merlot, and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. The estate’s other Gran Selezione is the Colledilà, whose name means “hill over there” in Italian. The art on the label derives from a late sixteenthcentury drawing around the base of the Ricasoli family tree. The images of snakes and other animals, knights on horses, castles, and rivers are both charming and fascinating. While you enjoy the wine, be sure to entertain yourself with the label. This wine is 100 percent Sangiovese. I tried the 2011, which has some black cherry to balance the toasted buttered bread (from oak) in the nose. In the mouth it is elegant, with a high level of fine, textured astringency. It tastes delicious now and should age nicely. Though not traditional in style, the 100 percent Sangiovese 2011 Colledilà is a superb and elegant drink.

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CASTELLO DI AMA

When Tuscany’s grand duke Peter Leopold made his tour of Chianti in 1773, he observed that the three wealthy families living at “Amma” had extensive and impeccably cared-for vineyards. They exported all of their wine to England, where it was much esteemed.3 Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi (the pen name of Saverio Manetti) wrote that the wines of Ama were “far superior to many of the best wines that come to us from other countries.”4 Although its reputation was established, Ama became much less visible during the nineteenth century. It resurfaced in 1972, when four Roman families established a wine company there. Improvements to the vineyards followed. One of the owners, Gianvittorio Cavanna, was involved at Fattoria di Ama, as it was then called, from the late 1970s until his untimely death in 1988. His love of wine brought energy and prestige to the estate, making it one of the most highly regarded of the 1980s. In 1982 he hired Marco Pallanti, an agronomist born in Florence, who then took winemaking courses at the University of Bordeaux to advance that particular skill. From 1980 to 1990, Silvano Formigli played a key role as the estate’s commercial director. In 1988, Lorenza Sebasti, representing the second generation of one of the winery’s founding families, moved from Rome to manage it. She married Pallanti in 1992. Since then, they have directed the winery together, he focusing on production, she on marketing and administration. The wine estate Castello di Ama owns a well-preserved borgo that was the site of a castle until an Aragonese army destroyed it in the fifteenth century. This cluster of buildings has become a haven for artists and a showcase for their work. Pallanti said that just as he interprets the music of the terroir through his wines, the visiting artists do the same through their art. The estate is in the northwest of Gaiole. In its immediate vicinity, alberese rock rises above or lies beneath a thin topsoil of calcareous clay. Castello di Ama has sixty-five hectares (161 acres) of vineyards dedicated to Chianti Classico in the rolling hills that surround the winery. They are at an average altitude of 480 meters (1,575 feet). Castello di Ama has been famous for its single-vineyard wines, each named for its vineyard. In 1978, Bellavista, a single-vineyard Chianti Classico, was born. San Lorenzo, La Casuccia, and Bertinga, among others, joined its ranks in the following decade. This concept made the winery unique and chic. For Pallanti, it reflects his belief in the Burgundian wine aesthetic represented by the word terroir. On the other hand, in 2010 the estate took a step in the direction of Bordeaux with an estate Chianti Classico named Ama. The grapes come from vineyards that are younger and use more modern viticultural technologies than those of the single-vineyard wines. I tasted Castello di Ama wines blind at two Chianti Classico consortium events, Chianti Classico Collection 2014 and 2015, both in February. Also in February 2015, I tasted some with Pallanti at a dinner that he hosted at the Castello di Ama restaurant. My experiences at each were different.

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At the consortium events, the wines showed better, perhaps because in the context of sampling many wines from different producers, the bigger size of the Ama wines in the mouth underlined their positive characteristics. In February 2014, Ama featured a 2010 Gran Selezione for sampling. There was no vineyard listed on the label. The wine was very dark and had 10 percent Merlot and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend. It had some vegetative smells, perhaps due to the Cabernet Sauvignon, and was tart and astringent. The oak was not very evident. At the same event, an Ama from the 2011 vintage was very similar in style. It had more Sangiovese, 95 percent. A year later at another consortium tasting, Castello di Ama featured a Vigneto La Casuccia and a Vigneto San Lorenzo, both 2011 Gran Selezione wines. Both stood out for their high quality and had as yet unresolved oak in the nose. During dinner at the Ama restaurant, I tasted a series of 2011 single-vineyard Gran Selezione wines: San Lorenzo, Bellavista, and La Casuccia. They tasted more oaky than before. I preferred the San Lorenzo because it had the least oak in the nose and was the least structured in the mouth. The La Casuccia and the Bellavista had nice spicy oak, not the vanilla-and-coconut-smelling sort, in the nose, but it obstructed the fruit. A 2006 Bellavista Chianti Classico, meanwhile, had evidently outlasted the oak and had a fine astringency. Looking at my notes on the same wines tasted on different occasions underlines how much change rules in the world of flavor perception. A painting looks slightly different when hung in different rooms, thanks to changes in light and hues in the background. Flavor is even more sensitive than line and color to context. The perception of wine and the judgment of its quality are not absolute. They change. My experience of the Castello di Ama wines outlined in this profile highlights this phenomenon.

CASTELLO DI CACCHIANO

To the left of the road to Castello di Cacchiano is a small vineyard of densely planted and staked alberello vines. From its perch on a hill at four hundred meters (1,312 feet) of elevation, the castle, like a protective mother eagle with its brood, gazes over thirty-two hectares (seventy-nine acres) of vineyards and the village of Monti, sitting in calcareous clay-dominant soil with alberese stone. To the east is the dark ridge of the Monti del Chianti, below which Castello di Brolio slouches lionlike. To the south, verdant plateaus spread out like wide steps on a staircase. Farther in the distance are the rolling hills of the Crete Senesi. On a clear day, the Torre Mangia and the Duomo stick out of the gleaming white mass of buildings that is Siena in the sunlight. Beyond is the towering extinct volcano Mount Amiata. The origins of the castle reach back to the Roman period. The Ricasolis have been its lords for more than a thousand years. Giovanni Ricasoli-Firidolfi, the current owner, took us in to look at the family archives. As he was lifting the lids off boxes laced up with ribbons, a laptop started sliding off a shelf. He caught it in midair and wiped his brow, saying, “That’s mummy’s laptop.” That the laptop of Elisabetta Balbi Valier, who died in

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2004, is now part of the archives says as much about how strong and in touch with the present she was as about how much times have changed. The Ricasoli-Firidolfi wines, reflecting Giovanni’s outlook on life, remain true to tradition. The pride of the estate is the vin santo, which Ricasoli-Firidolfi dotes on like a son. Taste the 2003, if you can find it! The Chianti Classicos are firm wines with strong edges of acidity and astringency. The 2010 is 95 percent Sangiovese, with Canaiolo, Malvasia Nera, and Colorino supporting its pure cherry fruit. The 2009 has more earth and cocoa, plus a diesel-leather nuance, perhaps the smell of older cask. The 2010 Riserva is a deeper reddish-brown, with black cherry and earthy smells. It has a thick, unfiltered taste and chewable, fine tannins. The 2007 Riserva was paler, with a cindery, ferrous nose, the sign of oncoming maturity. In the mouth, it had a dry, dusty, rich texture, being riper and more mature than the 2010. The 2006 Riserva had a little orange at the rim of the glass. A nutty, earthy, woodsy smell indicated that it had reached its peak. As nice as the 2010 and 2007, the 2006 Riserva is a wine to drink up, not to keep. The Millennio is Cacchiano’s Gran Selezione entry. I tasted the 2009 and 2010. The 2009 was darker. Both had powerful fruity noses with new-oak nuances. The 2009 also had mint and the 2008 balsam wood, but the 2008 had a younger, fresher taste.

SAN GIUSTO A RENTENNANO

San Giusto a Rentennano is at the southernmost tip of Gaiole. The name’s -ennano suffix indicates an Etruscan origin. The location’s official name is San Giusto alle Monache (San Giusto of the nuns). It was the site of a Cistercian abbey in the Middle Ages. The road into the estate moves through a bevy of trees and ends up at a clutch of buildings adjoining a thirteenth-century crenellated wall. Luca Martini di Cigala took us around the estate. He arrived there in 1988 to work alongside his father, Enrico, and his older brother, Francesco. His older sister Elisabetta arrived in 1994. Luca does the viticulture, while Francesco directs the vinification and Elisabetta works in administration. Their mother was a Ricasoli. In 1957, their father inherited the estate. He was Piedmontese by ancestry. Before our visit, Paolo Vagaggini, an enological consultant not connected to the estate, told us about an incident that reveals the spirit of the Martini di Cigala family. This was probably during the late 1950s or 1960s. Vagaggini’s father, Francesco, was working as an itinerant agronomist for the province of Siena’s cattedra ambulante di agricoltura, a free consultancy service that provinces provided for farms. While driving around looking for the home of Enrico Martini di Cigala, he saw a mezzadro working with a hoe near the road. Vagaggini stopped his car and asked for directions. The person with the hoe put it down and said, “I am here to serve you.” He was Enrico Martini di Cigala. Luca, Francesco, and Elisabetta have inherited their father’s humility. During the 1980s, the farm belatedly made the transition from promiscuous to specialized vineyards. Promiscuous vineyards remain on four hectares (ten acres). Luca took

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us there to see testucchio training. The estate treasures its past. The last mezzadri were there until three or four years ago. Rosita Anichini, the daughter of a former mezzadro family associated with the estate, assists Francesco in the cantina. The estate has thirty-one hectares (seventy-seven acres) of vines. Half of the vineyards are around the estate. They are at roughly three hundred meters (984 feet) above sea level. The topsoil there is silty sand, with small round stones and patches of fossilized mollusks. It is five to six meters (sixteen to twenty feet) deep over a bank of bluish clay, which harbors moisture. The sandy soil makes the wines pale, and the clay gives them structure. Another quarter of the vineyards are on galestro and alberese soil with some silt. The last piece, Corsignano, about two kilometers (1.2 miles) to the north between Lucignano and Monti, has galestro and alberese with some clay. It delivers wine with power. The estate makes an annata and a Riserva Chianti Classico. The annata wines are about 95 percent Sangiovese, with the balance being Canaiolo. They mature in large oak casks and tonneaux for one year. The Riservas have the same mix but slightly more Sangiovese and mature for about eighteen months in barriques. San Giusto also makes an IGP, Percarlo. This wine comes from a selection of the best grapes from eight hectares (twenty acres) of high-performing vineyards. It is 100 percent Sangiovese and matures in barriques for about twenty-one months. I tasted the 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008, and 2007 Chianti Classicos. What struck me were the intense red fruit smells in all the wines. The 2013, because of its youth and the cool vintage, had a floral character. The 2012 was jammy. The 2011 had a cedary cherry nose. In the 2010, a diesel note joined the cherry. The 2008 was similar to the 2010 but also had an earthy smell, the result of bottle age. The 2007 had a young, explosive cherry nose. The 2010 and 2007 both had a tantalizing fine, lingering astringency, what I look for in wine. I also tasted two vintages of the Riserva Le Baròncole, the 2011 and the 2005. The 2011 had new-oak smells and fine astringency in the mouth. In the 2005, the oak smells had become cindery with bottle age. There was also some oxidation in the nose. I tasted the 2010, 2008, 2006, and 1999 vintages of Percarlo. Smells of new oak were dominant in all but the 1999. Its nose was mature, smelling of “dust, earth, and ripe plums,” according to my notes. All the vintages except the 1999 had more astringency than the annatas and the Riservas. That of the 1999 was delicate, fine, and lingering. My tasting notes tell me that while the annata wines can be appreciated now and can last in great vintages, the Riserva Le Baròncole needs as much as five years and the Percarlo as much as ten or more of bottle aging to resolve their maturation in new oak barriques.

CASTELLINA IN CHIANTI BI BB IANO

In 1999, Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi, who was managing Bibbiano with his brother, Federico, contacted Stefano Porcinai because he knew that the vineyards were old and

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N W

E S

0 0

GREVE IN CHIANTI

San Donato in Poggio

Pe sa Ri ve r

1 mile 1 kilometer

Sicelle

SAN DONATO CLASSICO

Grignano

SR222

Pe sa R r ive

RA3

Ponte del Molin Novo

Nittardi Concadoro Tenuta Santedame– Ruffino

Poggio Cavallaro 648 m (2,126 ft)

Poggio della Macìa Morta 632 m (2,073 ft)

SR429

SR429

Castellina in Chianti

Gaggiano

Villa Rosa

San Quirico

Piccini

Castellare RADDA IN CHIANTI

Siepi

Tenuta Tenuta Gretole – di Capraia Ruffino Bibbiano Lilliano Rodano

San Fabiano Calcinaia

Tregole Straccali Castello di Fonterutoli

Rocca delle Macìe

Caggio

Villa Cerna Cecchi

Villa Pomona

CASTELLINA IN CHIANTI

Castellina Scalo

CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA CLASSICO

San Leonino Castello di Rencine

Topina RA3 SR222

Monteriggioni

MAP 5 Castellina in Chianti.

needed to be replanted. Many of the vines had died. Some were so old that their production was too low from an economic point of view. Others had been poorly trained and were too old to withstand the stress of retraining. The remaining vines were so weak that they needed to be green-harvested twice so that the fruit could mature. Giulio Gambelli was Bibbiano’s wine consultant. His principal interest was the cantina, where he offered advice on how to vinify, mature, and blend the wines. Marzi needed an expert who knew the latest in vineyard technology, particularly relating to the Chianti Classico area and the Sangiovese variety. He could not have made a better choice than Porcinai. From 1992 to 2001, Porcinai had been the technical director of the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico. He had managed the operation of Chianti Classico 2000, which had as its sole focus the replanting of the aging existing generation of vineyards. With his knowledge of the highquality clones that were developed in that project, along with the results that its practical research had yielded on rootstock selection, vine density, vine training, cover crop use, and so forth (factors essential to integrate into the new vineyards), Porcinai began replanting one vineyard at a time. One of the first that he tackled is Bibbiano’s most famous and most historic, Capannino. Gambelli had brought cuttings from Sant’Angelo Scalo in Montalcino for the 1950s planting of the Capannino vineyard. He brought only Sangiovese. He knew Montalcino well because he traveled there often to assist his mentor, Tancredi Biondi Santi. Given his close friendship with and esteem for Marzi’s grandfather, Pier Tommaso Marzi, Gambelli was certain to have selected the best cuttings he could find. The growing conditions of Bibbiano’s Capannino are not so different from those of many vineyards in Montalcino. They have about the same annual mean air temperature (14 to 15.3 degrees Celsius, or 57.2 to 59.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and average rainfall (sixty to seventy centimeters, or twenty-four to twenty-eight inches).5 Capannino’s exposure is southerly, as are many at the southern end of Montalcino. Clay dominates the soil at Capannino and at many of the lower-elevation sites in Montalcino. The comparison between Vigna del Capannino and Brunello di Montalcino is inescapable. Under Porcinai’s direction, in 2009 this 4.5-hectare (11-acre) vineyard was replanted with the original genetic material that Gambelli had selected in Montalcino. Porcinai used two rootstocks that are ideal for replanting a vineyard in clay, 775 Paulsen and 779 Paulsen, and tightened up the vine density to the modern standard of five thousand per hectare (2,023 per acre). Because wet clay can cause landslides, the installation of an underground drainage system was important. In areas where water had a tendency to collect, Porcinai dug trenches, filled them with a layer of large stones, laid perforated plastic piping on top, covered the piping with a fine mesh fabric to protect its holes, piled smaller rocks on top, and then put back the topsoil that had been dug up. The pipes vented the excess water away from the problem spots. Porcinai also replanted the rest of Bibbiano’s twenty-five hectares (sixty-two acres), including the other cru, Montornello, a vineyard of thirteen hectares (thirty-two acres) with looser, less clayey soil and a more northerly exposure than Capannino. At Montornello, he

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used the same two rootstocks but five different clonal selections of Sangiovese. In the same way that a winemaker picks cuvées after vinification to construct the final blend, he chose these selections based on how their flavors, structures, and acidities would complement one another in the finished wine. He finished this project in 2012. The vineyards surround the Marzi villa and the winery. They are between 270 and 300 meters (886 and 984 feet) above sea level. During the 2000s, Tommaso Marzi gradually took over the direction of the estate while Federico focused on another family business. While renovating the vineyards, Porcinai also consulted on the making of the wines. Gambelli continued to stop by and offer his opinion on their condition, and Porcinai learned from him how to maintain Bibbiano’s style so that it was continuous with the estate’s history. In January 2012, Gambelli passed away. But his spirit lives on at Bibbiano through the flavor of the wines, in the fond memories of the Marzis, and via the work of Porcinai. The focus of Bibbiano has always been on Sangiovese. The style has been traditional, in that the smell and tactile impact of new toasted oak have never shown themselves in the finished wines. The Bibbiano annata is aged only in a cement tank. It is 95 percent Sangiovese and 5 percent Colorino. Tommaso Marzi says that Colorino was primarily planted to add brilliant red stripes to the harvest vineyard foliage. It may also darken and add a little astringent edge to this wine. The two cru wines are 100 percent Sangiovese. Barriques have been used to mature the Montornello for a relatively short twelve months. Vigna del Capannino matures for twenty-four months, the first twelve in a combination of five-hundred-liter (132-gallon) tonneaux, the last twelve in a twenty-hectoliter (528-gallon) cask of Slavonian oak. Porcinai says that the estate is transitioning away from barriques entirely, to cement, tonneaux, and large casks. The Bibbiano Chianti Classico annata wines show how well Sangiovese can perform without contact with new oak barrels. They never touch oak. I tasted the 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2008 vintages. The color was on the pale side. The 2013 was remarkably substantial and solid for such a cool vintage. I tasted the 2012 on two occasions. It was from a hot growing season with a little rain close to the vintage. On one occasion my notes read, “Smells like Brunello di Montalcino.” On the other, my notes on the nose said, “Rich, vibrant, woodsy, deep red fruits,” and on the palate, “Angular, toothsome, aromatic.” The 2011 was a little too ripe in the nose, reflecting the extended high temperatures and drought of that vintage. The 2010 was on target for the vintage, with a complex, spicy, and fruity nose and higher than average acidity in the mouth. The nose of the 2008 showed its age with a musty, minty earthiness. However, in the mouth it had plenty of astringency. The 2012 Montornello (labeled as a Riserva) and the 2010 Montornello both had more structure and a stronger astringent edge than the 2011. The 2010 came through with the high acidity for which that vintage is known. Except for a whiff of “cigarette smoke” in the 2012, per my notes, I could not detect any barrique character. The Vigna del Capannino 2011, a Gran Selezione, showed the touch of superripeness that I associate with that vintage. It was big, juicy, and tart, loaded with astringency. In my

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notes for the 2010, also a Gran Selezione, I wrote, “Poggio di Sotto–type nose.” Poggio di Sotto, a former Gambelli client in Montalcino, has always been one of my favorite estates in Italy. The 2008, a Riserva, had “a penetrating earthy–floral–red fruit nose.” I smelled also some oak, but not too much. The mouth had “sweet fine tannins” and was “tart.”

C A S T E L L O D I F O N T E R U TO L I

Since 1435, the Mazzei family has owned the village of Fonterutoli. It is five kilometers (three miles) south of the village of Castellina on a road that rapidly descends toward Siena. The estate has been passed down through twenty-four generations. Members of two generations currently lead it: Ser Lapo, who is in his nineties and guides the estate, and his sons Filippo and Francesco, who manage its operation. Ser Lapo’s daughter, Agnese, an architect, designed the new state-of-the-art winery, 75 percent of which is built into the side of the hill beneath the village. The Mazzeis own 111 hectares (274 acres) of vineyards, which mostly face south-southwest. There are five vineyard areas. The one in the immediate vicinity of the village, at 500 meters (1,640 feet) of elevation, has alberese soil. Just above the village, the Badiola vineyard, at 550 meters (1,804 feet), has galestro-based soil. Five kilometers (three miles) south of Fonterutoli at Belvedere, at 300 meters (984 feet), the soils are alberese and galestro. About 1.5 kilometers (one mile) to the west, Caggio, purchased in 2006, is at 300 meters and has alberese and clay soil. Siepi, on the western side of Castellina, at 220 meters (722 feet), is the home of their cru, a Merlot-Sangiovese wine. It has clay soil. Because of the differences in soil and, particularly, climate among the vineyards, Sangiovese is typically harvested on September 24 or 25 at Siepi and sometime between October 15 and October 20 at Badiola. The Mazzeis therefore have a variety of terroirs to work with. At Fonterutoli, Merlot has been the vine variety that is most used to “help” Sangiovese in difficult vintages, when 5 to 6 percent may be added to the blend of Castello di Fonterutoli. The estate has only one hectare (2.5 acres) of Cabernet Sauvignon. Filippo Mazzei says that he wants “to valorize Sangiovese and go back to native grapes.” His nephew Lapo told us that the estate was transitioning from barriques to tonneaux. The 2010 Castello di Fonterutoli was the first vintage for that label that used tonneaux and did not include Cabernet Sauvignon. Filippo told us that the estate’s philosophy is “work on diversity.” Every year the harvest is processed to make about 120 cuvées, which Carlo Ferrini, the agronomic and enological consultant since 1992, blends before bottling to make the various Mazzei wines. This strategy has been in place for about a decade. Previously the Fonterutoli team made fewer lots of wine and blended them earlier, in the spring after the harvest. The new method has the advantage of providing more blending options, 120 of them. Moreover, as wines they are more developed. Ferrini’s goal is to make dense and structured yet smooth and accessible wines. He knows exactly the appearance, smell, and texture profile he wants, and he blends to achieve it.

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One day, Gionata Pulignani, the current technical director, and Luca Biffi, the former technical director, were constructing a wine from vinification lots made from Sangiovese clones and biotypes. Francesco Mazzei was curious about what they were doing. When he tasted the wine, he was so impressed that he decided Fonterutoli would start bottling it, under the name “Mix36” and the company brand, Mazzei. The first vintage was the 2008. The grapes come from the fourteen-hectare (thirty-five-acre) Vico Regio vineyard in the zone of Belvedere. The number 36 refers to the eighteen clones and eighteen biotypes that contribute to the wine. Seven of the biotypes have been selected from Fonterutoli’s oldest vines. The mix of the vinification lots accounts for the rest of the name. Fonterutoli uses a château branding system. The estate’s most important wine is Castello di Fonterutoli, which is now in the Gran Selezione category. Its second wine is called simply Fonterutoli. Mix36 is an IGT, but its production protocol mimics that of a Chianti Classico. Other Chianti Classico wines are the Ser Lapo Riserva and Ser Lapo Riserva Privata. I have not sampled them. According to its technical sheet, Castello di Fonterutoli uses only native grapes: Sangiovese, Malvasia Nera, and Colorino. Fonterutoli uses a little Merlot, and Mix36 is 100 percent Sangiovese. Tonneaux and barriques, 60 percent new, are used for Castello di Fonterutoli. Tonneaux and barriques, 40 percent new, are used for Fonterutoli. Mix36 has twenty months in tonneaux. I tasted the 2011 and 2010 Castello di Fonterutoli, the 2012 Fonterutoli, and the 2010 Mix36. The Castello di Fonterutolis had layers upon layers of soft, fine astringency in the mouth. The Fonterutoli had less. The Mix36 was slightly paler and had less thickness in the mouth. In all three wine types, toasted oak was dominant in the nose. The Mix36 was the least exotic in texture, but it was the one I preferred the most, because it had the most Sangiovese character. Fonterutoli is moving away from international varieties and barriques and toward tonneaux. These are positive developments for this historic estate.

N I T TA R D I

Nittardi is in the far north of Castellina, on the southern side of the Pesa River. Its nine hectares (twenty-two acres) of vineyards have an exciting terroir for Sangiovese. The altitude is about 450 meters (1,476 feet), which allows for a wide temperature variation. The soil is clay with both alberese and galestro. Two bronze Minotaur busts by the German artist Paul Wunderlich alert visitors that something special is waiting for them. Nittardi does not disappoint. The owner is the Frankfurt publisher and art gallerist Peter Femfert. The sculpture garden alone is worth a visit. Each year a different artist designs the label and tissue paper for the estate’s brand, Casanuova di Nittardi. Moreover, the focus on art has historical relevance. Centuries ago, Nittardi belonged to the Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. Femfert has a great team behind him. His Venetian wife, Stefania Canali, a historian, is a match for him in wit and sophistication. One of their sons, Léon, has been dedicating

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himself to Nittardi since 2012. In preparation, he worked at wineries in the United States, France, Germany, and Chile. Giorgio Conte, the commercial director, has an agronomy degree. He has quietly and professionally managed the property since the early 1990s. Once Carlo Ferrini left his job at the Chianti Classico consortium, in 1991 he immediately took on Nittardi as a client. He has been shaping its wines since, in a way that allows the estate’s flavor profile to show itself. That profile expresses both the power of Panzano and the delicacy of Castellina Alta. For many years, Casanuova di Nittardi was the estate’s second wine, after its Riserva. In 2012, Femfert presented it as a single-vineyard wine, Vigna Doghessa, and changed the blend to 100 percent Sangiovese. The 2010 Casanuova di Nittardi has an oak-dominant nose. In the mouth, it is smooth despite its astringency. The structure is impressive. The 2011 is 97 percent Sangiovese and 3 percent Canaiolo Nero and has aged for ten months in second-passage barriques—that is, those which have already held wine. It has some overripe character in the nose and is top heavy with alcohol in the mouth. Vigna Doghessa ages for fourteen months in tonneaux. The 2012 vintage, like the 2011, was hot, and the nose of the Vigna Doghessa from that year was very ripe, with an exotic smell of apricots. The richness of alcohol was balanced by astringency in the mouth. In neither the 2011 Casanuova di Nittardi nor the 2012 Vigna Doghessa did I perceive new oak in the nose. The 2010 Nittardi Chianti Classico Riserva is a 95 percent Sangiovese, 5 percent Merlot blend with twenty-four months of aging in tonneaux. The wine has a deep color, perhaps due to the Merlot. The nose is very aromatic, with strong charred oak smells. The wine in the mouth has high acidity that matches the high levels of astringency and alcohol. It is quite concentrated and complex. With several years of bottle age, it will shed the oak nose and have a balanced nose to match its balanced palate. In November 2014, Léon Femfert introduced the first vintage, the 2012, of the wine Belcanto. The grapes come from an area, San Quirico, close to the western border of Chianti Classico, just north of the vineyards of Villa Rosa. The terroir is similar to that of Nittardi, except with more galestro and less alberese and an altitude, 270 meters (886 feet) above sea level, that is lower by about 150 meters (492 feet). The blend is 90 percent Sangiovese and small amounts of Canaiolo, Malvasia Nera, Ciliegiolo, Mammolo, Colorino, Foglia Tonda, and Pugnitello. Quite a historic Chianti cast! Each of these varieties should add its unique character to the nose and mouth of the wine. Most of the vines were planted in 1968. The original selection was a mass selection. Because these vines are not nursery selections, their grapes are not likely to have thick skins, loose bunches, or early harvesting periods. The advanced age of the vines means they have a very low production. The resulting wine matures in used tonneaux for twelve months. The oak character should therefore be subdued. I tasted the 2013 Belcanto, which is similar to the 2012 in both the grape blend and the use of tonneaux. The nose was fruity but also buttery and oaky. In the mouth, bitterness dominated the astringency, not necessarily a negative. It is the personality of the wine.

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On paper, this is a very exciting wine in terroir, varietal mix, and aging regimen. Perhaps the cool, wet vintage of 2013 did not allow the fruit to mature enough to offset the oak in the nose or allow the tannins in the grape skins to mature fully. This wine may be a harbinger of a change in style for Nittardi, to a focus on a range of native varieties and the use of larger-format oak for aging. Peter Femfert has done an admirable job in taking this estate out of obscurity and making it a consistent high performer. The increasing influence of his son Léon seems to be moving it toward exposing terroir more directly by steering away from high-performance clonal selections, nonnative varieties, and barriques. Léon is carving out his own path for the Nittardi of the future.

POMONA

To understand Chianti completely, one must understand the mezzadria system. One way to do this is to connect to the spirit of a place. One such place is Villa Pomona at the southeast corner of Castellina. The original nucleus of buildings, a fattoria, dates from the eighteenth century (see figure 3). It was where mezzadri delivered that part of their production owed to the padrone, collected supplies, and performed a range of tasks stipulated by contract. The cluster of buildings includes the padrone’s villa, several poderi where mezzadri lived, a storehouse, stalls, and a wine cellar. Because of the presence of the right type of clay for making terra-cotta objects such as floor tiles, basins, and vases, the first owners built a kiln. Terra-cotta production became an important source of income. The kiln is no longer in use. Around the buildings are mixed plantings of woods, pastures, vineyards, gardens, and olive trees. Ingeborg Juergens, the matriarch of the Raspi family—who joins Monica, her daughter (see figure 4), and her sister-in-law, Fernanda Raspi, in the estate’s ownership, looks after the villa, which has two agriturismo units. The larger one, suitable for a large family, occupies the principal residence. The villa’s limonaia, a glassed-in, south-facing room where lemon trees and other frost-sensitive plants were sheltered during the winter months, has been renovated into a smaller rental unit. The elemental design of the rooms, stairs, and furniture preserves the simplicity of Chianti rural existence. There is no better way to absorb how Chiantigiani lived for centuries than to stay at Villa Pomona, reading Maria Bianca Viviani Della Robbia’s A Farm in Chianti and taking jaunts into the towns and countryside.6 It is difficult to find this book. When you arrive in Chianti, you can purchase it in Panzano at Villa Le Barone, formerly the home of the author and now a luxury hotel. Monica Raspi and her husband, Enrico Selvi, look after the vineyards and winemaking. The Chianti Classico production is quite limited, as it comes from only five hectares (twelve acres) of vineyards. They have a southerly exposure and are at 350 meters (1,148 feet) on calcareous clay soil peppered with alberese.

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FIGURE 3 Villa Pomona in Castellina in Chianti: “then,” 1916. Left, a resident mezzadro family; right, the estate’s owners, Annamaria Bandini (the daughter of Bandino Bandini, who purchased the estate in 1899) and her husband, Mario Raspi, the grandparents of Monica Raspi, one of the current owners. Reproduced with permission from Monica Raspi, Villa Pomona, Castellina in Chianti.

FIGURE 4 Villa Pomona in Castellina in Chianti: “now,” 2015. Right to left: Family owners of the estate Ingeborg Juergens and her daughter, Monica Raspi, with their vineyard and winery team, Sacha Simonte (from Castellina) and Akik Krasniki (from Kosovo). Reproduced with permission from Monica Raspi, Villa Pomona, Castellina in Chianti.

The Villa Pomona wines bear the name of Monica’s great-grandfather Bandini. The estate makes a Chianti Classico annata and a Riserva. The annual production of each is very small, ten thousand bottles of annata and four thousand of Riserva. Both wines have the same blend: 95 percent Sangiovese, 5 percent Colorino. They mature in tonneaux and a mix of oval Slavonian oak barrels with capacities ranging from five to ten hectoliters (132 to 264 gallons), twelve months for the annata and twenty for the Riserva. I tasted one annata and two Riservas. Fran and I have a preference for the annata category. Here was no exception. The nose of the 2012 annata smelled of vibrant woodsy cherry and Red Hots, a spicy cinnamon candy that I enjoyed as a child. It was very tart in the mouth, with high astringency, but the highish alcohol increased the wine’s body, offsetting these. The 2010 Riserva’s nose was woodsy and had a mature earthiness. Again, its acidity was higher than what one would expect of a Chianti Classico of that vintage, but the astringency was softer and the alcohol was dominant. The 2008 Riserva was the most purely cherry driven in the nose. It too had higher than average acidity and,

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unlike the 2010 Riserva, more aggressive astringency. This was my second-favorite of these wines, better for a meaty meal than a light snack. After our appointment, we went on an adventure to visit Passeggeri, a nearby fattoria that was abandoned after World War II. It had been the home of Gino Sarrocchi, an Italian senator who was the president of the Consorzio del Gallo from 1927 to 1947. Chiantigiani told us that British prisoners of war had paved the long entry road with stones. Vegetation has since conquered Passeggeri. The vineyards are now forests. Laws forbid replanting them. Entering the buildings, torn apart by looters and damaged by the elements, is dangerous. Tourists beware! Nature is more powerful and enduring than nations or people.

RODANO

Enrico Pozzesi reveres his grandfather and his father. Because his family had roots in the area of Castellina where Rodano is located, his grandfather, a medical doctor, saved money and bought this estate in 1958. Four mezzadri families were living and working there. Instead of perpetuating the social distance between padrone and mezzadri, he befriended them, even staying overnight in their homes. Enrico’s father, Vittorio, and Enrico maintained that closeness. The last mezzadro family at Rodano left only in 1986. Enrico started working at the estate in 1980. A year later, Giulio Gambelli began consulting there. The family is proud of their association with him. Unlike many others, Rodano consistently named him when asked to identify its technological consultant. After Gambelli’s death in 2012, Paolo Salvi, who had visited with Gambelli in his final years, took his place at Rodano. Enrico and his wife, Stefania, studied agronomy at the University of Florence. They are not just owners. Their direction and participation in the work of the farm make them vignaioli. In 1986, Gambelli suggested that they separately bottle the Sangiovese from the Viacosta vineyard. The Pozzesis bottle Viacosta only three or four times a decade, when the quality of the wine lives up to what they think it should be. There are thirty-four hectares (eighty-four acres) of vineyards in production. The estate is at the southwestern edge of Castellina on Via Francigena, a road that pilgrims traveling between northern Europe and Rome used during the Middle Ages. Now it is an isolated dirt road. The estate sits on clay-dominant soil at an approximate elevation of 250 meters (820 feet). It makes two Chianti Classicos, both traditional in style. The Chianti Classico annata (90 percent Sangiovese, 5 percent Colorino, 5 percent Canaiolo) normally macerates for a full three weeks, then matures for more than two years in large Slavonian oak casks. The 2010 has cherry and balsam in the nose and an earthy, dusty, mature taste. It is ready to drink. The 2007 Chianti Classico Riserva Viacosta has a deeper color and an earthier and more balsamic nose. Its maceration and maturation in big barrel are even longer than those of the annata. The 2007 Viacosta was more astringent and had more body in

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the mouth. This wine too is ready to drink. The place and the people are in Rodano’s wines.

GREVE IN CHIANTI CANDIAL L E

Though we had been told where Candialle’s driveway was, we missed it anyway. It is an unmarked dirt lane, splintering off at a hairpin turn from the road from Ponte Nuovo to Sicelle. We barreled down it into the heart of Panzano’s conca d’oro. At the estate, we met Josephin Cramer and Jarkko Markus Di Peränen. They were accompanied by a large moving mound of dreadlocks. This was their dog. Josephin is German. Jarkko is Finish. They communicate to each other in English. We described our mission. Josephin made it clear how important the terroir was: “You won’t leave without seeing the vineyards.” We climbed into their four-wheel drive and drove alongside a field of alberello vines. Josephin and Jarkko began replanting the vineyards in 2002. There were three hectares (seven acres) then, and some trees with vines running up their trunks. They noticed that much of their land had never been farmed mechanically. They wanted to keep the soil in as pristine a condition as possible and resolved to do as much of the farming by hand as they could, to avoid soil compaction. They left the stone terraces in place. Jarkko knew a consulting agronomist from Emilia-Romagna, Remigio Bordini, who had developed a small alberello vineyard at Carnasciale, near Mercatale Valdarno just outside Chianti Classico. Under his guidance, they restructured the original three hectares and planted nine (twenty-two acres) more. Eighty percent of the vines are trained in the alberello system, and their density is between seventy-six hundred and ten thousand per hectare (3,076 and 4,047 per acre). If the density were higher, machines could not even enter the vineyards. Vittorio Fiore, formerly their consulting enologist, had mentioned to us that he had seen Josephin pruning vines with her baby napping in a carriage beside her. They do everything all by themselves except the harvest, when a team of Albanians joins them. With this extra help, it takes about eight hours. In some areas of their vineyards, the three branches of alberello-trained vines rise in one plane, in candelabra fashion. They had fixed the vegetation to wires running along the row. In other areas, the three branches grow in the round, tied to chestnut stakes, to some pine stakes, which they are phasing out, and to rebar. Chestnut stakes are traditional in Chianti. The rebar is experimental. Josephin told us that alberello, more than other training systems, generally gives the same number of small, loose bunches every year. She and Jarkko have also left two hectares (five acres) in cordon-spur training. Where early spring frost can threaten buds, they use the capovolto system, leaving the canes unpruned and pointing up at the sky until it is safe to cut them and tie them down near the ground. They have planted mostly the T19 Sangiovese clone, which Bordini developed at the Tebano research station in Romagna. Jarkko explained that of all the Sangiovese clones, it has grapes with the darkest skin and the most acidic and sweetest

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pulp. The Sangiovese in Candialle’s wine Pli is all T19. Josephin and Jarkko have also planted Canaiolo, Malvasia Nera, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah. The grapes from these vines fill out the Sangiovese in the Chianti Classico La Misse di Candialle and make up their IGT wines. In the winery, they talked to us as they leaned against bisque-colored globular ceramic Clayver maturation vats. Along with Il Borghetto, an estate in the Montefioralle area of San Casciano, they were the first to use these vats in Chianti Classico. In the background were unlined concrete tanks, tonneaux, and barriques. The winery was clean enough for surgery. Candialle is at 300 to 360 meters (984 to 1,181 feet) above sea level on galestro-based soil. It makes no Gran Selezione or Riserva. La Misse di Candialle is its ready-to-drink Chianti Classico. La Misse is an Italianization of “little miss.” It is 90 percent Sangiovese and matures in cement tanks. The Candialle Chianti Classico is 100 percent Sangiovese. Pli is an IGT composed of 95 percent Sangiovese and 5 percent Petit Verdot. A 2012 La Misse was deep in color, with a delicate and complex nose of ripe and dried red fruits and flowers. Alcohol dominated the modest sourness and astringency in the mouth. Jarkko told us that in 2012 the vines were stressed because it was the second hot vintage in a row. The grapes developed less tannin than in 2011. It rained two weeks before the vintage, swelling the berries and lessening their ratio of solids to juice. That weather, he said, would result in a shorter life for the 2012. The 2011 Chianti Classico was darker than typical for that vintage. The nose was dominated by cinders and woodsy smells. Average acidity and astringency balanced the piquancy of alcohol in the mouth. A 2010 Chianti Classico was paler but with a similar nose and palate to those of the 2011. It was slightly more complex than the 2011. The 2011 Pli was very dark. It was too oaky in the nose for current drinking. Alcohol dominated in the mouth. On the other hand, the 2009 Pli, from another warm year, was one of the best Sangiovese wines that I tasted in 2015. The color was typical of Sangiovese. The nose had earthy, dusty, and boiled-cherry smells. In the mouth, it had a soft-textured astringency and less alcohol and more balance than the 2011 Pli. As we were leaving Candialle, Josephin mentioned that pli is a French word that means “fold.” The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze used it to signify the meeting of different realities and their folding into one another to make a new reality. Josephin and Jarkko have folded into each other. Pli, the wine, is the symbol of their new reality.

FAT TO R I A D I L A M O L E

At six hundred meters (1,969 feet) above sea level, Paolo Socci was looking down from Fattoria di Lamole over vineyards that his family has looked down over, if not worked, for many centuries—legend has it since 1071. He pointed up at his hillside vineyard and said, “See how the terraces look like narrow knife blades?” He postulated that the Latin word lamulae, which means “tongues,” became the Italian word lame, which means “blades”: “This is how Lamole got its name.”

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Socci loves history, particularly that of his village, Lamole. He has a theory to prove that it has roots in Chianti. San Donato a Lamole, the village’s historic church, was in the parish of Santa Maria Novella, a larger church in Radda. Because the suffix “in Chianti” was for centuries attached to Santa Maria Novella, Lamole, by association, has been part of Chianti. To support his point, he took us on the dirt roads that vault over the hills from Lamole to Radda to visit Santa Maria Novella. These ancient paths also suggest that Lamole’s link with Radda is indeed very old. In modern times as well, Socci’s family has been firmly in the Chianti camp. His grandfather Carlo was one of the founding members of the Consorzio del Gallo in 1924. In the 1950s, his father, Giorgio, won a prize for increasing production through specialized farming. At the time, the survival of the Chianti wine industry depended on transitioning away from promiscuous farming, but although Lamole had the advantage that many of its vineyards were already specialized, the upkeep of their stone walls required low-cost labor that only sharecropping families could supply, and the mezzadri were leaving their poderi to move to cities and towns outside Chianti. The village of Lamole went from nine hundred to seventy inhabitants during the 1950s and 1960s, decades of change.7 Either the vineyards were abandoned and their walls left to fall apart or the terraces were bulldozed and vines planted in rows running down the hills. This situation made all the landholding families in Chianti rethink their plans for the future. Socci credits Livio Piccini, “a self-educated man,” with helping three generations of his family to move through these changes, from his grandfather Carlo to him. Piccini, as the fattore, assisted in planning the replanting of the vineyards that phylloxera had destroyed, managed the relationship between the Socci family and their mezzadri, and organized all the daily work in the vineyards and in the cantina. So great is Socci’s gratitude to Piccini that in early 2016 he released the first two vintages, the 2012 and the 2013, of Le Viti di Livio. The first is an IGT wine. The second is a Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. The wine is made from grapes grown on vines that Piccini and Socci planted in the late 1970s. They selected the budwood from the vineyards of Lamole, grew them into barbatelle, and replanted them in the vineyard franche di piede (on their own roots). I have yet to taste this wine, but it should be Lamole-Lamole. For most of the 1960s, Giorgio Socci made the estate’s wine and sold it to Ruffino. In 1965, Paolo spent his year of obligatory military service in Florence. When he told people that he came from Lamole, they would often remark, “Ah, Lamole—that’s where they make good Chianti.” This germinated a seed of pride in him. The last harvest that his father vinified was the 1967. He died in December 1969. After Giorgio’s death, Paolo, in consultation with his brother and mother, took over the management of the estate from Piccini. Beginning with the 1968 harvest, the estate’s entire production of grapes was conferred to the Castelli del Grevepesa cooperative, where it was vinified and blended with other wines made from the grapes of other cooperative members. Socci worked at the cooperative in the 1970s and became its general director in the 1980s. But he was also dreaming about restoring Lamole’s reputation for fine wines. In the 1970s, he

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planted fourteen hectares (thirty-five acres) of vines with prephylloxera germplasm, from the budwood of Lamole vines planted before 1930. The wine industry boomed in the 1990s, and it seemed like this would last forever. In 1991, Socci planted Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay in an experimental vineyard at seven hundred meters (2,297 feet) of elevation in the township of Radda. But his love of Lamole encouraged him to confront and try to disprove its post-1970s reputation as a source of unripe grapes and thin wines. His hunch was that he could do this by restoring many of the elements of the viticultural landscape that had made the town’s wines famous in the past. Beginning with the 2001 harvest, he withheld part of the estate’s production from the cooperative and vinified it himself under a separate brand, Le Stinche. His first vinification, of the 2002 vintage, resumed the work of his father after a thirty-five-year blackout of family wine production. In 2002, he divided the family property with his sister. She took the family palace. He took the land, more than two hundred hectares (494 acres), most of which was forest. He ended up being land rich but cash poor. He ended the estate’s relationship with the cooperative after the 2006 vintage. Commencing with the next year’s harvest, he vinified the entire production of Fattoria di Lamole. Continuing to search for the reason why Lamole’s wine had been so great, he focused on restoring his farm’s terraces. On steep slopes, they stop rain from sweeping away finer soil, which is necessary for better growth and hence better skin development of the grapes. With European Union rural development funds, loans from banks, and his own money, in 2003 and 2004 he recovered seven kilometers (more than four miles) of terraces. The new vines that were planted were grafted on to rootstocks of Chianti Classico 2000 Sangiovese clonal selections and other selections made by the researcher Roberto Bandinelli. Ciglioni, grassy embankments that are a lower-cost solution than terraces, were used where the gradient was less. Inexpensive labor would not be returning to Lamole, so the design of the vineyards had to allow for mechanization. The vines were trained in rows of alberello candelabras, with the canes and vegetation tied to wires. This flattening of the canopy made possible the movement of small machines between the rows. Though the viticultural costs would still be higher than those of conventional systems, the wines he produced, Socci believed, would be noticeably better and would sell at higher prices. He would also have a great story to tell and something to show for it. The Universities of Florence, Milan, Padua, and Perugia took an interest too, each studying the restoration from a different perspective. In the early 2000s, the wine business was still strong, and banks were lending money freely at favorable rates. Yet it takes at least four years for vineyards to begin producing grapes at a remunerative level, and by the end of the decade, the world economic situation and the wine business had changed dramatically. The banks in Italy wanted to pull back their loans in order to recapitalize. The bulk wine price of Chianti Classico dipped lower than the cost of production. The domestic demand for expensive Italian wine dropped dramatically.

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In 2009, Fattoria di Lamole released the first bottles, 524 of them, of wine from grapes from the renovated terraces, the 2007 Grospoli Chianti Classico. More vintages and another single-vineyard wine, Lama della Villa, followed later. By 2014, the 2011 Grospoli numbered sixteen hundred bottles and the 2010 Lama della Villa, the second wine from grapes from the renovated terraces, one thousand. Fattoria di Lamole also produces Castello di Lamole Chianti Classico annata and Riserva, numbering about five thousand and twelve hundred bottles respectively. Hence, its production remains small scale, well below its potential. Economies of scale are not there. The wines have been well received by critics, but not so enthusiastically as to have buyers knocking on Socci’s door. Banks, however, have been knocking, but looking for loan repayments, not bottles of wine to buy. Literally down the road looms another adversary, the Lamole di Lamole estate, which the large and powerful Santa Margherita group owns. This company is aware that Fattoria di Lamole is floundering and has made moves to use its financial leverage to indirectly wrest some or all of Socci’s estate away from him. Socci is battling to keep Fattoria di Lamole his, or perhaps to find a well-financed silent partner. He winked as he showed us an ancient cellar he owns that, he told us, extends underneath the Lamole di Lamole facility. Juliane, his wife, offsets these dark storm clouds with the pastel shades that she uses to decorate the estate’s agriturismo. Socci has two brands, Antico Lamole and Le Stinche. He uses Antico Lamole for Grospoli and Lama della Villa, both Gran Selezione wines. The labels are modified replicas of ones from the Soccis’ early twentieth-century production. The period colors and designs are tasteful and classic. The other brand is Le Stinche, which is used for Castello di Lamole Chianti Classico Riserva and Croce di Bracciano IGT, a Chardonnay–Sauvignon Blanc wine. Stinche is pronounced “Steenkay.” Socci used to own the site of Le Stinche castle, a fortress in Lamole that the Florentine army razed more than seven centuries ago. Its captives were held in Florence, in a prison that took on the name of the place where they had been seized. Le Stinche prison still exists. Socci’s choice to trademark Le Stinche as a brand for his estate’s wines is further proof of his attachment to history. I tasted two vintages of the Vigna Castello di Lamole Riserva, the 2011 and 2010. The 2011 had woodsy, cindery, and earthy smells. It was ready to drink. The 2010 had vegetal, oaky, and earthy smells and was soft in the mouth, showing some maturity. I also tasted the 2010 Antico Lamole Lama della Villa. It was more alcoholic, sourer, more astringent, and in general more structured than the 2010 Riserva. Both showed the strength of the vintage. The 2009 Vigna Grospoli was very ripe and ready to drink. Despite its not being a Chianti Classico, Socci deserves recognition for his stunning 2013 Le Stinche Croce di Bracciano, the first wine from his high-elevation vineyard. He harvested its Sauvignon Blanc fifteen days before its Chardonnay. The Sauvignon Blanc vinification got off to a head start, and then an equal volume of Chardonnay must was added to it, lengthening the fermentation to seventy days. The wine has a deep, brilliant yellow color, an unusually mushroomy, peppercorny, late-harvest dried-tropical-fruit

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nose, and a slightly viscous texture enhanced by bitterness and girded with acidity. This is Socci’s first white wine, and a great one!

MONTE BERNARDI

At the bottom of Panzano’s conca d’oro sits Monte Bernardi. It is at the shell of gold’s southernmost point, on a hillside about 350 meters (1,148 feet) high looking down over the Pesa River. In February 2015, we met Michael Schmelzer, the winemaker and a family owner, there. Monte Bernardi is a member of the Unione Viticoltori di Panzano (UVP, or Union of Panzano Winegrowers), an association of Panzano organic wine producers. Many of its twenty or so members are outsiders, in that they came to Panzano from somewhere else. Schmelzer would be an ideal ambassador for the United Nations of Panzano, an insider’s nickname for the organization. Born in Germany, he has lived and studied in the United States and Australia. His first love was cuisine. He went to Paris to earn his chef’s hat at Le Cordon Bleu. Meanwhile, the Schmelzer family had established its retreat at Monte Bernardi. On one of his visits to Chianti, he met fellow world traveler Sean O’Callaghan, the winemaker at Riecine. O’Callaghan inspired Schmelzer to follow in his footsteps and become a Chianti Classico winemaker. Fortunately, he had a wine estate waiting for him. He went to Australia, earned an enology degree, and returned to join his sister, Jennifer, at Monte Bernardi. She is the commercial manager. Schmelzer brims with unconventional, well-reasoned ideas. He introduced the practice of braiding, intrecciatura in Italian, to Chianti Classico. Twirling a vine’s topmost shoots into a braid, normally done in June, allows the plant to channel its growth force there. If it were topped instead, secondary shoots would grow lower in the canopy, restricting airflow and sunlight and thus necessitating the shoots’ removal. Schmelzer also finds that braiding enhances the phenolic development of the grape skins and advances the harvest by several days. Now other winegrowers are becoming vine stylists. Schmelzer wants to go back to the basics of Sangiovese clonal selection. Instead of the new clonal selections that favor small bunches, thick grape skins, and early ripening, he prefers F9 and R24, 1980s-generation clones that spawn bigger bunches of large, slowto-ripen grapes with thin skins. Schmelzer appreciates the more delicate aromas, more variable ripeness, and fruitier flavors associated with these clones. Nor does he like mass selection, which has been the vogue since the mid-1990s, since it does not allow him to track the performance of his selections. Winegrowers are usually quick to point out how densely their vines are planted. High densities impress journalists. Schmelzer boldly presents a contrarian view. He likens a densely planted vineyard to a crowd of sweating people on a muggy day and prefers to surround each vine with space, air, and light. His vine density is close to the minimum that Chianti Classico wine law allows for new plantings, 4,400 per hectare (1,781 per

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acre). Schmelzer’s is about 4,717 per hectare (1,909 per acre), with 2.65 meters (8.69 feet) between rows and 0.8 meters (2.6 feet) between the vines in each row. Since the mid-1990s, one of the highlights of most winery tours has been the selection table. These work in many ways. Perforated conveyor belts shake the grapes, move them across a vacuum head, or send them into a pool of water, all in the name of separating the “good” from the “bad.” Schmelzer has no selection table. He believes that their excessive use has led to the selection of grapes that are all at the same level of ripeness, usually very high. The result is monotonous, high-alcohol wines. He likes to harvest grapes at different levels of ripeness. Less-ripe grapes, which most winegrowers avoid, he seeks out, to increase acidity and lower alcohol levels. Furthermore, to get a diversity of flavor within each bunch, he has stopped bunch pruning, the process of removing the wings or ears of bunches so as to accelerate, concentrate, and homogenize the ripening of the grapes that are left. In the winery, Schmelzer avoids unnecessary oxidation and microbial contamination by always keeping his containers for vinification, maturation, and storage full. For this to be possible, they all have to be multiuse. He has purchased large oval casks with big openings at the top to function as both fermentation and storage vats. He vinifies all Monte Bernardi wines similarly, to maximize the use of his equipment. However, he keeps the grapes separated by provenance. After vinification, different lots are matured for different amounts of time in different containers, to differentiate the product lines. He pointed to an immaculately clean small basket press. “I like to press the skins and seeds hard after the fermentation, as hard as I can press without breaking the seeds,” he said. “At the end of the process, the skins are so dry that I can blow them out of my hand as if they were powder. I prefer the tannins from the grapes to the tannins from oak. The grape tannins might taste aggressive at the beginning of the wine’s maturation, but they soften up. For this reason, I use as little new oak as I can. When I buy thirty-hectoliter [793-gallon] ovals, I choose German and Austrian oak, because it has a lighter oak flavor.” Schmelzer calls on his chef training for his motto, “You have to think of the whole brodo [soup].” This is kitchen lingo for “You have to consider how everything contributes to the making of a dish.” The Schmelzer family purchased Monte Bernardi in 2003. There are 9.5 hectares (23.5 acres) of vineyards at the estate, which also leases and farms five hectares (twelve acres) at up to five hundred meters (1,640 feet) of elevation closer to the village of Panzano. The estate produces one single-vineyard wine, Sa’etta, from a two-hectare (fiveacre) vineyard. While this is its deluxe wine, Monte Bernardi also offers a fresh, light, lowish-alcohol Sangiovese called Sangió, made from grapes from the higher-elevation vineyard. The highest yield that Schmelzer can get at Monte Bernardi is four thousand bottles per hectare (1,619 per acre), or thirty hectoliters per hectare (321 gallons per acre), which is tiny. Chianti Classico is an expensive place to farm. It costs Monte Bernardi about 3.50 euros per liter ($14.75 per gallon) just to make the wine that is put in the bottle. To help

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support the estate, the Schmelzers have developed a merchant line of wines called Fuori Strada, “Off road.” They purchase wine, have it bottled and labeled, and sell it to the wine trade. This line presently features a Tuscan Sangiovese and a Sicilian Grillo sold in Tetra Pak cartons. I sampled three vintages of Monte Bernardi’s Retromarcia Chianti Classico, the 2011, 2012, and 2013. Retromarcia means “to go in reverse,” the implication being that the wine is a return to tradition. The blend is 95 percent Sangiovese, 3 percent Merlot, and 2 percent Canaiolo Nero. The fermentation takes place in concrete and stainless steel vats with a skin maceration period of up to twenty days. The wine matures in second- and thirdyear barriques and tonneaux. All three were pale and refreshingly berry loaded in the mouth. The 2011 and 2012 vintages had more structure and more alcohol. The 2013 would be a pleasant wine for lunch, while the 2011 and 2012 would be perfect with grilled steak. I also sampled two vintages of the Chianti Classico Riserva, a 2010 and a 2008. The blend is 95 percent Sangiovese and 5 percent Canaiolo Nero. Some of the grapes come from the Sa’etta vineyard. The Riservas go through at least two years of maturation in oak cask. The nose of the 2010 had earthy, cherry, and balsam smells. The wine was alcoholic with moderate astringency. The 2008, from a briefer season, had a fresher cherry nose and higher acidity, lower astringency, and slightly lower alcohol than the 2010. It was balanced, perfect for drinking now.

POGGIO SCALETTE

When we visited Vittorio Fiore at Poggio Scalette in February of 2015, he told us that he was sixty harvests old. At the age of fourteen, he participated in his first harvest. He and his wife, Adriana Assjè di Marcorà, named the estate that they bought in 1991 Poggio Scalette, “hill of small stairs,” to refer to the terraces that look like steps going up the hillside. Fiore believes in Poggio Scalette’s terroir. It is in a località, Ruffoli. In 2002, with his son Jurij, an enologist trained in Dijon, at his side, he had told me that if Ruffoli were recognized as a Chianti Classico subzone, he would use the Ruffoli designation for the estate’s jewel wine, Il Carbonaione. Its alter ego is on the back label: this is “Il vino di Vittorio Fiore,” “The wine of Vittorio Fiore.” For Fiore, Il Carbonaione is the culmination of his life in wine. He is willing to share the identity of this Vittorio wine only with its birthplace, Ruffoli, and certainly not with unspecific Chianti Classico. He still feels this way today. Ruffoli or bust! So Il Carbonaione remains an IGT, identifying itself as from Alta Valle della Greve, the upper Greve River Valley. Fiore and Jurij took us to see the Carbonaione vineyard. Marina, the family dog, followed, occasionally darting away to chase a small deer that disappeared between the vines. Il Carbonaione was planted in 1925. It was the most important vineyard of the five hectares (twelve acres) that the Fiores purchased in 1991. Because the site was not on a

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steep slope, the vines were in rows eight meters (twenty-six feet) apart along the contour of the hill, to reduce erosion, with wheat planted between the rows. Vittorio was surprised to learn from local mezzadri that some of the vines were on the rootstocks 3309, a low-vigor one used in the Medoc in Bordeaux, and Rupestris du Lot, which was more widely used in that period. The mezzadri remembered the numbers 3309 all their lives because the vines on that rootstock gave so little fruit. Those grafted on to Rupestris du Lot, however, rewarded the farmers’ hard work with high yields. Vittorio and Jurij, however, are happy with lower vigor and lower yields, which give them more concentrated and riper fruit. The main particle constituent of Il Carbonaione’s topsoil is sand, which is very difficult for vines to root in, drains water easily, and lacks fertility. Fortunately, the vineyard’s slope is not steep enough to need stone terracing to hold back the soil and help harbor water, soil nutrients, and humus. Underneath the topsoil at Ruffoli, it is a nightmare— rocks, rocks, and more rocks. And you can’t just cart them away without getting legal approval. Vittorio and Jurij explained that the cost of planting a site like Il Carbonaione is about forty thousand euros per hectare ($18,221 per acre). On flat, stoneless land, it would be about six thousand euros per hectare ($2,733 per acre). A steep slope could cost sixty thousand euros per hectare ($27,332 per acre). To install a vineyard with stone terraces would cost about five hundred thousand euros per hectare ($227,767 per acre). The original vines in Carbonaione are more than ninety years old. Vittorio and Jurij have replaced dead vines with budwood selected from the Carbonaione vineyard. They had it grafted on to rootstocks to make barbatelle. They believe that the original vines in this vineyard are the historic Sangiovese di Lamole biotype, that this was the selection of Sangiovese first planted in the Chianti hills, and that much of the Sangiovese elsewhere in Tuscany derives from it. At Poggio Scalette, the exposures extend from south to west. The fifteen hectares (thirty-seven acres) of vineyards are at 350 to 500 meters (1,148 to 1,640 feet) above sea level. Because the temperature drops below 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) during many nights of the year and mold cannot live below 10 degrees (50 degrees Fahrenheit), the vineyards are largely mold free. The prevailing wind, which comes from the north, can be brisk, but it also helps to reduce mold and protect against frost. The vineyards of Ruffoli, Casole, and Lamole have big plusses (great fruit) and big minuses (high costs and lots of work). The estate also makes a Chianti Classico and small volumes of Merlot and Chardonnay wine, destined for Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence. Giorgio Pinchiorri is an old friend of Vittorio’s. His restaurant’s staff comes to harvest the grapes. The Chardonnay, Richiari, is the most Burgundian (and best) barrel-fermented Chardonnay that I tasted in Chianti Classico. Unfortunately, only nine hundred bottles are produced each year. You have to dine at Pinchiorri to enjoy it. Poggio Scalette is a family affair. Jurij has taken over the day-to-day management. His brother Roberto sells the wine on the Italian market and his brother Alessandro in the

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export markets. Brother Claudio is the winemaker at the Castelluccio winery in the Romagnan hills. It is owned by Vittorio Fiore, two of his brothers, and other investors. Much of Vittorio and Jurij’s efforts go into enhancing the power while preserving the elegance of Il Carbonaione. It is a wine designed to age, not to drink young. For example, I described the 2012 that I tasted in May 2015 as “unusually dark in color; charred oak, dripping with very ripe red fruit and cinders, in the nose; high acid, alcoholic, very astringent, slightly viscous, chocolate finish; high in body, concentrated, and complex.” I also sampled a 1999. I remembered tasting it several years after the vintage. Now I was trying it after fifteen years of bottle aging. The intensity of color had lessened to slightly more than average for a Chianti Classico of that age. The nose was a bit vegetal with a celery note, earthy, and very ripe. The wine was soft, round, and tart in the mouth, with a persistent, lingering astringency. It was still powerful, but it had aged in the nose and become fuller in the mouth. Less expensive than Il Carbonaione is the estate’s Chianti Classico. The 2012 had much the same character as, but less intensity than, the 2012 Il Carbonaione. I smelled no oak contact. In fact, the wine had aged in lined cement vats. Vittorio is fortunate that his two neighbors, Querciabella, just below, and Il Tagliato, right above him, are both high-quality estates with unique personalities. All three have much to gain from the creation of a Ruffoli subzone. If this is achieved, Vittorio will have reached the summit of his hill of small stairs.

VILLA CALCINAIA

The Capponi family is Florentine, old, and distinguished. It bought four poderi in Greve in 1524. From this purchase grew a nucleus of buildings that was later crowned by the family’s country villa, Calcinaia, which is just north of Greve village. Today the estate comprises about thirty hectares (seventy-four acres) of vineyards just west of the Greve River. The Chianti Classico vineyards range from 220 to 350 meters (722 to 1,148 feet) in elevation and face mostly east-southeast. The soil changes as one goes up the hill, from deep, rich loam to shallower, calcareous sandy soils with galestro. Calcinaia means “chalk quarry” in Italian. The estate has not only elevations and soils to play with but also varietal diversity. In two vineyards respectively planted in 1959 and 1975, biotypes of Mammolo, Sanforte, and Occhiorosso, three old Chianti vine varieties, have been selected and propagated for use on the farm. To tantalize our imaginations concerning what Chianti might have been, Villa Calcinaia makes small lots of each into varietal wines. This is the Le Microlinee series. Two Capponi brothers are managing the family farm. Sebastiano directs the estate. He would prefer to stay at the farm more, overseeing the viticulture and vinification, but he has to sell Villa Calcinaia’s wines to the world. He jokingly refers to himself as the Willy Loman of the family. Niccolò, a military historian, minds the fort while his brother plays Loman.

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In late October 2014, we visited the estate with the consulting enologist Fred Staderini. Fran engaged Niccolò to learn more about the history of the mezzadria system. I shadowed Staderini to learn about his role there. Outdoors we climbed up metal stairs to taste wines from tall, shiny tanks. Staderini explained that each was actually two stacked tanks. The top ones were full of fermented wines left to macerate on their skins. At the right moment, determined by its flavor, the wine in a top tank would be drained off its skins and into the empty bottom tank. Only gravity was used. The skins left behind would be almost dry. At the top of the stairs, we met Francesco Checcucci, a young, full-time cellar master and a native of Greve. He would drain wine into a glass from a tank, then pass it around. Staderini would offer his assessment and recommendations. The grapes in the tanks had been harvested a month earlier. After tasting one sample, Staderini said, “We can’t get anything more out of the skins. You should drain either tomorrow or the next day.” Francesco nodded. Staderini pulled a red book from under his arm and wrote down his instructions while repeating them aloud. He turned to me and explained that macerating after fermentation removes bitterness from wine. You have to taste the wine to know the right time to drain it off the skins. If you wait too long, you lose the fruit. Staderini was not only a consultant but also a teacher. We went down the stairs, stepped over hoses, passed by pumps, filtration systems, a crusher-destemmer, and tanks, and entered the winery. We went into a room where tonneaux were standing upright. Their wooden heads had been removed. They were filled with fermenting wine, but you couldn’t see it, because dry skins, the cap, covered it. Francesco pushed a glass into the cap, filled it with wine, and passed it to Staderini. While the wine in the tall metal tanks was destined to be the basic Chianti Classico, these barrels contained the estate’s first cru wine, Bastignano. The vineyard is at about 280 meters (919 feet) and has galestro-based calcareous soil. The vines, all Sangiovese, were planted in 2004 and trained in alberello, on stakes alla Lamolese, “in the Lamole style.” In this system, the branches rise up from a low trunk like the fingers of a half-open hand. The green shoots that grow from them are tied to the top of a stake, allowing the vegetation and bunches to spread out in the round. This produces grapes loaded with compounds that make dark and concentrated wine. This wine had been on its skins for about a month. Staderini recommended draining it off within five to seven days. “But taste it every day to make sure,” he counseled Francesco, then scratched some notes in the red book. Later we went down to visit the cellar where the Bastignano would mature after its maceration. A new ten-hectoliter (264-gallon) tonneau was waiting for it. Staderini mentioned that this barrel signaled a new strategy for the estate. While Calcinaia was playing with different sizes, other clients of his had settled on one type. He commented, “There is no one way. Each foot needs its own shoe.” Calcinaia’s Chianti Classico annatas are 90 percent Sangiovese and 10 percent Canaiolo. They mature for twenty months in large oak casks. The 2012 had very ripe red

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berry fruit and was both alcoholic and astringent in the mouth. The 2011 was paler but more aromatic, with smells of cherries and cinnamon. The fresher fruit in the nose helped to balance the alcohol in the mouth. The astringency was finer than that in the 2012. The 2010 was more complex in the nose than the other two vintages. It had earthy, balsam, and ripe cherry aromas, very Burgundian in style. Its acidity refreshed its alcoholic edge. This wine, the 2010 Chianti Classico annata, is a great success for the estate. Only fifteen hundred bottles of the 2011 Bastignano cru, a Gran Selezione, were produced. Charred oak dominated the nose. The wine was thick, tart, and dense in the mouth. I tasted licorice. This wine needs to remain in bottle several years before being let out. Then it will be more tame. Before we left the winery, Staderini led me and Francesco over to two barrels. They held Mammolo that will be bottled as part of the Le Microlinee line. Staderini ducked his head into one, took a whiff, and shook his head: “The malolactic fermentation has started. It’s good. Let’s drain it now.”

CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA CLASSICO CARPINETA F ON TA LPINO

Gioia and Filippo Cresti, sister and brother, own and manage the Carpineta Fontalpino winery in Castelnuovo Berardenga. While Gioia, an enologist, controls production, Filippo watches over sales and marketing. The label of the estate’s wines shows the hill from which Dante imagined himself witnessing the famous battle of 1260 at Montaperti in the Inferno. The Sienese, who vanquished the Florentines there, hail this as their finest hour in their rivalry with Florence. That rivalry smolders to this day. Gioia is fiercely Sienese. From the winery, she proudly pointed out the Montaperti hilltop, crowned by cypresses. Carpineta Fontalpino’s twelve hectares (thirty acres) within the Chianti Colli Senesi DOCG include a vineyard where the battle was likely fought. The estate also makes Chianti Classico, however, from fifteen hectares (thirty-seven acres) in Castelnuovo Berardenga within the Chianti Classico DOCG. The Carpineta Fontalpino Chianti Classicos are about 90 percent Sangiovese, and Cresti has planted other varieties, such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot, to use for adjusting the appearance, smell, and structure of these wines. The estate makes a Chianti Classico annata and a Riserva. Its other wines are IGT blends of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Gamay, Alicante Bouschet, and Petit Verdot. As a consulting enologist, Cresti has a wide range of experience and knowledge to draw on. In touch with the latest developments in her field, she selected the clones of these varieties from those developed by the Guillaume and VCR (Rauscedo) nurseries. She uses single Guyot where vigor is low, to encourage yield, and cordon-spur where vigor is high, to restrain it. In the winery, mindful of Sangiovese’s delicate personality, she pairs it with tonneaux, while she matures Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in barriques.

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CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA SS408 CLASSICO

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San Felice Castello di Bossi

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Poggio Macchioni 590 m (1,936 ft)

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MAP 7 Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico.

Cresti farms the estate organically. She says that wine producers use biodynamic practices primarily to impress journalists. She will have nothing to do with biodynamics at Carpineta Fontalpino. In the winery, she eschews selected yeast, allowing the ambient ones to create the fermentation. Her actions help to refute the common belief that all consulting enologists work by Machiavelli’s precept that “the ends justify the means.” An anecdote about Cresti shows her tenacity and love of this work. She grew up in a well-to-do Sienese family of architects and engineers. When, as a teenager, she told her mother that she wanted to get a technical degree in agronomy and enology, her mother disapproved, fearing that her daughter would become a contadina, and did not talk to Cresti for six months. Nevertheless, Cresti went for her degree. In her last school year, from 1988 to 1989, when she was studying enology, she was the only woman in her class. Afterward, she assisted Maurizio Castelli. Since 1997, she has collaborated with Carlo Ferrini. She decided to develop the Carpineta Fontalpino farm, which her family had purchased in 1980. Her brother, Filippo, excited by the venture, joined in to help. Cresti’s mother now is proud of her strong-willed, hardworking, and talented daughter. The three vineyards that Carpineta Fontalpino owns in Chianti Classico are at San Piero (3 hectares, or 7 acres), at an elevation of about 275 meters (902 feet) and on clayey-

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silty-sandy ancient marine soils; Ceretto (4.5 hectares, or 11 acres), at 375 meters (1,230 feet) and with marl soils with patches of alberese; and Petroio (7 hectares, or 17 acres), at 350 meters (1,148 feet) and with soils that have marl mixed with alberese, galestro, and macigno. Exposures range from south to east. At Petroio, there are also exposures to the west. Cresti blends the fruit from these three vineyards to make both the Chianti Classico annata and the Chianti Classico Riserva. Though the 2012 annata has the ripe fruit smells of the vintage, in the mouth it lacks the piquant taste of high alcohol. Astringency dominates the palate. The 2010 Riserva had oak in the nose, but its fruit was fresher, with a deep, raspberry-vegetal smell. In the mouth, the “heat” of the alcohol was more evident, but this wine was less astringent. As a result, factors in both the nose and the mouth left the overall impression of integration and balance.

C A S T E L L’ I N V I L L A

Coralia Pignatelli followed an unlikely path to becoming a wine producer in Chianti Classico. She and her husband, Riccardo Pignatelli, bought the Castell’in Villa estate in 1968. They lived in Rome and had two young children. He, of Neapolitan background, was a diplomat serving in the Italian foreign service. She, of Greek background, grew up in Switzerland. As a child, she had loved to garden. Castell’in Villa, several hours’ drive from Rome, became the family’s summer weekend retreat. It was a hamlet dating back to the 1200s, when it had been a Sienese outpost facing down Florence. But when the Pignatelli family first arrived, the hamlet was in a state of ruin. They quickly began to renovate the buildings and expand the one-hectare (2.5-acre) vineyard. FEOGA funding paid for much of their planting expenses. Soon they were selling grapes to the Chianti Geografico cooperative. Antonio Pacini, the Geografico enologist, gave Pignatelli informal winemaking lessons, and her first wine was a 1971 Chianti Classico Riserva. In the mid-1970s she had an early success, winning a prize for her “1972 Silver Gallo Nero,” as she describes it, which she entered in a competition in Piedmont. Before DOCG regulation changes in 1984, there was a quality category called vecchio (old), for Chianti Classico consortium members. Vecchio wines wore a neck seal with a black rooster framed by a ring of silver. The higher level then, Riserva, required three years of aging and had a gold outer rim on its seal. She met Giacomo Tachis in 1977. He was impressed with her tasting ability and invited her to be at his side at wine tastings. He also gave her advice, including a copy of the winemaking text Connaissance et travail du vin by his esteemed mentor Émile Peynaud. Though she sold most of her estate’s wine in bulk to either Antinori or Ruffino, she bottled more and more of her production, beginning to export wine to the United States in the late 1970s. But her life was thrown into crisis when Riccardo died in March 1985. Her dream of making Castell’in Villa their retirement home vanished. In grief, she wanted to leave the

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country, but she stayed. Her children had settled in Italy. She sold her house in Rome, letting relationships there wither on the vine. Finding solace in her love of gardening, she dedicated herself to using that talent to improve the wines of Castell’in Villa. The following winter, a sustained frost killed most of her olive trees. She almost gave up. Instead, she focused on one project after another, establishing a restaurant, an agriturismo, and a bed and breakfast. While most of the landed gentry hired managers, she personally oversaw the work in her vineyards and in the winery, often doing it herself. She is resolute in making wine from the best fruit possible without the frills of high technology or the cosmetic use of barriques. She employs Fred Staderini to help her during the blending process and to offer technical advice. She trusts him because, like her, “he loves to go into the vineyards.” She adds with a wink, “He has depth.” She seems to have financial resources that release her from the day-to-day anxieties of living off the income of Castell’in Villa. She opens her restaurant occasionally and has been known not to harvest entire vineyards of fruit because they did not meet her standards. She is Chianti Classico’s prima vignaiola. Most of Castell’in Villa’s fifty-four hectares (133 acres) of vineyards have south-facing exposures at altitudes ranging from 250 to 300 meters (820 to 984 feet), though Poggio delle Rose, from whose grapes she makes a single-vineyard wine with that name, rises to 350 meters (1,148 feet). The soil is mainly alluvial, with pebbles and sand peppered with beds of marine fossils. Poggio delle Rose also contains some alberese stone. Soon after Tachis met Pignatelli, he recommended that she remove the white grapes from her red wines so that they would age better. She did so. He also advised her to bud over (change the vines on the rootstocks) from Canaiolo to Cabernet Sauvignon. She produces a Super Tuscan, Santacroce, which is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. Yet she says that Cabernet Sauvignon grown in Chianti does not transmit place, nor do the Super Tuscans, which she describes as “horrible monsters.” Vinification and maturation are straightforward. The annata stays in large casks for about twelve months, while the Riserva remains longer, for two to three years. The Poggio delle Rose matures for two to three years as well, but it spends some of that time in smaller and newer oak barrels. The 2010 Chianti Classico annata stood out as my favorite Chianti Classico during our research period. It has fruit not obscured by oak. The soft texture in the mouth balances an edge of tannin. The real test: poured into my glass, it miraculously disappears. The 2009 Riserva has more structure in the way of astringency. The 2008 Riserva has a diesel-raspberry nose and more moderate and coarser-textured astringency. It may need more bottle age.

FAT T O R I A D I P E T R O I O

Pamela Mangini Lenzi, born in Seattle to an Italian-American family, has been living her dream. In 1965, she went to Florence to deepen her expertise in Italian studies

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and to better understand her Italian heritage. She met Gian Luigi Lenzi, a member of an old Sienese family, in 1980. They fell in love and got married. While Gian Luigi pursued a career in medicine in Rome and eventually became a professor of neurology, Pamela focused on reviving the Lenzi family estate, Fattoria di Petroio, in Quercegrossa. She had to manage the transition from selling their grapes to bottling and merchandising their own wine. For help, she turned to Carlo Ferrini, the technical director of the Chianti Classico consortium. Because of his expertise in the Chianti Classico territory, viticulture, and vinification, he was the bridge that the couple needed to develop Petroio into a wine estate. When Ferrini left the consortium in the early 1990s, he stayed on at Petroio as a consultant. Pamela Lenzi smiles when she talks about Ferrini. He has a big reputation and wants to work in a way that he knows will satisfy the market, but she has stubbornly resisted, pushing back against planting international varieties and buying more barriques. Of the estate’s fifteen hectares (thirty-seven acres) of vines, twelve (thirty acres) are planted with Sangiovese. The balance has Malvasia Nera, Colorino, and smaller plantings of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Canaiolo. Lenzi identifies Sangiovese, Malvasia Nera, and Colorino as the key varieties going forward. Petroio has a “back to the future” project of mass-selecting budwood from the estate’s oldest vines for replanting, thereby preserving its vineyard past for the future. The technical sheets for Petroio’s Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva show this direction. Prior to the 2011 Chianti Classico and the 2010 Chianti Classico Riserva releases, Merlot and/or Cabernet Sauvignon were in the blends. As of these two vintages, they are not. The move from barriques to tonneaux and larger barrels has been accomplished, and Petroio has stopped using selected yeast. Diana, the next generation of Petroio, has officially taken over ownership of the estate. A chef by training, she creates in the kitchen. As strong willed as her mother, she straddles managing the winery and following a culinary career. She discovered an interesting bridge between the two when she used the yeast strains from the Sangiovese vinification to make bread. Since wine production is cooking in slow, slow motion, she has much to give to Petroio beyond connecting to the next generation of wine consumers and fellow Tuscan wine producers. More than anything, Chianti Classico needs young vignaiole (the plural of vignaiola). Petroio’s 2011 and 2010 Chianti Classico annatas reflect their vintages. The 2011 has a riper nose and is more alcoholic to the taste, while the 2010 is more complex. The 2010 Riserva has achieved the balance of fruit and oak that the Lenzis have desired, while the 2008 Riserva is darker and the oak in its nose steps in front of the fruit. The 2008 Riserva also has an earthy smell and a soft texture. Petroio also makes a 100 percent Sangiovese IGT Toscana wine, Poggio al Mandorlo. It matures in stainless steel tanks. The 2012 was single-mindedly cherry loaded in the nose. Sourness balanced the piquancy of alcohol. It was a drink-me-up, fresh Sangiovese.

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FÈLSINA

To reach Fèlsina, we drove from Siena in the west toward Arezzo in the east on highway SS73. To our left, toward the north, the land rose up into the Chianti hills. The fields there were planted to golden winter wheat. Calanchi (the plural of calanche), embankments of bare, pastel-tinted blue-gray clay caused by landslides, pockmarked the gentle landscape. These formations characterize the Crete Senesi, the area of rolling hills to the east and south of Siena. The hills are deep clay, the deposits of an ancient Pliocene sea that covered the area 2.5 to 5 million years ago. Clusters of trees huddle in valleys, while cypresses and oaks maintain lonely vigils on hilltops. Their roots are not enough to grab and hold the soil. Clay absorbs rain like a sponge, so with nothing to secure them, these hillsides collapse, leaving open wounds of bare gray. For any first-time visitor, the calanchi are unexpected sights, perhaps even haunting. As we drove to Fèlsina, we noted how Lorenzetti’s Buon governo portrays this very landscape. Today, expansive fields have replaced the plots of both mixed and specialized agriculture that are visible in the fresco. There are no calanchi in the Buon governo, evidence that today’s monocultural farming strategies, though efficient, wreak havoc on the environment. Still, we imagined that we were driving into the Chianti Senese hills as depicted in the fresco. In 1366, a few decades after Lorenzetti painted his masterpiece, the Sienese Republic established a surveillance post that became known as Castelnuovo Berardenga. The modern wine estate of Fèlsina is just north of this village. Its birth was similar to those of many other modern wine estates in Chianti Classico. Domenico Poggiali, an entrepreneur in the lumber and shipping industries in Emilia-Romagna, purchased the estate in 1966. The sudden exodus of the mezzadria families had left the land in disorder. When Poggiali found a wine cellar built into sandy rock on the estate’s grounds, it may have stirred his Romagnan roots. Romagna’s wine industry parallels that of Tuscany but lacks its fame. The cellar had been built to make wine with grapes from the surrounding vineyards. During the 1970s, Poggiali and his son, Giuseppe, expanded the original tenhectare (twenty-five-acre) estate to forty hectares (ninety-nine acres). But the catalyst that brought it to the attention of the world was Poggiali’s son-in-law, Giuseppe Mazzocolin. This classics scholar and schoolteacher began devoting his life to the estate in the late 1970s. When Chianti Classico farms were starting to bottle wine and dip their toes into commercial waters, he found a dedicated and loyal collaborator in a young consulting enologist, Franco Bernabei, who has remained connected to the estate ever since. The two men decided to focus on Sangiovese, not the obvious decision at a time when lowquality Chianti was discrediting the image of that grape. Within a few years, in 1983, the estate issued two important wines. One, Fontalloro, attracted a great deal of attention. It took part in the Super Tuscan revolution. Though it was made with 100 percent Sangiovese, it matured in new barriques. The grapes came from two very different terroirs: the rocky, calcareous soils to the north of the estate, inside the border of Chianti Classico,

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and the more fertile loam soils south of Chianti Classico. The second wine, Rancia, was in its shadow until the 2000s. It was and remains a single-vineyard wine from a vineyard just inside the border of Chianti Classico. In 1990, when he was eighteen years old, Giovanni Poggiali, the grandson of Domenico, began to work at Fèlsina. During the 1990s and 2000s, he learned the business from his uncle Giuseppe Mazzocolin. In the past few years, Mazzocolin has stepped back to play a supporting role. Poggiali now leads Fèlsina. Back in 2002, Mazzocolin brought me to visit Rancia. We drove through dark, dense woods and broke out into a clearing where the sunlight made me wince as it ricocheted off white stones. Vines struggled there in the alberese- and sandstone-filled reddish calcareous marl soil. The wine from that vineyard, Colonia, was not bottled separately until the 2006 vintage. Eventually, it became Fèlsina’s Gran Selezione in 2014 with the 2009 vintage. The vineyard selection is draconian. Only three thousand bottles are produced for any year. We drove on farther, down to a large and empty building, a former Benedictine monastery. On the other side was a vineyard running down a southwest-facing slope. This was Rancia. Mazzocolin loved the isolation of the spot. It was on the perimeter of Chianti Classico, but he knew that it would make wine that would be anything but peripheral. There are three main differences between Fontalloro and Rancia. Fontalloro is a mix of elevations, some at least as high as Rancia and others as low as 330 meters (1,083 feet) above sea level. Rancia is between 400 and 420 meters (1,312 and 1,378 feet). Even more significant is the soil difference. The sandy-silty-pebbly sedimentary soils of the lower sites of Fontalloro do not resemble those of the vineyards of Rancia at all, which are calcareous clay with alberese and some galestro. The third difference is the maturation of the wines. Fontalloro usually stays in barriques, for about twenty months, several more than Rancia. I tasted the 2010 and 2008 vintages of both the Fontalloro and the Rancia. The Fontalloro is an IGT and the Rancia a Chianti Classico Riserva. The 2010 Fontalloro was younger and more oaky in the nose than the 2008. The 2008 had a cindery nose, which showed the evolution of the oak, and was soft in the mouth, which showed the evolution of the tannins. I preferred this more evolved wine. The 2010 Rancia had a nose with cinders, mint, graphite, and ripe fruit. It was soft in the mouth, a sign of some maturity. The 2008’s nose had earth, mint, and black cherry. In the mouth, the wine was angular, without enough body to balance its acidity. All four wines were stylish and well made. My preference is usually for wines with less oak overlay. For this reason, I liked the two Rancia wines more. I also sampled a 2010 Chianti Classico Riserva. Though it is less expensive, I preferred it to the Fontalloro and Rancia wines. The nose had a malty, cacao smell. There was burned oak too. The astringency was high, but the wine was soft textured. It also had a long finish. I caught this wine at its perfect moment. I also tasted the 2013, 2012, and 2011 Fèlsina Berardenga Chianti Classicos. Of these three vintages, I preferred the 2011. The nose was very ripe, woodsy, and cindery. The wine’s astringency was low, and without that sensation to compete with, the acidity was refreshing in the mouth. The 2012

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was too ripe in the nose for me. It smelled of strawberries that are so ripe that they turn into juice when you touch them. The 2013 was too young. Despite the fact that much of the maturation occurred in large barrels, oak dominated the wine. Perhaps if it had had more fruit, this sensation would have been less strong. Poggiali is Castelnuovo’s only proprietor on the board of councillors of the Chianti Classico consortium. He has also been a unifying force behind the Classico della Berardenga association. In early 2015, about thirty producers of wine and other products in the township of Castelnuovo Berardenga met together under this banner to develop a shared identity of place that they could share with the world.

VILLA DI GEGGIANO

A corpulent farm manager, a fattore, dressed in a blue waistcoat was leaning against a barrel. He was derisively pointing at a black tub. One mezzadro, his head down, avoided the fattore’s stare, but another met it with one that combined fear, humiliation, and hatred. The artist of this fresco was Ignazio Moder, an itinerant Tyrolean. We were in Villa di Geggiano, a baroque palace six kilometers (four miles) northeast of the city of Siena. At the end of the eighteenth century, Moder had painted one of its corridors with scenes of activities characteristic of each of the twelve months of the year. There were many other figures in this fresco: a young man climbing a tree to harvest grapes, another using a club to punch down grapes in a wooden bucket, and the most famous of all, a young man holding a red rose. However, none of these more pleasant images could erase the rancor of centuries expressed in the glares of the fattore and the mezzadro. We were with Alessandro Boscu Bianchi Bandinelli, one of the two owners of the villa, now an estate in Castelnuovo Berardenga that makes Chianti Classico. The other owner, his brother, Andrea, was in London opening a restaurant also named Villa di Geggiano. They have restored the baroque palace. This was no easy feat and came at great cost. Since the villa is a national monument, it is open only for guided tours. The Bianchi Bandinellis rent out adjacent buildings as luxury accommodations, and the villa’s grounds and outdoor theater for special parties. In 1990, an American investor bought shares, enabling the brothers to renovate the vineyards and winery, which complement the estate’s multifaceted operations. Today, with eleven hectares (twenty-seven acres) of vineyards on a property of twenty hectares (forty-nine acres), the estate makes a pure style of Chianti Classico that represents it at the villa’s functions in Siena and at the Villa di Geggiano restaurant in London. The fresco depicting the rancor shared by the fattore and the mezzadro must have moved the brothers’ grandfather Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, a famous archaeologist and art historian. At the end of the 1950s, he effectively gave away two hundred hectares (494 acres) and twenty poderi to the estate’s resident mezzadri families. The mezzadria system had not yet begun its rapid devolution. He wanted to give them a better life. He also gave them the villa’s vat house, encouraging them to use it in cooperation with one

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another. The former mezzadri officially founded a cooperative cellar in 1961. In 2009, this cooperative united with another to form the Cantina Sociale Colline del Chianti e di Geggiano Pontignano Chianti Classico. For these deeds, Bianchi Bandinelli earned not only the admiration of the estate’s former mezzadri but also the hatred of Tuscany’s noble class, who branded him a traitor and called him “the Red Count.” He was, in fact, a member of Italy’s Communist Party. Instead of focusing on the loss of much of their family property, Andrea and Alessandro have given Villa di Geggiano new life. Their revival of its wine production and their venture in London recall its early shipment of wine to England, in 1729. Florence has dominated not only the Chianti wine trade but also the territory of Chianti. The Bianchi Bandinelli family is among a dozen or so that keep Chianti Senese alive. Among their ancestors, the brothers have a twelfth-century pope, Alexander III, and a governor of Siena, Giulio Bianchi Bandinelli, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They have chosen Paolo Vagaggini as their enological consultant. He balances what his nose and palate sense with analytic results from his state-of-the-art laboratory in Siena. His sensitive touch never marks his clients’ wines with his identity. Like the Bianchi Bandinellis, he is Senese-Senese. The vineyards flank the estate and have exposures to the west-southwest and the eastsoutheast. They are ensconced in the soft-edged hills of Chianti Senese at three to four hundred meters (984 to 1,312 feet) of elevation. The estate is on the ridge that extends from Pianella northwest to Vagliagli. Being at the southeastern end of the ridge, it has a little sandstone and much more alberese. These are mixed with alluvium composed of sand and silt. Villa di Geggiano’s Chianti Classico wines are more than 95 percent Sangiovese, with the balance being Cabernet Sauvignon. The annata matures for eighteen months in tonneaux. The Riserva is made only in the best vintages. Whereas the harvested grapes for the annata pass through quickly, those for the Riserva are left in the crusher-destemmer for three days, covered with carbon dioxide gas generated by sublimating dry ice. This method of maceration, called cold maceration, increases short-term color and extracts soft tannins, which enhance texture. For the Riserva, there are two stages of maturation in barrel. In the first, 90 percent of the Riserva matures in tonneaux and the rest in barriques for twenty months. In the second stage, the two lots are married in twelve- to twenty-hectoliter (317- to 528-gallon) casks for ten months. A 2009 Chianti Classico had red fruits and a slight tarry note in the nose. In the mouth, the wine was very tart and had above average astringency. A 2006 Chianti Classico Riserva had a deep reddish color and a red rim. It looked younger than its age. In the nose, there was a whiff of diesel fuel, which indicated that the wine needed aeration. It was astringent and bitter in the mouth. Tannins from 2006 tend to be rough. This wine needs several more years of bottle age. A 1997 Chianti Classico showed its age with a dominant celery smell in the nose, lightly tinged with cigarette smoke, the residue of some oak contact. In the mouth, the wine was fresh and invigorating, thanks to its vibrant acidity and moderate astringency.

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S A N D O N AT O C L A S S I C O CASTELLO D I M ONS A N TO

Fabrizio Bianchi has been a steadfast pioneer of Chianti Classico. He has transferred the management of Castello di Monsanto to his daughter Laura. She smiled behind him as he recounted his story there. In 1961, his father bought the estate. The location was great, a little hilltop of galestro at 310 meters (1,017 feet) of elevation looking west to the towers of San Gimignano. Bianchi had the right blend of genes to make Tuscan wine, onequarter Piedmontese, three-quarters Tuscan. When he arrived, the situation was challenging. The vines, mostly of red varieties, some of white, were trained up trees, and a rudimentary winery and cantina awaited him, complete with chestnut vats and barrels. Making Chianti was his initiation to the place. He put the name of the vineyard, Il Poggio, on Monsanto labels. This was very unusual. Though mezzadri named the vineyards they worked in, the merchants who bottled wine never did. The 1962, his first wine, was good enough for him to try again. When I last tasted it forty years later, in 2002, it was very pale and somewhat leathery in the mouth, with a sweet caramel nuance from old age. It was fading but alive. In 1964, his father bequeathed Fattoria di Monsanto to him and his wife, Giuliana, as a wedding present. Over the years, Bianchi improved the vineyards, the winery, the cellar, and, as a result, the wine. In 1968 he removed the white grapes, an act that the law did not then allow. He could make better red wine that way. He abandoned the governo. He destemmed the grapes to improve the wine’s color, increase its alcohol, and decrease its bitter flavors. He bought stainless steel vats. By showering them with water, he could exert some control over the temperature of the fermentation. With an eye to providing himself with even finer raw material, in 1968 he also planted a vineyard called Scanni. It was 100 percent Sangiovese, trained on wires in rows. The label of the first vintage of the Scanni vineyard wine read, “1974 Sangiovese Grosso, Chianti V.Q.P.R.D.” A wine labeled Chianti could not, by law, be a varietal. V.Q.P.R.D. was European Economic Community–level labeling that I have never seen on a bottle of Italian wine. The message was tongue-in-cheek. Bianchi was declaring that wine should be a reflection of its origin and fruit. The next year, to avoid prison, he labeled it as a vino da tavola. As if he were an engineer slowly improving an airplane, step by step he made changes. In 1971, he began moving away from chestnut barrels. He added oak thirty-five- and fiftyhectoliter (924- and 1,321-gallon) casks. In 1977, he used twenty-kilogram (forty-fourpound) baskets instead of large hoppers to collect harvested bunches. He swapped pumps that chewed the wine to ones that gently pushed it. By 1974, he had reduced barrel maturation for the Riserva Il Poggio from forty-eight to forty-two months. In 1990, he began to use barriques as well as large barrels. In 1996, he installed truncated-coneshaped vats to enhance extraction during maceration. Also in the 1990s, he reduced maturation to two years in barriques and large oak casks. Now it is about eighteen months in new and used tonneaux. 236

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SAN CASCIANO CLASSICO

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In 2000, Laura took over the winemaking with the full-time assistance of the enologist Andrea Giovannini. She will continue to make the pure, honest style of wine that her father has made, improving it whenever she can. Monsanto’s Chianti Classico annata is as classic as it comes, 90 percent Sangiovese and 10 percent Canaiolo and Colorino matured in large oak barrels for one year. A 2012 had cherry and cinnamon in the nose and was dominated by alcohol on the palate. The 2011 had a wood-spice, clove, mint, and cherry nose and above-average sourness, astringency, and alcoholic richness in the mouth. It was reminiscent of French red Burgundy. Monsanto’s Scanni vineyard bottling is alive and well as the Fabrizio Bianchi Sangiovese IGT Toscana. The 2010 vintage was moderate to deep in color. A vibrant nose of red fruits and cinders could be translated as “Sangiovese” and “toasted oak.” The wine was big in all dimensions: body, texture, complexity, and concentration. It needs time. I tried the 2004 and 1970 vintages of the Il Poggio Chianti Classico Riserva. The 2004 had a floral and woodsy nose and, though round in the mouth, left a trail of fine astringency. It was fully mature, with not a hint of oxidation. The 1970 was very pale amber brown with an orange rim. In the nose, alongside the cherry, there was some celery, a sign of oxidation. A balsam note was evolved toasted oak. The wine was delicate and sour in the mouth. It was ready to drink.

CINCIANO

To get to Cinciano, take a right turn immediately after entering a rotary that comes off the Raccordo Firenze-Siena highway (RA3) at the Poggibonsi Nord exit. Then immediately take another right, on to a small road that trails through an industrial park. Instead of taking the next right, on to a road that leads under the highway toward Castello di Monsanto in Barberino, you must continue driving straight to the north-northeast on the thin slice of land between the highway to the east and Cinciano Creek to the west. The creek moves silently, hidden in a tree-lined, shallow gully. Here it defines the western border of the Chianti Classico zone. As you drive farther up the road, it gets narrower, cutting an alley through clutches of buildings and finally becoming a dirt road. On the left, the valley of the Elsa River opens up. The towers of San Gimignano are perched on a hill in the distance. But you need to keep your eyes on the road and drive slowly. Though the scenery is idyllic, the turns are sharp and dangerous. At the most dangerous corner of all, one drives on a ledge leaning over olives trees and vineyards, and then Cinciano comes into view, a large villa surrounded by a complex of buildings. This is a marvelous place not only to stay in the agriturismo units but also to dine at the boutique restaurant, Osteria 1126. The number alludes to the first year that habitation was noted here. In Roman times, the gens (Latin for “clan”) Cincia may have lived on the hill, also called Cincia. A visit to Cinciano is an adventure back in time.

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If you want to learn about wine, email ahead to reserve a tour with the agricultural manager and trained enologist Valerio Marconi. He is one of the few born in Poggibonsi to have landed a full-time job managing the agricultural production of an elite wine estate—in his case, by virtue of his enological degree and work in La Morra in the Barolo wine region and overseas in Chile and New Zealand. Graduates of enology schools are lucky to get jobs as assistants to older enologists. Marconi is even more fortunate, making his own decisions at Cinciano: “I am grateful that I have the possibility of making something from the land in which I was born. We must give value to our land and our work.” He will take you around the 150 hectares (317 acres) of the estate, including thirty (seventy-four acres) of vineyards and forty (ninety-nine acres) of olive trees. The estate makes not only Chianti Classico, in a winery constructed in its twelfth-century villa and the surrounding buildings, but also olive oil, with its own frantoio (olive press). Marconi’s grandfather harvested olives here in the 1980s. The tour of the vineyards will include a range of exposures, most facing west to San Gimignano and northwest toward the village of Barberino. The hill reaches an elevation of 350 meters (1,148 feet). This is one of the warmest areas of Chianti Classico. It gets late-afternoon sun and is exposed to the warm southwesterly winds from the Tyrrhenian Sea. These are the ones most likely to bring rain to Cinciano. The land skirts the western edge of the Chianti Classico appellation, where the soils, deposited during the Pliocene epoch, are fertile clay, silt, and sand. In some pockets of sand there are fossil mollusks. The vines on these fossil beds produce some of Cinciano’s fruitiest wine. When Marconi is out in the vineyard, he stuffs fossils in his pockets. They are everywhere in his house. At the southern end of the estate, near San Giorgio, he showed us a flat vineyard with northerly and northeasterly exposures at the base of a valley and said, “Here the wines have a lot of aromas. When the vines are close to the forest, they pick up its fresh smells.” He then took us to an old vineyard of three hectares (seven acres) planted in 1971 in an area devoted to Sangiovese. The soil is calcareous clay with some alberese stone, giving the wine more structure. These grapes go into the Cinciano Chianti Classico Riserva. Marconi then brought us to a vineyard planted on galestro-based soil: “This soil is drier and has minerals such as calcium carbonate and iron. It makes fantastic wine. We will replant it and use the grapes for our Riserva wine.” We did not get to visit a vineyard at the summit of the hill, Macerita, which is crossed by an old road lined with cypresses. This used to be the main road from the villa at Cinciano to Florence, but no one uses it anymore. The vines were flowering. Marconi gave us a biology lesson too. Peeling apart a vine flower with his fingers, he showed us how the stamens pollinate the pistil and give birth to grapes. Our tour continued to the winery, outfitted with renovated concrete vats. Next we walked through an older cellar. A lineup of thirty-five- and fifty-hectoliter (924- and 1,321-gallon) barrels of Slavonian oak was where the Chianti Classico annata matures. The Riserva matures in 225-liter (59-gallon) barriques for fourteen to sixteen months.

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Marconi then took us to an even older cellar in the villa, where Pietra Forte, an IGT blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, the owners’ favorite wine, matures in barriques. The owners, Ottavia and Ferdinando Garrè, are from Genoa. Cinciano wines are all about fruit. This was readily apparent in the 2012 Cinciano Rosso, a 100 percent Sangiovese IGT wine. It started with rich, deep cherry and finished with refreshing acidity and an edge of bitterness. Marconi fermented it at a low temperature, 25 to 27 degrees Celsius (77 to 81 degrees Fahrenheit), to maximize the fruit. The grapes mostly came from the bottom of the valley where the soil was moist and the vines were close to the forest, but there were also some from Macerita. The 2011 Chianti Classico had darker fruit smells and was more astringent than bitter. The 2010 Riserva had tints of red and orange at the rim. Its nose mixed wood spice, red fruits, and just a hint of animal, which offset the clean fruit smells and the oaky notes. I finished all the Riserva in my glass, the best test, and unusual for me during a technical tasting. We also tasted the 2009 Pietra Forte. There was a faint whiff of its 20 percent Merlot and Cabernet. This wine was more astringent than the Riserva. Marconi told us that originally it was only 70 percent Sangiovese. “Now, at 80 percent, you feel Sangiovese in the mouth. The structure comes from the Sangiovese,” he declared. He was evidently pleased that here too Sangiovese had come to rule. As Marconi locked the door of the cellar behind us, he jangled a massive ring of keys. He is responsible for everything produced at Cinciano. He walks the different parts of the vineyard every day to note every changing detail. Each day during the vinifications, he tastes the wines and decides what to do next. He is so attached to the wines that he calls them “his.” Like the vines, he grew up in this area. His mother’s parents were mezzadri. Chianti needs more true Chianti vignerons like Valerio Marconi.

ISOLE E OLENA

In 1956, the De Marchi family from Piedmont purchased two hamlets in Barberino, Isole and Olena, which they incorporated into one, calling it Isole e Olena. Paolo De Marchi and his wife, Marta, now own the estate. Paolo visited there for the first time in 1958. He was seven years old. It took a full day for the De Marchi family to drive from Lessona to Isole e Olena. Highway A1 was not yet built. Paolo’s first view of the hamlets was an incredible sight. One hundred and twenty people, most of them mezzadri, were living there. The situation in Paolo’s home of Lessona was very different. The dissolution of the mezzadria system was more gradual in Piedmont than in Tuscany, taking one hundred years, not twenty. When phylloxera hit Lessona in the late nineteenth century, mezzadri and independent farmers left the countryside to work in the textile mills of Biella. The vineyards there were never replanted, and the area continued to industrialize, drawing sharecroppers not only from Piedmont but also eventually from throughout Italy.

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It was difficult for the De Marchi family to improve Isole e Olena. Effort, money, and dreams seemed to disappear into “that bottomless pit” (quel pozzo senza fondo), the epithet of Paolo’s father for their Chianti investment. Paolo remembers his mother turning to his father and asking, “Why did you get us into these troubles?” Paolo now sees the difficulties from another point of view: “Looking back, the pains were really joys.” Change came soon, and quickly. The mezzadri left in the mass exodus that enveloped all of Chianti. De Marchi sees this as a sudden release of centuries of energy. His family restructured the farm during the late 1960s and early 1970s. They took advantage of FEOGA funds to transform promiscuous agriculture into specialized agriculture. When De Marchi came back to manage the farm in 1976, he had just finished his studies in agricultural sciences and enology in Turin. He had traveled widely, visiting the enology schools of Geisenheim in Germany, Montpellier and Beaune in France, and the University of California, Davis. The renovation of the vineyards alone did not enable him to make high-quality wine. More investment was necessary, but interest rates for loans were as high as 27 percent. By the early 1980s, the farm was carrying enough debt to allow him to tread water but not to swim. He turned disaster to advantage. In 1985, a hard frost destroyed olive trees throughout Tuscany. National emergency funds offered him a choice of either a cash subsidy to replant olive trees or loans with 0 to 1.5 percent interest. He chose to consolidate and refinance his high-interest loans. He paid them off within five years and planted vines, not olive trees. These new vineyards incorporated better viticultural technology and were on a larger surface, allowing him to achieve better economies of scale. The market for quality Tuscan wine had just begun to improve. He began to swim. When De Marchi stepped out of the car in 1958, he set foot on a Tuscany controlled by old noble families. The De Marchis were outsiders. He asked his father, “Are we noble?” His father answered, “Why would that be important to you?” His father taught him not to care about this. While owning a Chianti Classico estate is an expensive hobby for other outsiders, De Marchi has had the drive, the knowledge, and the entrepreneurial skill not only to make a living from his family farm but also to gain recognition for its innovation and commitment to quality. His estate has been a meeting ground for professionals. On any given day there, you might meet the French nurseryman Pierre-Marie Guillaume or the consulting enologists Danny Schuster from New Zealand or Andrea Paoletti from Tuscany. On the other hand, to make vin santo, De Marchi sought the help of local mezzadri. When he sees something wrong, he speaks out. He is Chianti Classico’s honest fighter. The estate’s forty-nine hectares (121 acres) are between 350 and 450 meters (1,148 and 1,476 feet) of altitude. They are planted on calcareous clay with galestro and alberese. There is sandstone in the vicinity of Olena. Exposures vary greatly, as the vineyards are spread over the extensive property. The 2012 Chianti Classico annata is a blend of 80 percent Sangiovese, 15 percent Canaiolo, and 5 percent Syrah. It matured mostly in large casks and small barrels, of which 5 percent tended to be first use. The wine is pale, with spicy, cedary, cherry,

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and nutty aromatic nuances. The smell is reminiscent of Pinot Noir. Alcohol dominates the palate. The astringency is slight. Moderate in weight, it is a wine to drink young. Cepparello, named after a creek, is a selection of De Marchi’s best lots of Sangiovese. It is an IGT Toscana. One-third of this wine matures in new small barrels, one-third in one-use barrels, and the last third in two-use barrels. The 2011 Cepparello was darker than average for 100 percent Sangiovese wine. Oak and fresh fruit dominated the nose at first. After the wine was aerated, the fruit smelled extremely ripe. The alcohol was high, but so was the acidity, which balanced it. The astringency was higher than average, adding to the structure given by the acidity. I also sampled a 1995 Cepparello. That year was known for its cool growing season, which set back maturation, and warm Indian summer, which helped bring the grapes to ripeness. The wine’s color was still strong. At the uncorking, its nose smelled young, with dark fruits and a note of struck match. In the mouth, sourness dominated. The wine had the fine-textured astringency that I love in the best examples of this vintage.

POGGIO AL SOLE

When the Swiss brothers and winegrowers Johannes and Andrea Davaz saw Poggio al Sole in 1990, they instantly felt a connection to the place and bought it within five hours. Johannes, who goes by his Italian name, Giovanni, while in Italy, lives and works at the farm with his wife, Kathrin. He would never advise anyone to buy a farm, particularly in Italy, so rashly. It was tougher work than they ever could have imagined transforming theirs into a self-sustaining operation. He would like to form a group of producers who make a living from their production. For him, it is a point of pride that Poggio al Sole is a business that provides his family with an income rather than a tax write-off. He mentioned like-minded estates, among them Corzano e Paterno, San Giusto a Rentennano, Poggerino, Rignana, Le Cinciole, Isole e Olena, Fontodi, and Poggio Scalette. Poggio al Sole, “Hill in the sunlight,” is one of fewer than a dozen estates in the Chianti Classico part of Tavarnelle Val di Pesa. At 320 to 480 meters (1,050 to 1,575 feet) above sea level, it looks down at the ancient monastery of Badia a Passignano just to the north. The vineyards have southern, southeastern, and southwestern exposures. As a vignaiolo, Davaz believes in the identity of the land. He favors mentioning comune and sub-comune names on labels. However, setting up subzones involves difficult decisions. He is on a ridge that extends all the way to Panzano. Poggio al Sole has many pockets of galestro and some pietraforte, just like Panzano. Davaz pointed down to a knoll that identifies the Rignana wine estate. It is about one kilometer (0.6 miles) away. It is in Panzano and is a member of the UVP. Then he pointed to Villa Cafaggio, an estate on a more distant ridge, then La Massa, Castello dei Rampolla, and Fontodi on successive ridges to the southeast. All are in Panzano and are members of the UVP. He has much in common with the UVP producers. He shares many of their circumstances and perspectives. Like him, they are likely to be younger-generation owners. They are

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collaborative. They are innovative. They esteem the livelihood of farming. Their estates are biologic or moving in that direction. Given Poggio al Sole’s soil and elevation, it is a logical extension of Panzano. However, the members of the UVP have not accepted it into their fold. Poggio al Sole is in the township of Tavarnelle, not Greve. But Davaz believes that terroir should rule, not politics. He turned and pointed in the opposite direction, down at the ancient monastery: “Perhaps we could be in a subzone identified by Badia a Passignano.” Though the connection with this well-preserved tourist destination would be a plus, the soils there are generally richer and less stony. Antinori owns all the vineyards around the badia, and while it is a good neighbor, its size and power put it in a different league. Leaving the politics of land behind, Davaz took us to see Poggio al Sole. We visited the vineyards that encircle the estate. As we went, he told us the local name for each one. The mezzadri had a name for every single spot: Lo Stanzone (The large room), Greppi (Barren and steep hills), Corbezzolo (Arbutus), Campo di Acqua Calda (Field of hot water), Lupino (White lupin). Davaz and his workers still use them. One day they will be forgotten. They are preserved only in memory, not on paper. The original name of this estate was Casa Silia, which he has given to its Gran Selezione wine. He took us to a Sangiovese vineyard trained in Guyot on galestro-loaded soil. His southerly exposures are reserved for this premier grape. He explained that at the same elevation in Gaiole, temperatures would be cooler. This vineyard has an unobstructed southerly exposure. Then he took us to one facing Badia a Passignano. Here he had planted Canaiolo, which is normally harvested a few days before Sangiovese. Because it was not directly exposed to the sun, the Canaiolo here ripened at the same time as the Sangiovese. This vineyard was trained in modified alberello. Davaz pointed up to a spot high up, at five hundred meters (1,640 feet) of elevation. He wants to plant white grapes there and make a white wine. The vineyard will be named Vigna Kathrina, after his wife, Kathrin. He then brought us to the winery. We could have been inside a precision Swiss watch. Order, cleanliness, and functionality surrounded us. Over the years, he has learned how to handle Sangiovese. He has abandoned the prefermentation maceration of harvested grapes that is commonly done in Burgundy with Pinot Noir and in Piedmont with Nebbiolo. It does not work with Sangiovese. Ten years ago, he did four punch-downs or pump-overs per day. That was too many. Now he does two per day. Eighty percent of the wine matures in barriques. The rest goes into large barrels. The 2012 Chianti Classico annata was pale, with rich cherry in the nose. Oak was not evident. Sourness and alcohol were the principal actors on the palate, balancing each other out. The wine was sinewy in the mouth. The 2011 had similar characteristics, except that toasted oak was dominant in the nose. The nose of a 2008 had begun to show its age, with an earthy vegetal smell juxtaposed to the licorice residue of some new oak. In the mouth, the wine was quite astringent, in contrast to the 2012 and 2011. The Casasilia is a big step up from the annata. Unlike the annata, which is 10 percent Canaiolo, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, the Casasilia is 100 percent Sangiovese. The

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2012, a Gran Selezione, had all the trappings of a prestige wine. It was darker. The nose had new toasted oak, raspberry, and the slight pungency of a little reduction, the wine’s insurance policy that it will be perfect in a few years’ time. It was big in all dimensions in the mouth, particularly alcohol and astringency. My notes summed it up: “Ripe, oaky, concentrated, but has freshness.” The 2010 Casasilia Riserva was one of the best wines that I tasted in 2015. The oak had merged into the wine. There were no signs of age in the nose or the mouth. The astringency was high but had begun to soften and move forward in the mouth. My summation notes were “great balance, still young.” The 2008 Casasilia Riserva had red fruits and cinder in the nose. The smell of cinder may be due to the maturation of toasted-oak extracts in the wine. In the mouth, the astringency had moved to the front and was quite delicate, a sign that the wine was mature, ready to be enjoyed.

QUERCIA AL POGGIO

After a long drive down a rocky dirt road through patches of forest interspersed with small vineyards and olive tree groves, we came to a wide black-metal gate in the woods between two stone posts. We were with Maurizio Castelli, the consulting enologist. He telephoned the owner of the estate behind the gate, Michela Rossi, to ask her to open it, then confided to us, “This winery is my heart. It really is my heart. They make an unbelievable Sangiovese.” As if on cue, the gate’s two doors slowly opened. We sped up the hill and parked near a cluster of enormous old cypresses. The late afternoon was clear and crisp. The sun was just beginning to set. And the wind was just beginning to pick up. Rossi came to greet us. We huddled close so we could hear the story of the estate. Perched on a hill at about four hundred meters (1,312 feet) above sea level, it was first an outpost for Vallombrosan monks affiliated with Badia a Passignano in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa. It has been privately owned and managed as an agricultural estate for about two hundred years. Its name, Quercia al Poggio, means “Oak on the hill.” From our vantage point, it looked like it should be named Cipresso al Poggio (Cypress on the hill). Michela and her husband, Vittorio Rossi, became its latest owner-caretakers in 1997. She is responsible for the commercial and hospitality aspects of the estate, while he manages its fifteen hectares (thirty-seven acres) of north- and south-facing vineyards (along with their resident farm manager, Gianfranco, and the Senegalese and freshly minted Italian citizen Gilli, their farmhand). Pointing north toward a vineyard that sloped down the hill, Michela Rossi showed us where the estate’s Ciliegiolo vine variety is planted. In the distance we saw a pure white horse grazing in the stretch of grass between the edge of the vineyard and the forest line. This was her husband’s horse, Pioggia (Rain). Rossi explained that before the breakup of the mezzadria system, sixty people lived at Quercia al Poggio, mostly the sharecropper families who farmed the land. During World War II, the mezzadri here felt blessed to be sheltered from the bombing of the nearby town of Poggibonsi and to have plenty of food and other supplies. Only after the war did all of these families leave the farm to find

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prosperity and modernity in the surrounding towns. (The farmhouses on this property did not have electricity until 1962.) Not everyone abandoned the ship, though. Rossi told us about an eighty-four-year-old man, Mario Forconi, who had come to the estate when he was three months old with his family, who had become mezzadri on one of its poderi at that time. He had lived his entire life at Quercia al Poggio and had never been away for longer than two days. Rossi exclaimed, “It is incredible. When you see him, he is always laughing. He still insists on working in the vineyard, and he tends his own vegetable garden. Mario is our memoria storica [historical memory]. He is a part of our life.” We walked over to see the vineyards on the eastern side of the property, where the Colorino variety is planted. As it was the height of autumn, the leaves of the harvested vines were a bright rubino (ruby), just like fine Chianti Classico wine. In a cage by the stone wall on the edge of the vineyard, we spied a living example of Chianti’s proud past. Inside strutted a black rooster, with two of his black-feathered hens in tow. His bright red comb and wattles were striking against his shiny black plumes. Rossi explained that Forconi had always dreamed of having a black rooster. So the Rossis gave him his very own gallo nero for his eightieth birthday. When the rooster suddenly died after a few years, it took the Rossis almost six months to find another one for Forconi. They were surprised to discover how rare Chianti’s native bird had become. We strolled up the hill to see the estate’s vinsantaia (room for making vin santo). A few small cherrywood barrels were lined up atop a longer row of veteran oak barriques. One side of the room was open to the outdoors, facing north, and the other side was open to the south. This is where bunches of Trebbiano and Malvasia Bianca are traditionally hand-hung to dry before being vinified several months after their harvest (typically by February). As we stood talking in a circle near the vinsantaia, Castelli called out, “Ciao, Mario!” Rossi then introduced us to Quercia al Poggio’s oldest living vinedresser and gardener. Forconi is small and wiry. As he stood next to Castelli, he looked to be a foot shorter. He wore a sailor’s cap and a laughing smile. Rossi said that Forconi knew every patch of the property and the surrounding countryside. A couple of years earlier, when she and her husband had begun a project to renovate the cellars, he had warned them not to excavate in a certain spot because ceramic orci (large two-handled terra-cotta urns) were buried in the earth below. Rossi recounted that as they proceeded, they did indeed find two big ceramic urns (which now grace the main piazza in front of the estate’s private chapel). “Mario, is it true that there is a Chianti Fiorentino and a Chianti Senese?” we asked. He laughed and nodded his head. Rossi explained that he speaks an archaic form of Italian, with vocabulary and verb tenses from the vernacular Tuscan spoken in the time of Dante. At first it was difficult to understand him. But then it suddenly became clear that he was telling us the legend of how the Florentines had conquered Chianti from the Sienese. The retelling of this ancient tale filled him with glee. It was the furbi (artful or cunning) Florentines, he told us, who had duped the Sienese. They had dunked their black rooster in cold water so that it would crow earlier than the Sienese white

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rooster. We relished hearing this legend in Forconi’s medieval Tuscan. We wished him tante belle cose (many blessings) and continued our walk through Quercia al Poggio’s south-facing vineyards. To the west of the estate, in a valley below, the RA3 between Florence and Siena cuts it off from the small part of Chianti Classico in Poggibonsi. To the southeast and south, respectively, are the hilltop vineyards of the Castello della Paneretta and Castello di Monsanto estates. The soil at Quercia al Poggio is mainly calcareous clay with some alberese rock. The clay gives the wines power and structure. The estate gets some protection on its western flank from a ridge in Poggibonsi that runs along the other side of the highway. Thus its climate is more continental than that of its neighbors to the southeast and south. According to Castelli, this terroir results in wines that are deep in color, low in aroma when young, and rich and astringent in the mouth. Thus, he says, the wines of Quercia al Poggio need time. Perhaps owing to this reason or their personal choice, the Rossis release their vintages several years later than is common in Chianti Classico. Vittorio keeps the wine blend reliant on native varieties: Sangiovese, Ciliegiolo, Canaiolo, and Colorino. The Riserva is 100 percent Sangiovese. The Chianti Classicos mature for much longer than the zone’s average, the annata for two years and the Riserva for thirty months in five-hundred-liter (132-gallon) tonneaux. The wines that I sampled, however, the 2011 annata and the 2010 annata and Riserva, had modest coloration and astringency. The astringency was slow to develop on the palate for all three wines. They were fine textured, not woody tasting. These wines are not pushed to be big. They are released when they are ready to drink. Of these three, the 2010 Riserva was the star. It had the deepest color and the most intense smells, of cherry, cinnamon, earth, and balsam. In the mouth, a strong dose of acidity refreshed and balanced the piquancy of alcohol. The 2010 annata had a similar profile, though it was fruitier, less woodsy, and less intense. Compared to it, the 2011 annata was paler, had some oak and riper cherry in the nose, and was notably low in astringency. The alcohol and acidity balanced each other well.

SAN CASCIANO CLASSICO FATTOR IA IS POLI

Since 1999, Cristiano Castagno has been the resident agronomist and enologist at Fattoria Ispoli in Mercatale Val di Pesa. The vineyards are only 5.5 hectares (14 acres) in area. A small Renaissance tower blends into low buildings. They surround a courtyard. Ispoli in the late sixteenth century was the countryside home of Ippolita Machiavelli, the granddaughter of Niccolò Machiavelli, the famous philosopher. Castagno, who did archival research on the estate’s history, posits that the word Ippolita may have evolved into Ispoli. The owners today are the son and daughter of the late Bernd Mattheis, a German wine merchant. In 2003, when I first visited Ispoli, Castagno took me out to the fields. He wore a straw hat over a red bandanna that was wrapped around his head. A small scythe and a

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bunch of plastic ties hung from his belt. For most of the day, he worked, topping, cutting away secondary shoots, and adjusting the vine vegetation, pushing it between or tying it back to the wires. The grass was several inches high between some rows. Other rows were clean cultivated. The topsoil was light brown, with a good measure of clay and without stones. The fertility was high, and Castagno was learning how to manage it. That evening in 2003, I enjoyed a simple meal with him, Rosangela, his wife, and their three children in the old stone house where for more than four centuries other families had eaten meals and shared conversation. In 2015, I reconnected with Castagno, this time with Fran. During the previous summer, Rosangela had died suddenly. We sensed how alone he felt. In the twelve years that had passed, he told us, he had learned to keep the estate’s fertility in check. At Ispoli, leaving the topsoil alone reduces the soil fertility just the right amount. The diversity of flora and fauna is good for the soil and vines. The only time he uses a plow is when he clean-cultivates during periods of drought and high temperatures. Loosening the topsoil allows humidity to rise up from the subsoil. Ispoli was one of the pioneers of organic farming in Chianti Classico. The surrounding woods insulate it from neighbors who farm conventionally. The growing conditions present Castagno with other challenges. A succession of hot summers, with the exception of 2014, has left him puzzled about how to deal with wine alcohol levels over 14 percent. This concerns winegrowers throughout Chianti Classico. Even if he has mastered getting the best the soil can give him, it is difficult to preserve wine aromas and wine acidity, given the hot summer days of recent years and his estate’s low temperature variation, due to its lower-than-Chianti-average elevation, three hundred meters (984 feet). The high soil fertility and warm temperatures can also cause too-rapid ripening, leaving grape tannins less developed than Castagno would like. Overall, he finds his growing situation not dissimilar from some of the lower-altitude ones at Montalcino. Though Sangiovese and Canaiolo are the principal players in his Chianti Classico annata and Riserva, there is some Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon planted that Castagno can use to adjust these wines. He also has barriques to boost the aroma and soften tannins as needed. He makes the wine from the vine to the glass. For near-term drinking, I preferred the 2011 Chianti Classico annata to the 2010. It had a better balance of fruit and oak and was rich in the mouth. The nose of the 2010 was dominated by new toasted oak. It had more astringency and a more tactile texture. It needs at least three or four years to find its balance. One of the best wines that I have tasted recently is the 2008 Chianti Classico Riserva. The nose was a complex mix of balsam, boiled cherries, dust, and earth. The acidity seemed strong. I would have expected that this, combined with average astringency, to make for coarse wine. Three years of maturation in barrel and another four in bottle, however, had rounded the edges off both. The wine was mature. Ispolaia Rosso IGT is a barrique-kissed fruity 90 percent Sangiovese, 10 percent Syrah blend.

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Castagno believes that the Chianti Classico consortium should allow grower-bottlers who make more than half of their income from their own production to print on the foil capsules of their wines a designation that identifies their commitment to farming as a livelihood. Given their costs, small farms like Ispoli need an effective way to differentiate their wines in the market from those of merchants who buy Chianti Classico bulk wine at below the cost of its production and sell it at rock-bottom prices. Castagno summed up why he works so hard: “My mission is to make a living for my soul.”

L E C O RT I – C O R S I N I

The story goes that one could walk from Florence to Rome and never leave the property of the Corsinis. This family, which can chart its history back some eight hundred years, has been one of the largest landholders in Italy. However, it rarely, if ever, bottled wine suitable for export. Duccio Corsini has changed that. In the early 1990s, he and his wife, Clotilde, renovated the family’s striking, two-towered palace in San Casciano. At the same time, he got the wine bug, replanted vineyards, refitted the palace’s vinification and maturation areas, and hired talented enological help. The estate is immediately outside the town of San Casciano on SP92, the road to Mercatale, which runs along the crest of a ridge. The palace sits at the top of the southwestern flank, and its forty-nine hectares (121 acres) of vineyards extend southwest from 350 down to 220 meters (1,148 down to 722 feet) at Terzona Creek. The soil is of Pliocene origin. Round stones dull its natural fertility and provide drainage. The 2012 Chianti Classico annata stepped out first with its cherry and second with a woodsy note from some barriques. Most of it matures in cement. It is a solid, well-balanced wine from a difficult vintage. A 2011 Cortevecchia Chianti Classico Riserva reflected the extreme heat and drought of the vintage. It tasted overripe. The high alcohol made the wine top heavy in body and deficient in structure. The 2010 Dom Tommaso Chianti Classico Gran Selezione was a dark, concentrated, oaky, vegetal, and astringent wine. The Gran Selezione category has reinforced the idea that with respect to Chianti Classico, “bigger is better.” This message comes not just from the producers but also from the Gran Selezione discipline. Cutting down on the amount of Merlot, now 20 percent of the blend, would move this wine closer to native Chianti Classico. Zac, dedicated to Zia (aunt) Anna Corsini, the great-great-aunt of Duccio Corsini, debuted with the 2008 vintage. It is an IGT Toscana. The grapes, 100 percent Sangiovese, are harvested from the Gugliaie (pronounce that one!) vineyard. The 2010 Zac was pale red, with a vibrant cherry nose. Though its alcoholic content is high at 15 percent, it did not taste heavy or overripe. The wine had matured for eighteen months in barrels of various sizes. The oak had added spices, particularly mint, to the nose. This is a wine of finesse and elegance.

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PODERE LA VILLA

In 2003, Giacomo Tachis decided to replant an old vineyard, 1.25 hectares (3 acres) in area, in front of Podere La Villa, an agriturismo that his daughter and only child, Ilaria, was managing for the family. It was down the road from the Antinori San Casciano wine production facility on Via Pisignano. The Tachis family lived elsewhere in the town. Tachis’s longtime friend and collaborator and fellow Sancascianese Valerio Barbieri recommended that he choose Sangiovese and Merlot for the vineyard. The vines were planted. The initial idea was that the family would sell the grapes to add to its income. We can only assume, however, that one day Tachis would have made his first wine. All his life, he had made wine for other people. Within several years, he became ill and less able to continue his life as before. The responsibility to develop the vineyard increasingly rested with Ilaria. Family friends came to her aid. Alessandro Cellai, the technical director of the Castellare winery in Castellina, counseled her on the exposure and soil of her vineyards. Because there is as yet no vinification facility at the villa, the Di Napoli family at Castello dei Rampolla in Panzano has provided vinification, maturation, and bottling facilities. Markus von der Planitz, the estate’s fixed enologist, has wet-nursed and babysat the wines. Elisabetta Barbieri, a consulting agronomist specializing in enology, also keeps a watchful eye on them. The Tachis family winery, Podere La Villa, could not be in more caring hands. Meanwhile, Ilaria’s husband, Raffaele D’Amico, has become increasingly involved in the farm. At our last visit, in 2015, he was learning how to drive a tractor. The first harvest, the 2006, was good but very small. The family sold the grapes. The next year, there were two harvests. The same day that the vineyards were harvested, Ilaria gave birth to her first son, Riccardo. He is the first grandson of Giacomo and his wife, Maria. Given the importance of the day, September 7, 2007, the family decided to vinify this harvest. Though its 2007 wine was not registered as Chianti Classico, its 2008 was. The name of the wine is Pargolo, old Italian for “young child.” In 2010, the family issued a 100 percent Merlot wine, named Paggio, from paggetto, or “page boy.” Nicoló, Ilaria’s second son, born in 2009, had a burst of blond hair that gave him this look. With Maria and Giacomo passing away within one year, these wines celebrate the theme of new life and a new road. Over the years, the Tachis family has purchased more vineyards. It now owns about seven hectares (seventeen acres). Recently, the original vineyard was expanded to 2.5 hectares (6 acres). The elevation is about 210 meters (689 feet), and the soil is filled with round stones and fossil seashells. Ilaria Tachis has supported the recent creation of the Viticoltori del Chianti Classico Sancascianese, an association of San Casciano producers. The town lacks an image, and it needs one, particularly if the system of using comune names is adopted. That there are three large producers, Antinori, Castello di Gabbiano, and Le Corti, at one extreme and many small ones at the other may complicate the association.

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I sampled the 2011 Podere La Villa Chianti Classico. The vineyard of origin is the 1.25 hectares (3 acres) planted in 2003. Production is minuscule. The vineyard faces westnorthwest. The wine matures for eighteen months in small oak casks. The grape blend is 80 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Merlot. The nose had woodsy, minty, cindery, and ripe red fruit smells. The wine had a high degree of body, due to its relatively high alcohol content. However, this was balanced by moderately high acidity and astringency. The wine had a wide range of flavors and was surprisingly ready to drink. Paggio is 100 percent Merlot. It is meant to be a lighter, more ready-to-drink wine. The 2012 matured in second- and third-use oak barrels, making a wine that emphasizes fruit over structure. The nose smelled of cherries and cinnamon. The wine had a lot of body from its high alcohol content. The astringency was low. The acidity alone balanced the alcohol. Giacomo Tachis would be proud.

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11 THE MEDICI CODE The naked truth, magnanimous and pure, Did not exact long sleepless nights of study: Once having seen her true, sweet loveliness, The mind, fulfilled, requested nothing more. “A WOOD OF LOVE (THE GOLDEN AGE),” IN LORENZO DE’ MEDICI: SELECTED POEMS AND PROSE (TRANSLATION BY JOHN THIEM)

It was May 2014 and we were immersed in our study of Chianti Classico. We had seen Nicolò d’Afflitto, the Tuscan enologist, the previous week in Boston. Now the chief executive of the Frescobaldi wine company, he had invited us to visit him at the estate’s headquarters in Rufina, northeast of Florence. There we could learn more about the work of Vittorio degli Albizzi, the Frescobaldi ancestor who had transformed the family’s Castello di Pomino estate in the nineteenth century. On entering the Pomino winery we were welcomed by D’Afflitto and a giant reproduction of two antique parchments hanging on the wall. Each was crowned with a Baroque version of the Medici six-balled shield. We immediately stopped D’Afflitto to inquire about these images. He explained that they were two bandi issued in 1716 by the Medici grand duke Cosimo III, who had created the world’s first legal appellations of origin with these edicts that regulated and delimited four wine regions in the Florentine State in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany—Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra. The first bando, dated July 18, established the Nuova Congregazione sopra il Commercio del Vino (New commission on the commerce of wine) to oversee the export by sea of wine from the four named regions. The second bando, dated September 24 (see figure 5), delimited their geographic boundaries. It defined “Chianti” to include the principal three towns (“Terzi”) of the Lega del Chianti—Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole—and the area stretching north from them to Panzano, Greve, and the small hamlet perched atop the Greve River Valley, Spedaluzzo. This was a geographic delimitation of Chianti two centuries before the battle over its borders erupted in the early twentieth century.

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FIGURE 5 Bando of Cosimo III de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany, dated September 24, 1716, promulgating a delimitation of the wine regions of Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra in the Florentine State. Reproduced pursuant to the GNU Free Documentation License.

We waited until we had returned to our car and were leaving the Frescobaldi estate to confirm that neither of us had seen these two bandi in our previous research. The dal 1716 inscription at the bottom of the Chianti Classico consortium’s logo had taken on new significance. On returning to Boston, we surveyed our library. We double-checked two treatises of the 1770s, one by Saverio Manetti writing as Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi and the other by Ferdinando Paoletti, that set forth recommendations for Tuscans to boost the export of their wine, including Chianti, and found no reference to either bando. The encyclopedic Dizionario geografico fisico storico della Toscana (Geographic, natural, and historical dictionary of Tuscany), published in 1833, asserts that “no writer, nor any government department, has ever defined what are the limits and the extension of the province of Chianti.”1 Moving to the twentieth century, we were curious whether Torquato Guarducci’s 1909 book on the Chianti wine zone, Il Chianti vinicolo, made any mention of the bandi. Its map of “Il Chianti” (see figure 6) even looks like it could have been drawn directly from the second bando. Not there either. Likewise, there was no mention of either bando in Antonio Casabianca’s exhaustive history of Chianti from 1940, Guida storica del Chianti. Nor were they referenced in Lamberto Paronetto’s Chianti: The Story of Florence and Its Wines, printed in 1967. Then we found a full-page picture of each bando in a 1972 wine guide, Atlante del Chianti Classico, by Enrico Bosi. They were the same images as on Castello di Pomino’s wall, writ small. With glossy photographs of Chianti Classico labels and brief descriptions of each estate and its wines based on a four-star ranking system, this was not exactly a history book. But inserted in the introductory chapter was a mention of the second bando as “an ancient parchment preserved in Brolio castle . . . which specifies the production zone of Chianti wine (corresponding to that of the current ‘classic Chianti’).”2 Yet Gaspero Righini’s Il Chianti Classico, which was also published in 1972 and focuses on the historic, artistic, and literary traditions of the zone, makes no mention of either bando. Raymond Flower’s 1979 book Chianti: The Land, the People and the Wine, which traces the region’s history for more than 250 pages, even more surprisingly makes no such mention. In his postscript, Flower expresses his gratitude to many of the great old families of Florence and Chianti who opened their historical archives to him—including those of the Ricasoli family at Brolio Castle. But still there is no reference to either bando, even after they had appeared in Bosi’s Atlante del Chianti Classico seven years earlier. The plot thickened. It was only when we looked at books published from the 1990s onward that we saw the 1716 bandi consistently cited as a historical fact, but never with any backstory. Perché (why)? During the decades-long Guerra del Chianti between Chianti Classico and External Chianti, the scholars and journalists of Tuscany chronicled every minute detail of Chianti—its history, geography, culture, and wine. Italians mock their academics for debating “il sesso degli angeli” (the sex of the angels). With the definition of Chianti as a wine zone at the core of the Guerra del Chianti, would not the bando dated September 24, 1716, which declared the geographic boundaries of this region, have been the holy grail for Chianti Classico? Surely the existence of this historic precedent would have

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IL CHIANTI

FIGURE 6 Torquato Guarducci, Il Chianti map, from Il Chianti vinicolo: Manuale pel commerciante di vini nella regione del Chianti (San Casciano Val di Pesa: Fratelli Stianti, 1909).

proved Chianti Classico’s exclusive right to the Chianti name, whether in 1932, at the time of the ministerial decree legitimizing External Chianti, or in the 1960s, in the leadup to the creation of the Chianti DOC, which unified Chianti Classico and External Chianti. It appeared as if the two bandi had been lost to history and rediscovered only sometime in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Would not the Chiantigiani have met this rediscovery with great enthusiasm? Would not the scholar or amateur historian who had unearthed it be hailed as a true patriot of Chianti? Yet we could find no story or account of this great historical find. It was time to return to Chianti. We planned our next trip for October 2014 and, when the time came, packed our bags, mostly with camera equipment, books, and lists of questions. We decided that it was critical to visit Professor Zeffiro Ciuffoletti, a lecturer in history at the University of Florence who has authored dozens of books on Tuscany’s culture and agriculture. He also edited the authoritative volume Storia del vino in Toscana (History of wine in Tuscany), published in 2000. We arranged an appointment at his university office and arrived as waves of students were pouring down the stairs of the Department of History and into the cafés lining Via San Gallo. We found our way to the professor’s office. He greeted us cordially and helped to clear the stack of books from a second chair so we could both sit. After explaining the nature of our research, we proceeded to ask our questions about the two bandi. The professor confirmed our observation that they had been lost with the demise of the Medici principate in the 1730s. The Habsburg-Lorraine grand dukes who rose to power in the mid-tolate eighteenth century had politically and economically transformed (and in the process effectively discredited) the nanny state of the late Medici rulers, instituting a new regime of more liberal laws and regulations. As a result, even the enlightened reforms of the Medici grand dukes gathered dust in the files of the Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF, or State archives of Florence). Nonetheless, Professor Ciuffoletti told us that the second bando—the one defining Chianti’s boundaries—was known. It was the first bando—the one establishing the regulatory commission to oversee the export of wines from the named denominations—that had been forgotten, he explained. We were curious about whether any historical research had uncovered contemporaneous references to either bando or shed light on the specific circumstances of their promulgation. We had found a copy of the first bando in a collection of Tuscan laws published in 1806.3 But the second bando was not there. The earliest academic citation of it that we had located was in a compilation of Medici laws first published in 1994.4 The professor assured us that he would be researching this subject in preparation for the events then being organized to celebrate il trecentenario (the three hundredth anniversary) of the bandi in 2016. He confirmed that “we were asking all of the right questions.” But then he cautioned, “As outsiders at the state archives, you will go and get polite smiles but no answers to your questions.” Without the benefit of “drones” (student researchers) and archival insiders, Ciuffoletti told us, we would only be humored in our search for answers. The hunt was on! Our next meeting was with Niccolò Capponi, a respected historian and the co-owner of the Villa Calcinaia wine estate in Greve in Chianti. In response to our questions about

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the bandi, he reasoned that the lack of documented research about their provenance was likely due to “the Ponte Vecchio syndrome.” Scholars universally assume that the Ponte Vecchio has been the subject of endless historical research—but in reality only one monograph on it exists. When pressed further about the mystery surrounding the bandi, Capponi provided another explanation, by way of an old Tuscan proverb, “La verità attira la sassata” (Certain truths attract a stoning). Whether or not he was joking, this story became even more intriguing. Back in Boston, we tracked down a volume by Antonio Saltini titled Vino, conti e contadini: Cinquant’anni di scontri per le denominazioni del Chianti (Wine, counts and peasants: Fifty years of fighting for the Chianti denominations), which tells the story of the Chianti Classico consortium from its founding. In the introduction, Saltini (a noted author on the history of the agrarian sciences) explains that the consortium had engaged him to write an account of its history for its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1999 but then fired him when it deemed his text unacceptably frank. We compared Saltini’s book to the official volume that the consortium published in 1999, Un gallo nero che ha fatto storia (A black rooster that made history), which names Giovanni Brachetti Montorselli as its editor, even though the consortium’s current and former executives credit its former senior officer Girolamo Cavalli instead. It was clear that Saltini’s text was the foundation for the consortium’s book. While Un gallo nero included an image and brief description of the 1716 bandi in its first chapter, Saltini specifically referred to the “granducal bando” as the document that the founders of the consortium had relied on to exclude San Casciano from its official delimitation.5 Could it be that the September 24, 1716 bando was known at the time of the consortium’s founding yet later hidden from view? We returned to Florence in February 2015 for the consortium’s annual Chianti Classico Collection event. After a full day of tasting at the Stazione Leopoldo, we returned to Hotel Michelangelo, across the street, for a face-to-face meeting with the journalist who seemingly broke the bando story in 1972—Enrico Bosi. He was waiting for us in the lobby. We arranged with the desk clerk for a private conference room in which to talk. Bosi, now retired and living in the countryside of Impruneta south of Florence, is soft spoken and genteel, simpaticissimo in Italian. We reiterated why we were so interested in speaking with him. By our account, he was the first author to publish the existence and image of the 1716 bandi, in his Atlante del Chianti Classico. How did he discover the bandi? Where and when did he find them? How did he beat Tuscany’s vaunted history professors to the scoop? Bosi told us, “The [Chianti Classico] consorzio gave me a copy and told me to publish it in my upcoming book.” He added, “My book came out in 1972, so they would have handed it to me in 1971.” That was it. He did not know where the consortium had found or for how long it had known about the bandi. It was that simple. An unnamed official at the Chianti Classico consortium had fed him the information and told him to print it. No questions asked. Veramente (really)? Enrico was amazed by our curiosity. His earnestness amazed us. We asked about the director of the consortium in the early 1970s. Enrico confirmed that it had been Guglielmo Anzilotti, now retired and

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living in the hills of Fiesole. He assured us that we could find Anzilotti’s number in the phone book. And so we did. The next afternoon we were off to visit Professor Italo Moretti at his home in Florence. We walked clear across town along the Arno River. It was as bright and warm as early spring. Navigating the flocks of tourists by the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery, we made our way to Piazza Beccaria and found the professor’s apartment building. Professor Moretti speaks Italian with a quiet and controlled precision. We had met him the previous year at Castello di Volpaia in Radda. He had graciously given us a lecture on the background of Chianti in the context of Tuscan history. We had been studying our history and were hoping that he would be able to answer some of our questions about the bandi. We asked if historians had greeted the 1972 publication of the bandi with interest. Was this an important discovery? Moretti retorted, “What discovery? The bando has always been known.” Then why had it not been publicized earlier? He explained, “Perché dava noia” (Because it was bothersome). But why had historians largely ignored it until now? Just then, we glimpsed a familiar volume on the professor’s bookshelf, La Toscana nell’età di Cosimo III (Tuscany in the age of Cosimo III).6 It was the collection of academic papers presented at a two-day conference on the reign of Cosimo III that was held in Tuscany in 1990. We asked the professor if we could take it down from his shelf and show him what we had found there: only one reference to the bando of July 1716 establishing the Nuova Congregazione, and no reference to the bando of September 1716 delimiting the geographic boundaries of Chianti and the other three named regions. Why would the professional historians who wrote the chapters about Cosimo III’s initiatives to support the Tuscan economy not have discussed this second bando? But the professor had already given us his answer. He added that there is a difference between certain “professionisti” (professionals) and “dilettanti” (dilettantes), concluding, “Salieri was the professional, Mozart the dilettante.” Was this an admonition or encouragement? We left our meeting feeling both perplexed and energized. It was clear by now that there was much more to this story. In the following days, we met with several of Chianti Classico’s key figures past and present. Ser Lapo Mazzei, who had joined the consortium’s board of directors in 1957 and served as its president from 1974 to 1994, patiently fielded our questions. At almost ninety years old, he still has the dignified bearing of a tribal elder. He spoke with us in proper English, recounting the history of the consortium from its earliest days and talking about the importance of protecting Chianti as a territory. For him, what is most sacred about Chianti is its “civiltà rurale” (rural civilization). In response to our inquiries about when the consortium knew about the bandi, Mazzei said, “I can tell you something.” He paused. “There were udite [murmurings] that certain interesse commerciale [commercial interests] preferred to keep quiet about it.” We listened intently, waiting for him to recount the full story. There was silence. Mazzei cleared his throat and said, “I will need to call Giuseppe [Liberatore, the current director of the Chianti Classico consortium] to speak with him about your questions.” Was this the beginning or the end of our investigation? Time would tell.

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Later that week, we drove to the new Marchesi Antinori winery in Bargino. At the entrance gate, we confirmed with the guard that we were there for an appointment with Piero Antinori. This is the vanguard of Chianti Classico. This state-of-the-art winery is not just an iconic architectural statement but also a monument to “Antinori nel Chianti Classico” (Antinori in Chianti Classico). It is planted in San Casciano, the northernmost part of the Chianti Classico appellation—the very area that the founders of the consortium fought to keep out of their zone and that a handful of wine producers (the so-called archtradizionalisti, from Castellina, Radda, and Gaiole) still refer to as not belonging to the real Chianti. Antinori greeted us with the grace and charm of an ambassador. He met with us privately in a small conference room past the main reception area. Portraits of his father, Niccolò, and of his grandfather and great-uncle, the late nineteenth-century founders of the Marchesi Antinori wine company, hung on the walls. We spoke about his family’s history. In 1385, Giovanni di Piero Antinori became a member of the Arte dei Vinattieri (Wine merchants guild). In the early 1700s, Niccolò Francesco Antinori served as a secretary of state and a state councillor in the court of Cosimo III. We informed Antinori that we were still looking for contemporaneous references to the 1716 bandi and inquired if his family archives might hold the key to finding them. He told us of his growing interest in history. As we explained the anomalies that we had discovered in researching the bandi (especially in the twentieth century), he seemed both intrigued and amused. “Really,” he responded to each of our revelations. “Fascinating . . . this could be a thriller!” “Like The Da Vinci Code,” we jested. Antinori laughed in his gravelly baritone. He picked up one of the small notepads on the conference room table and wrote down the list of documents that we hoped to locate. “I am interested in your research,” he concluded. The next day it was time to pack our bags for the trip home. We were leaving with more books and questions than we had brought with us. Once back in Boston, we pursued another angle in our research—the English one. We reasoned that because the bando of July 1716 imposed criminal penalties on any merchant or customer buying “false” Chianti, the English merchants based at the free port of Livorno (Leghorn) in Tuscany surely would have taken notice of this law. At the time, Great Britain had an envoy posted at the court of Cosimo III in Florence and a consul posted at Livorno. This was the principal port of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, having been conquered by the Florentines in 1421. Without their own navy or merchant fleet, the Florentines (for all but a brief period in the fifteenth century) relied on the merchant fleets of their Genoese and Venetian rivals. By the seventeenth century, the Medici grand dukes had granted the British free trading privileges at Livorno. This trading post, known as the British Factory, was the foundation of Britain’s growing power in the Mediterranean. At the website of the National Archives of the United Kingdom, we located a file numbered SP 98/23, which contains the correspondence between the consul at Livorno, Christopher Crowe, and the British Home Office during this period. In this file is a letter dated July 24, 1715, from a group of merchants at Livorno, titled “The state and condition

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of Brittish [sic] trade at this place.” Among its signatories were Crowe and the two partners of the British wine merchant firm Winder and Aikman. Within days, an oversize envelope from the National Archives was on our doorstep. In it was a copy of this letter. The third-to-last paragraph has a clue to the export of Tuscan wine to Britain in the early 1700s. Commenting on “Florence Wine,” the merchants observe that the “continuance of the duties on French wine will be greatly conducive to the increase of this trade.”7 In the War of the Spanish Succession, from 1701 to 1712, the British and the French were enemies, and French wine was the subject of a British embargo. After the war, the British government imposed high tariffs on French wine. The opportunity for “Florence Wine” (which would have included Chianti) to supplant French wine on the English market must have helped to spur the promulgation of the bandi. From 1705 through 1715, Consul Crowe personally had the exclusive right to provision the British fleet in the Mediterranean with wine and olive oil.8 In 1716, he returned home to marry and take up the life of the country gentry. As a result, the British Factory at Livorno was without its consul at the very time when Cosimo III issued the bandi. The chief concern in the correspondence between Livorno and the British Home Office during this period is the appointment of Crowe’s successor. To our surprise and disappointment, we found no mention of either bando in these communications. Why did Crowe have to go and get married then? It was late March and time for us to return to Italy for Vinitaly. After a four-day stint of tasting Chianti Classico wines at the annual Italian wine fair in Verona, we rented a car and drove south to Tuscany. For the next ten days we lodged in a converted farmhouse in Barberino Val d’Elsa. On our first morning there we were off to launch our archival research at the ASF. We parked near our favorite bookstore in Florence, around the corner from Piazza Libertà, and arranged for yet another shipment of books to Boston. We briskly walked down Viale Giacomo Matteotti toward the ASF (right before Piazza Cesare Beccaria), where we took the elevator up to the third floor. After introducing ourselves to the receptionist, we signed the register and listened to the ground rules for entry into the sala di studio (study room). First, we would need to leave all of our bags, file folders, and pens in a locker. Only pencils and laptops were allowed. Then we would need to show our credentials and register as studiosi (researchers). Through the glass windows of the study room we saw rows of tables with scholars poring over massive volumes of ancient texts propped up on wooden reading stands. Having studied the ASF’s website from Boston, we already had some clues for our research. We began with the inventory series “Controversie di confini e feudali” (Controversies involving borders and fiefdoms). Given our focus on Chianti’s endless border disputes, this seemed like a good place to start. It did not take more than a couple of hours to realize that this would be a steep climb. We were just getting our bearings, we reassured ourselves. We knew that this would be the first of many visits. We had an appointment in the late afternoon with Ser Lapo Mazzei at his home in Florence, so it was time to leave the ASF for now. As it was a Friday afternoon, the traffic was molto intenso. And our GPS was no longer speaking to us in Italian.

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Suddenly, it was barking directions in Afrikaans! Juggling the Florence street map and the GPS video display, we located our turn, right after Porta Romana. There within the city walls we found an idyllic slice of the Florentine countryside. Olive trees lined the narrow, winding street, and flowering gardens surrounded each country villa. Mazzei was expecting us. He was elegantly dressed in a suit and tie. He welcomed us into the living room past the library. His spirited black terrier, Brio, curled up next to us on the couch. We began our conversation where we had left off in February. Mazzei began, “I cannot understand why the consorzio did not use the bando in its lotta [fight] against Chianti generico [generic].” He spoke in a quiet but steady and clear voice. “Bettino Ricasoli must have known about the bando,” he stated. Ricasoli was the president of the consortium from 1958 to 1974. “It was known in the 1960s.9 But I do not think that Bettino understood its importance.” We asked Mazzei if he thought that Bettino’s father and predecessor as president from 1947 to 1958, Luigi Ricasoli, had known about the bando even earlier. Mazzei declared, “No, Luigi was a fighter! He would never have sacrificed the opportunity to win back the use of the name Chianti. The bando was not known until the 1960s.” He paused and then said, “Signore Nunzi anche sapeva del bando. Nunzi lo sapeva della importanza storica del bando. Sapeva benissimo!” (Mr. Nunzi also knew about the bando. Nunzi understood the historic importance of the bando. He knew perfectly well!) Gualtiero Armando Nunzi was a member and officer of the consortium’s board of directors from the 1960s until 1997, when he finished his three-year term as its president. Mazzei pulled his mobile phone from his suit pocket and made a call. “Giuseppe, I have two journalists with me who are asking interesting questions. I need to speak with you,” he said, then hung up and told us that he had just left a message for the consortium’s current director, Giuseppe Liberatore. He said that he did not understand why the consortium had locked its historic archives in storage in Prato, outside the Chianti Classico zone. We told him that we would ask about accessing the archives. He responded that he would make a call to support our request if necessary. One of Chianti Classico’s last veteran patriots was himself in search of answers. Driving back to Chianti, we reconciled what Mazzei had told us with what we had already learned. If Bettino Ricasoli was aware of the September 1716 bando, was it because it had been discovered in his family archives at Brolio Castle (as Bosi’s 1972 book states)? What were Nunzi’s motives? Had there been a powerful faction of commercial interests within the consortium that had believed Chianti Classico would be better off securing the DOC in 1967 conjoined with External Chianti (even if it meant accepting the enlarged delimitation of Chianti established by the 1932 ministerial decree, which its own former president—and renowned lawyer—Gino Sarrocchi had concluded was no longer legally in effect) than fighting on for autonomy based on the bando’s historic precedent? Was the bando kept from the view of the consortium’s full board of directors during the very period (1965–67) when two of its members, Mazzei and Enrico d’Afflitto, were standing up against the incorporation of Chianti Classico into a unified DOC with External Chianti, arguing that “a law not applied is without doubt preferable to a law

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poorly applied”?10 Who had the means and who had the motivation to quiet history? Perhaps Anzilotti, the director of the Chianti Classico consortium at the time, would be able to fill in the blanks. Or so we hoped. We located him in the white pages and arranged to meet him on Sunday afternoon. After parking our car on the street outside his home, we rang the bell at his gate to announce our arrival. We expected Anzilotti to be about Mazzei’s age, so when a tall and tan gentleman in bright yellow pants and suede loafers energetically greeted us at the gate, we thought that this must be the son who would bring us to see his ailing father. It was, in fact, Guglielmo Anzilotti. After welcoming us, he immediately asked who had referred us to him. We answered, “Enrico Bosi.” Anzilotti’s wife joined us outside in their garden overlooking the villa-dotted hills of Fiesole. We moved inside to their living room and asked Anzilotti to tell us the story of his work at the consortium. Bettino Ricasoli hired him to be the consortium’s director in 1963. The prior director, Piero Tesi, had just resigned to become the director of Chianti Classico’s crosstown rival, the Consorzio del Putto. We asked whether Florence’s epic flood of 1966 had damaged the Chianti Classico consortium’s archives. Anzilotti recollected that all of the records were untouched by the floodwaters. His tenure at the consortium had lasted sixteen years, first under Ricasoli and then under Mazzei. Anzilotti regaled us with stories from the 1960s and early 1970s. When he began at the Chianti Classico consortium, he was the third person in its employ. Within a decade, he had organized a high-profile, first-ofits-kind auction of vintage Chianti Classico wines at the Circolo della Stampa (Press club) in Milan, launched a monthly magazine called Notiziario for consortium members, supported the creation of the Associazione Italiana Sommelier (AIS, or Italian sommelier association), and spearheaded the reincarnation of the Lega del Chianti. He also cultivated the support of influential journalists such as Luigi Veronelli. Anzilotti even arranged for the esteemed Tuscan historian Federico Melis to be on the dais at one of the consortium’s high-profile auctions. By his own account, he had almost complete autonomy to promote and run the consortium under Ricasoli. One detail that we had learned from Saltini’s unvarnished history of the consortium was that Anzilotti had come within four votes of being censured by the board of directors in 1967 for having published a newspaper article proclaiming the Chianti Classico consortium’s acceptance of a unified DOC with External Chianti while it was still being hotly debated. But if Anzilotti had had free rein to run the consortium in the early 1960s, who was holding those reins by 1967? We told him that we had several questions regarding the 1716 bandi. Did he know how Bosi had come to publish an image of them in his 1972 Atlante del Chianti Classico? Anzilotti stated that he had given a copy of the bandi to Bosi. “One day the copy had come into my hands,” he explained. But he did not remember when or how this had happened. As soon as the bandi came to his attention, Anzilotti said, he understood their importance. He even had large copies of them printed and distributed to the consortium’s members for display. He could not remember if that was in the 1960s or early 1970s— but he asserted that the bandi had never entered into the consortium’s deliberations. We

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observed, “But that would also be true if the bandi had never been disclosed to the consortium’s board.” We then inquired about Il Chianti Classico, published by the consortium in 1974 on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Anzilotti had written its detailed historical chapter, which does not mention either bando. We pointed out that this omission was surprising, given that this book appeared two years after Bosi’s. Anzilotti answered, “The reason why I did not publish the bando. I don’t know why. It’s not there?” We were also curious about Nunzi’s role at the Chianti Classico consortium. He had been the vice president under Ricasoli in the early 1970s and as a member of the board of directors was the consortium’s chief negotiator in the protracted deliberations leading to the creation of the 1967 DOC.11 After building his Bourbon coffee business into Italy’s first national coffee brand, Nunzi sold it at its peak and founded the Castelli del Grevepesa cooperative in 1965. Anzilotti recounted how at the consortium he and Nunzi had fought “the big fight together.” We asked if Nunzi could have been the source of the bandi. Anzilotti paused and then answered, “Può darsi” (Could be). (Può darsi was often the response to our questions regarding the bandi.) We learned that in the 1970s, Nunzi had also founded and become the president of Con.Vi.To, a consortium of Tuscan wine cooperatives (presumably with a vested interest in External Chianti). Mazzei’s 1960s-era epithet for the larger commercial interests, Gallo Grigio (Gray rooster), came to mind. At least fifty shades of gray! We left our meeting with Anzilotti puzzled. We still did not understand why the consortium’s 1974 book honoring its golden anniversary omitted any reference to the bandi. It made no sense. The consortium must have had an interest in having the bandi disclosed by the early 1970s but not being associated with it. We were also still looking for who had rediscovered the 1716 bandi and when. Had any of the founders of the Consorzio del Gallo known about it? We made a request to Liberatore to review the verbali (minutes) of the board of directors’ meetings from 1924 to 1932 and any maps of the appellation from that period. He responded that the consortium’s archival documents were securely stored in Prato. We never did get the keys to that castle. We continued our hunt for historical evidence of the 1716 bandi as well and found our first real lead in a 2003 volume of a journal titled Ager Clantius. An archivist at the Archivio di Stato di Siena (ASS, or State archives of Siena) had discovered a contemporaneous record of the first bando.12 Eight days prior to its issuance by Cosimo III on July 18, 1716, the Balìa, or ruling commission, of the Sienese State (subject to the authority of the grand duke of Tuscany) was assessing its impact on Siena’s wine producers. A Sienese nobleman named Giulio Del Taia had written a letter of warning to the Balìa immediately after Cosimo III had signed a motu proprio (royal decree) on July 7 appointing the Nuova Congregazione to oversee the commerce of wine. Del Taia was not a disinterested observer. He was among the biggest Chianti wine producers and exporters in the state of Siena. His estates were in localities around the township of Castelnuovo Berardenga, including Arceno, San Gusmè, Villa a Sesta, and San Felice. At the same time, his marriage into the prominent Florentine family the Serristoris put him into

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personal contact with Cosimo III. Del Taia’s missive reads like it could have been written by an influential Castelnuovo Berardenga wine producer just prior to the founding of the Consorzio del Gallo in 1924. He notified the nine members of the Balìa that the Nuova Congregazione would imminently issue a law delimiting the borders of Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra and correctly predicted that it would exclude any areas within the Sienese State from the Chianti zone. The next day we headed to the ASS to see if we could read Del Taia’s letter and the minutes of the Balìa’s deliberations firsthand. Located in a Renaissance-era palace off Piazza del Campo, the ASS is intimate compared with its Florentine counterpart. After climbing the stairs to the third floor, we walked down a long hallway lined with historic maps and prints depicting Siena. On finding the sala di consultazione (reference room), we completed the request forms for the Balìa minutes and the Del Taia family archives. Within fifteen minutes the archivist brought us to a back storage room where she had collected several bulging cardboard files and volumes for our retrieval. Cloth ties (some in bows and others in knots) held each twenty-to-twenty-five-centimeter-deep (eight-toten-inch-deep) file together. We brought them one by one to the reference room. Rows of wooden desks faced a tall window, through which sunlight streamed, bathing the room. With pencil and paper in hand we leafed through the thin pages inside each file. There were documents detailing the production of various Del Taia estates stretching from the Maremma to Castelnuovo Berardenga. We turned our attention to the redleather-bound volume of the Balìa minutes titled Deliberazioni dell’anno 1715 fino al 1717 (Deliberations of the year 1715 to 1717). There in black and white in the entry for Friday, July 10, 1716, we found the margin annotation “Vino del Chianti Sanese [sic] non può vendersi per la navigazione” (Sienese Chianti wine may not be sold for maritime export)—for the Balìa’s deliberations only three days after Cosimo III’s royal decree! The minutes include the full text of Del Taia’s letter to the Balìa. With a preternatural understanding of the importance of origin, particularly in export markets, he wrote, “Losing the Chianti name would result in the interested parties’ loss of credit for their wine, as often the perfect quality of the wines themselves does not suffice: in foreign nations great credit is given to the region of origin of the wine.”13 He estimated that Siena’s wine producers, including noble families such as the Piccolomini and Sergardi, together with “many people in the countryside,” exported three thousand barili (136,740 liters) of wine per year “under the Chianti name.”14 He had learned that the Nuova Congregazione would be willing to allow Siena’s producers to use the name Sienese Chianti provided that they subjected themselves to its full legal jurisdiction. He urged Siena’s ruling officials to find a solution to the impending threat to its winegrowers, “for once the above-mentioned congregation decides the borders of Chianti, which will immediately be approved by His Royal Highness [Cosimo III], we will not have time to find a remedy to the damages that will result to our nation.”15 The minutes of the Balìa’s meeting also include the text of the petition that Del Taia submitted directly to Cosimo III to protest the anticipated exclusion of Siena from the

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Chianti denomination. He made an impassioned argument that the “Region of the true Chianti” included the parts of the State of Siena that were well known for making excellent Chianti wine that was as capable of withstanding the rigors of navigation as any other wine of Tuscany, having been born in “rocky and lean soil.”16 The Balìa reconvened on August 7 to deliberate further about the Florentine Congregazione’s stipulations for recognizing a Sienese Chianti. In the end, its members rejected the jurisdictional conditions and decided not to make any further appeals on behalf of Siena’s Chianti producers. But what happened after the Congregazione published the bando with the delimitation of Chianti, which, as Del Taia had anticipated, extended per its terms only as far south as the “Border of the State of Siena”? We quickly turned the pages to see if there was any mention of that second bando in these minutes. There had been a meeting of the Balìa on September 25, the day after the second bando was issued. But there was no reference to this bando. However, there among the names of the attendees was Giulio Del Taia. Was he there to report on the new bando? The record went cold. But in our review of the Del Taia family archives at the ASS, we learned that he had purchased three farms between San Gusmè and Arceno from 1715 to 1730. Was he expanding his landholdings in Sienese Chianti because the bando had been revised to include this part of Siena, or had it remained on the books without ever being enforced? In July 1716, Del Taia had been a witness to history. He understood what was at stake for himself and the other winegrowers of Sienese Chianti. And he stood ready to fight, appealing directly to Cosimo III and Siena’s Balìa, “not only for self-interest, but also for the common good.”17 He was an early patriot of Chianti Senese. Remarkably, his descendant Giulio Grisaldi Del Taja became one of the founders of the Consorzio del Gallo in 1924. After these initial adventures in the state archives of Florence and Siena, we returned home to Boston. There was much work still to do. Who within Cosimo III’s court was responsible for the creation of the bandi and the delimitation of Chianti? Where did the idea of a legal appellation of origin germinate? History had all but forgotten the period of the Medici grand dukes. At the center of Cosimo’s court was a brilliant Renaissance man named Lorenzo Magalotti. He had traveled in Europe with the young Cosimo in 1668–69. In 1692–93, Cosimo gave him a high-profile commission: “to study the feasibility of putting Tuscan wines in the place of French wines on the English market.”18 Perhaps Cosimo had entrusted him with this engagement because together they had personally witnessed the prestige conferred upon the expensive claret wines of the Bordeaux châteaux in London almost twenty-five years earlier. By 1692, England and France were enmeshed in the Nine Years’ War, on opposite sides, and the British embargoed French wine from 1690 to 1696, creating an opening for Tuscan wines on the English market. Did Magalotti ever finish his commission? Further hunting revealed two citations in the early eighteenth century of an unedited treatise attributed to Magalotti, titled Trattato per regolare il commercio del vino (Treatise on the regulation of the commerce of wine).19 Did it provide the regulatory framework for the first bando and the outline of the delimitation of Chianti in the second bando? After checking with the ASF and the

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Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Central Library of Florence), we inquired with the Riccardiana, Marucelliana, and Laurentian Libraries in Florence about the existence of this treatise. None of them could locate it in their archives. Our search for answers continued. We returned to Chianti in May 2015. It was our last trip before finishing this tale. One day at the ASF turned into two, but not without bearing some interesting leads. Listed in the inventory of the Magalotti archives was a file titled “Riflessioni sulla navigazione dei nostri vini per l’Inghilterra” (Reflections on the shipping of our wines for England). We immediately filled out a request form. Within an hour, after depositing our passports as collateral, we retrieved file #175(d) from the documents request room. Like those in the ASS, it was bound in a thick cardboard folder secured with cloth ties. We located an empty table in the study room and began turning the fragile sheets of paper. Each page was divided down the middle. Magalotti wrote his draft text on the right-hand side, leaving the left for his annotations and corrections. Seeing the lines of crossed-out text and inserted annotations, we imagined Magalotti (with ink quill in hand) feverishly putting his thoughts to paper. It was like deciphering archaic code. The antiquated penmanship and the bleeding of ink through the translucent paper made for a challenge. These surely must have been Magalotti’s notes and draft for the Trattato commissioned by Cosimo III. In assessing the English palate, he wrote, “It is necessary to remember that the English love big wines, and to ensure from where the Chianti, Valdarni, and similar ones will be the most suitable for this commerce.” Here it was right before our eyes—the conception of the bandi! Magalotti understood that for Tuscany’s highest-quality wines, such as Chianti, to compete on the English market, it was imperative to ensure their place of origin. Later in his margin notes, he wrote that “Chianti, Carmignano, Artimino, and Valdarno” were the Tuscan regions whose quality wines were most often counterfeited. He explained that it would be necessary to put in place a mechanism to “prevent fraud, which could discredit such commerce.” To that end, he observed that it would be “highly advisable to deputize trustworthy people to oversee the wines to be shipped [overseas].” While these draft pages are not dated, it was clear that we were reading Magalotti’s work papers for the special commission that Cosimo III gave him in 1692 or 1693 (the same year when Cosimo reappointed him as a state councillor). Magalotti had created the blueprint for the 1716 bandi as early as the mid-1690s. How did he come to these observations? During their trip to England in 1669, he and Cosimo had spoken with a respected Tuscan merchant named Antonio Antinori, whom they met on a ship in Plymouth.20 Could it be that Antinori had experience in exporting Tuscan wine to England and was the source of some of Magalotti’s ideas on this subject two decades later? In addition to serving as a senator and as Cosimo III’s treasury minister in the late 1690s and early 1700s, Antinori (along with members of the prominent Corsini, Capponi, Gondi, and

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Ginori families) was appointed by Cosimo in January 1712 to the Nuova Congregazione del Commercio (New commission on commerce), charged with improving the trade of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.21 Could this have been the same Nuova Congregazione to which the 1716 bandi refer? To date, the ASF has been unable to locate the motu proprio issued by Cosimo on July 7 of that year, which created the Nuova Congregazione on the commerce of wine, leaving unanswered the question of its composition. Our time in Chianti was growing short. Meanwhile, we were scheduled to finish our second week of tasting at the Chianti Classico consortium’s headquarters. Once housed (fittingly enough) in Niccolò Machiavelli’s residence-in-exile in Sant’Andrea in Percussina in San Casciano, it is now in an industrial park in Sambuca, also in San Casciano. We remembered that Anzilotti had mentioned the consortium’s monthly newsletter, the Notiziario. We had a hunch that it would make for interesting reading. So we asked an official at the consortium if it maintained copies of this publication. She took us to the storage room to show us the binders of the giornale, as the consortium refers to it. We carried them to the glass-walled tasting room on the main floor where we were encamped along with the hundreds of Chianti Classico bottles made available for our tasting that week. Intermingled with detailed articles chronicling the latest developments in the consortium’s long march to secure the DOCG were in-depth pieces on enology, viticulture, history, and culture. Anzilotti typically wrote the cover story and appeared to be the editor of the Notiziario. While Bill methodically tasted through the wines blind, I quietly immersed myself in the world of the consortium from 1968 to 1974. In the June 1971 issue was a story about the historical research of a handful of fourth and fifth graders from the Castellina in Chianti elementary school. Buried inside was a reference to a document that had been found in the sotterranei (underground cellars) of Brolio Castle. It was described as the 1716 disciplinare that Cosimo III had established to regulate the production and declaration of wine. The existence of Cosimo III’s 1716 bandi was finally revealed. Now, that is news! So there it was. During the same period when Anzilotti (by his own admission) had given a copy of the bandi to Bosi, the discovery was quietly revealed to the members of the consortium in the pages of the Notiziario. The story read and was illustrated like a fairy tale. By all appearances, the consortium had wanted to disseminate news of the bandi in a way that made it appear as if they were always known. It was as if there was a long-lost counterpart to Leonardo da Vinci’s colored topographical map Val di Chiana, the mythical Val di Chianti map, and on rediscovering it, the consortium, instead of arranging for this priceless find to be displayed (to great fanfare) on the Uffizi Gallery’s walls, had discreetly mentioned it in its monthly newsletter and subsequently handed it to a local gallery owner to include in his upcoming catalog. And no questions were asked. While perusing the consortium’s small library of books, we also located a bibliography of Chianti. In it we identified another document of interest, an inventory of the Ricasoli family archives at Brolio Castle prepared by Sergio Camerani in 1942. Surely it must list

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the July or September 1716 bando, given the provenance that the Notiziario and Bosi’s book claim for each. The next day we headed back to the ASF, to which, we learned, the Ricasoli family had donated their archival documents in four installments from 1975 to 1982. We located the volume with the Ricasoli inventory, titled Pergamene (Parchments). In it was a catalog of 475 parchments from Brolio Castle dating from 1317 to 1807. But this chronological list skipped from 1705 to 1717. No bando from 1716! How could this be? The inventory was a mimeograph of a typed list without any indication of authorship. By cross-checking an online database of inventoried private archives, we discovered that the 1942 Camerani inventory of Brolio Castle’s archives also included exactly 475 parchments and ended in 1807.22 It appeared that the ASF’s inventory of Brolio Castle’s “parchments” was indeed Camerani’s inventory. But how was the September 1716 bando not included yet later discovered in those same archives when they were donated to the ASF beginning in 1975 (following Luigi Ricasoli’s death in 1974)?23 There were no more witnesses to history for us to interview. But our questions regarding the provenance of the 1716 bandi remained. Before leaving the ASF that morning, we checked one more lead. We located the volume cataloging the Medici “leggi e bandi” (laws and bandi) in the ASF archives for the eighteenth century, then turned to 1716. There were entries for both the July 18 and the September 24 bandi and an indication that the ASF had three copies of each. An announcement of a new law like a bando would have been printed by the hundreds and, per the typical declaration of the town crier named at the bottom of the document, “posted in all of the usual places.” Reading through the volume, we came upon a bando dated November 1716. We requested a copy of it from the assistant in the study room. It turned out to be a one-paragraph document titled “Proroga per la portata del vino del corrente anno 1716 delle quattro regioni Chianti, Pomino, Carmingnano, e Vald’ Arno di Sopra” (Extension for the declaration of wine for the current year 1716 of the four wine regions Chianti, Pomino, Carmingnano, and Valdarno di Sopra). We had never heard of this third bando. It was signed by the same official of the Nuova Congregazione, Giuseppe Maria Romoli, who had signed the bando of September 24. This third bando extended the filing date for 1716 from the end of November to December for the portata (declaration) of annual wine production that the July 1716 bando stipulated. The reason given was “poor weather for maturing the grapes, and the more than usual delay of the harvest for the past season: making it unlikely that the declarations will be able to be accomplished, as required, from the collection of the wine, within the current month of November.” So as it turned out, 1716 was a difficult vintage, though an excellent one for wine law. These 1716 bandi then seem to disappear. Already by 1729, a merchant company founded by Bartolomeo Bandinelli of Villa di Geggiano near Pianella (just to the north of Siena) was exporting flasks and half flasks of “vino di Chianti” (wine of Chianti) to London via the port of Livorno. Based on the delimitation of Chianti in the September 24 bando, this villa (a present-day Chianti Classico estate) was not allowed to export its

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wine as “vino di Chianti.” Yet like Giulio Del Taia, Bandinelli and his partners did not appear to be impacted adversely by the 1716 bandi. Did the Nuova Congregazione ever enforce them? The market conditions in Great Britain looked favorable for the wines of Tuscany during this period. In 1728, Great Britain passed a law that included a clause to “prevent the Importation of Wines in Flasks, Bottles, and small Casks, except Wines of the Growth of the Dominions of the Great Duke of Tuscany.”24 This exception should have aided the Grand Duchy’s enforcement of the 1716 bandi, which were aimed at increasing Tuscany’s export of Chianti to Great Britain. The winds of change, however, had already begun to blow through Tuscany in 1713, on the death of Cosimo III’s first son and heir, Ferdinando. From then until his own death in 1723, Cosimo had bigger problems than wine on his royal hands. He (and his secretary of state, Niccolò Francesco Antinori) waged a diplomatic and legal campaign to preserve control of the Grand Duchy for the Medici family. The greater state actors of Europe made their own plans, and in 1737, the last Medici male heir died and the centuries-long reign of the family (and its laws) came to an end. Still, in creating the first legal appellations of origin for wine, Cosimo III made history in 1716. Undoubtedly, there are original documents relating to the promulgation and enforcement of these bandi buried in Florence’s multiple public and private archives. But like a grand cypress falling in a far-off forest, this groundbreaking legal code seemingly made no sound. For Chianti, the September 24, 1716, bando became its secret code. For all of the mystery surrounding “the Medici code,” the text of each bando provides clues to understanding its genesis and disappearance. Cosimo III issued the one dated July 18, 1716, as a proclamation. It is titled “Bando sopra il commercio del vino” (Law on the commerce of wine).25 Its preamble sets forth its purpose: Cosimo III was appointing the Nuova Congregazione to ensure that the wines from the geographic regioni (regions) of Chianti and the three other named zones produced for overseas export were “fit for shipment with the maximum guarantee of their quality” and to do everything “to prevent fraud.” This statement of intent has the letter and spirit of an appellation of origin law. Pursuant to this bando, the producers of Chianti and the other three regioni were required to file a portata every year by the end of November disclosing the amount of wine produced in their cellars, whether directly or by their tenant farmers, from vines on the hillsides and from those on the plains, and made puro (pure) versus with the governo method. In addition, they were subject to inspections by the Congregazione and obligated to verify the quantities of wine sold directly at their cellars and for shipping overseas. The annual declarations had to be filed with both the Congregazione and the podestà of the town where the producer was located (where they would be available for public inspection at no cost). The Congregazione was charged with publishing a summary of these portate (the plural of portata) by producer name every year. The provision that the content of the producer declarations be publicly available and the stipulation that each producer would remain free to make its own commercial decisions about when and how to sell its wine (whether domestically or overseas) reflect a level of transparency and

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legislative restraint that was itself ahead of its time. Beyond regulating producers in Chianti, this bando stipulated that any merchant buying Chianti for export had to file a declaration with the Congregazione within fifteen days of the purchase, specifying the name of the seller and the sale price of the wine. Each producer was free to file a declaration of such sales with the Congregazione, to encourage compliance by purchasers. In effect, the system of disclosure requirements that the July 1716 bando established provided a mechanism for traceability—an essential component of quality control. The law even imposed criminal sanctions on merchants, coachmen, shippers, and foreign buyers who were trafficking in counterfeit Chianti. Punishment would include disgorgement of the wine or its monetary value. This bando had teeth! The Nuova Congregazione issued the second bando, on September 24, 1716, which is titled “Bando sopra la dichiarazione de’ confini delle quattro regioni Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, e Vald’ Arno di Sopra” (Law on the declaration of the borders of the four regions Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra).26 To implement the regulatory mechanism established by the July 18 bando, it was critical for the Congregazione to define the boundaries of Chianti and the other three named wine regions. Del Taia had advised Siena’s Balìa that this would be among the first decisions of the newly appointed Congregazione in Florence. It took a little more than two months to settle, just in time for the anticipated harvest of 1716. Were the boundaries of Chianti a subject of intense debate among Florentine producers? Could that be the reason why it took Cosimo III almost twenty-five years to turn Magalotti’s recommendations into law? Did any influential Florentine landowners with vines in San Casciano or beyond petition him to be included in the Chianti wine region, in the same manner as the Sienese Del Taia had? Alas, we have the words of only the September 24 bando. Its preamble states that the deputies of the Nuova Congregazione, acting within their full authority and jurisdiction regarding the commerce of wine, have established the circonferenze (perimeters) and confini (borders) of the regions of Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra. The closing paragraph declares that any wines that are not “born and made in the regions as delimited above” will not be allowed to be exported as wines from these regions. Between these provisions are four paragraphs, each delimiting one of the regions. The wine region of Chianti is defined as “Dallo Spedaluzzo, fino a Greve; di li a Panzano, con tutta la Potesteria di Radda, che contiene tre Terzi, cioè Radda, Gajole, e Castellina, arrivando fino al Confine dello Stato di Siena” (from Spedaluzzo, until Greve; from there to Panzano, with all of the territory under the jurisdiction of Radda, which includes the three towns [of Chianti], that is Radda, Gaiole, and Castellina, coming up to the border of the State of Siena). This is a list of hamlets and townships from north to south. The delimitations of Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno di Sopra, by contrast, make multiple references to specific rivers, streams, mountains, roads, villas, and taverns. In naming exclusively the hamlets and townships of Chianti, the Congregazione specifically defined only its northern and southern boundaries—not its western and eastern ones. However, the western border of the Valdarno di Sopra

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region, which runs north-south along the Arno River (parallel to the Monti del Chianti), would have been understood as the natural demarcation for Chianti’s eastern border. But where was its western border? For a region like Chianti, which is marked by the Pesa, Greve, and Arbia Rivers and their eponymous valleys, the omission of any references to such geographical features is curious. Given the descriptions of the other three regions, this could not have been simply a drafting oversight. The natural boundary of Chianti’s western border would have been either the Greve or the Pesa River, to the west of Greve and Panzano, respectively. Could it be that certain powerful Florentine families with estates in the southern part of San Casciano (such as the Corsini or the Antinori), to the west of Greve, had voiced their objections to Cosimo III and his Nuova Congregazione? So instead of specifying a western border, and thereby perhaps expressly excluding San Casciano from the delimitation of Chianti, the Congregazione was discreetly silent on this question. At the same time, its delimitation of Chianti (which reads like the blueprint for Torquato Guarducci’s Il Chianti map from almost two hundred years later, including the prominent reference to the tiny hamlet of Spedaluzzo) could be construed as a triangle with Spedaluzzo as its northern point, the line from Greve to Panzano and then to Castellina as its left side, from Castellina to Gaiole as its bottom side, and the Monti del Chianti north to Monte San Michele and the hills up to Spedaluzzo as its right side.27 Unfortunately, much like the founders of the Consorzio del Gallo in 1924, the deputies of the Nuova Congregazione in 1716 did not supplement their delimitation with a map. Nonetheless, they painted a fascinating picture! Cosimo III’s 1716 bandi deserve to be celebrated as historic achievements by Chianti Classico, Tuscany, and Italy. They represent the first legal appellations of origin in the long story of wine. Cosimo, the penultimate Medici ruler of Florence and most of Tuscany, aimed to have the quality wines of Chianti and the other prized regions of his Florentine domain compete with the wines of France on the English market. In the twentieth century, Chianti Classico could have used the September 24 bando to defeat, once and for all, the claims of External Chianti to the name and identity of Chianti. In our attempts to solve the mystery of “the Medici code,” this much has become clear. The so-called Guerra del Chianti between Chianti Classico and External Chianti masked a guerra del Chianti inside Chianti Classico—a quiet campaign waged by powerful merchant-producers against the authentic winegrowers of Chianti. Certain influential members of the Chianti Classico consortium knew of the existence and significance of the September 24 bando as early as the 1960s. For their own commercial priorities, they kept it hidden from view until the early 1970s. From 1963 to 1967, the years when Italian Law 930 and the Chianti DOC were finalized, enshrining the Fascist-era ministerial decree of 1932 that extended the Chianti denomination to External Chianti, these merchantproducers chose to suppress a crucial precedent for Chianti Classico’s historic and legal claim to the name Chianti. And their standard-bearers and scholars stood silent. This was a betrayal of history and of the rightful patrimony of Chianti’s winegrowers past, present, and future.28 Rather than the prostrate Bacchus at the center of Vasari’s painting of the

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Ager Clantius upstairs in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, it is Michelangelo’s David just outside the entrance to the palace that should be the model for Chianti Classico and its winegrowers.29 Depicted in the decisive moment before confronting Goliath, David stands tall, resolute, and armed to vanquish the mighty Philistine—with his slingshot and rock in hand. The winegrowers of Chianti Classico owe their land and its history no less courage and honor in the fight for the true Chianti.

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AFTERWORD

In the War of Chianti, has the last battle been fought? Is there a path for the original Chianti to regain its exclusive name and identity? Could Chianti wine once again be associated solely with its geographic place of origin, the true territory of Chianti? The political comprises of the 1930s and 1960s that created External Chianti were memorialized in law—not carved in stone. When these compromises were made, the existence and content of Cosimo III’s bando of September 24, 1716, delimiting Chianti as a wine region were not put into evidence. In the absence of this proof of Chianti’s legitimacy as a legally delimited wine zone, the Italian government agreed to the creation of External Chianti for expedient commercial reasons. It is an established legal principle that if material evidence is withheld from the trier of fact in a legal proceeding and then comes to light, the probability that it would have been an important factor in the deliberations is the basis for the declaration of a mistrial and the granting of a motion for a new trial. And this bando has already been used as legal evidence to secure designation of origin protection for another appellation. In the mid-1970s, Ugo Contini Bonacossi of the Capezzana estate specifically relied on it as the historical precedent for securing the Carmignano DOC from Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture. In fact, the Capezzana wines Barco Reale and Ghiaie della Furba are named after places that the bando mentions in its delimitation of Carmignano. In the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the creation of the European Union and the evolution of EU laws protecting designations of origin and geographical indications on agricultural products such as wine should call into question whether

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External Chianti’s use of the name Chianti to identify both its wine (including Chianti Superiore) and its self-proclaimed “places of Chianti” is consistent with these laws and related multilateral treaties.1 Article 7(2) of the EU’s Commission Regulation no. 607/2009 of July 14, 2009, expressly requires a wine product that carries a protected “designation of origin” (denominazione di origine protetta, or DOP, in Italian), to have a link to a specific geographical area and a quality or characteristics that are “essentially or exclusively attributable to the geographical environment.”2 On March 27, 2015, for the first time in the history of Italian law, the region of Tuscany legally identified “Chianti” as a distinct “landscape” (or “piano di indirizzo territoriale”),3 pursuant to the European Landscape Convention, which was opened for signature in Florence on October 20, 2000, and defines a “landscape” as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.”4 This definition of the Chianti landscape substantially mirrors the delimitation of the Chianti Classico appellation.5 The preamble to the Landscape Convention expressly recognizes a legally defined landscape, such as Chianti, as “a basic component of the European natural and cultural heritage” which should be protected. This protection should logically extend to the wine, olive oil, and other agricultural products that are the fruits of the landscape and its natural and cultural heritage. To this end, the Chianti Classico consortium and Chianti’s Fondazione per la Tutela del Territorio (Foundation for the protection of the territory) in 2016 initiated the application process to obtain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the wine production area of Chianti. How can the Italian national laws from the 1930s and 1960s that extended the right to use the name Chianti to the multiple subzones of External Chianti (which are outside the geographic area of Chianti), based on the legal construct of marketplace typicity (vino tipico) as opposed to a true typicity of place (indicazione d’origine), be reconciled with the EU’s modern regime of laws and judicial decisions protecting both designations of origin and defined landscapes? In a 1996 case, the Italian Supreme Court upheld the legal concept of origin for agricultural products, explaining that “the reason for affording protection [for designations of origin] lies in the fact that the product draws a particular character from its place of origin. This character is objectively discernable through a complex of the natural and human elements making up its environment of production. . . . [It] is aimed at reassuring the consumer of the place of origin, itself also an assurance of quality.”6 Since the protoRenaissance, the wine of Chianti has been valued for drawing its particular character from its place of origin—namely, the territory of Chianti. While the history of Chianti is not without its complexities, it is clear on the central issue of origin. The 1716 bandi were expressly promulgated to guarantee the quality of Chianti wine by ensuring its connection to its place of origin and its reputation. The French appellation d’origine (AO) system that underpins the EU designation of origin regime is built on this very connection among origin, quality, and reputation.7 The power of prior generations of Italian industrialists and politicians should not be allowed to deny the original Chianti its history

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and identity. It will be for the patriots and skillful consiglieri (counselors) of Chianti Classico to pursue justice for Chianti and its winegrowers in the decades to come. In recognition of the comity that now exists between it and External Chianti, Chianti Classico’s most constructive option would be a long-term strategy to negotiate with the subzones of External Chianti to voluntarily relinquish their use of the generic word Chianti in favor of their individual place-names on labels (while otherwise maintaining their current disciplines of production). Hence, the seven subzones of External Chianti would become the following individual DOCGs: Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, Colli Aretini, Montespertoli, Montalbano, Colline Pisane, and Colli Senesi. Since these subzones are presently operating as part of a unified DOCG, what objection could Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture have to this lateral move, the only substantive difference being the name change? In some cases, consortia are already organized and would be in a position to represent these prospective DOCGs, such as Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, and Colli Senesi. It is also true that few producers in the Montalcino, Montepulciano, and San Gimignano areas use the Chianti DOCG appellation, opting instead for Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, Rosso di Montalcino DOC, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG, Rosso di Montepulciano DOC, and San Gimignano DOC. Merchants in External Chianti who blend wines from different subzones and from areas outside these subzones could use the IGT Toscana or EU PGI (protected geographical indication, or Italian IGP, indicazione geografica protetta) denomination. Many of these blends are in fact pan-Tuscan wines. The Colli Fiorentini (Florentine hills), Colli Senesi (Sienese hills), and Colline Pisane (Pisan little hills) subzones inherently possess positive marketing images, thanks to the incorporation of the names of their world-famous principal cities. In a global marketplace for wine that has expanded and matured significantly from the immediately post– World War II era (when generic Chianti was the default choice for Italian wine), consumers are increasingly looking to discover distinct flavors and places. In modern-day marketing, the importance of an authentic story cannot be overestimated. If the subzones of External Chianti were to emerge from under the assumed name of Chianti, the concept of place could finally be restored to several respected Tuscan wine-growing areas. Rufina, for one, has a historic reputation for quality that should transcend the generic marketplace reputation of External Chianti. If Chianti Classico were to successfully negotiate with the Montalcino, Montepulciano, San Gimignano, and Rufina consortia to abandon the name Chianti in favor of their own authentic and exceptional placenames, the foundation for executing this strategy with the other subzones of External Chianti would be built for a future round of negotiations. This approach would require wise rulers on all sides of the table. In the passionate words of Paolo De Marchi of Isole e Olena, “I think it is not so possible, but it is not impossible!” Yet for all of the twists and turns in the evolution of Chianti Classico as a wine appellation, the territory of Chianti has remained true to its essential and pristine character. Over the past quarter century, Chianti Classico’s wines have brought distinction to Chianti and its winegrowers. Regardless of borders and boundaries (geographic or legal),

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Chianti is, was, and always will be a land to treasure for its nature and culture. It is where the Black Rooster reigns supreme. This story has been our search for this land and its noble wine, the true Chianti. Near the end of their arduous and wondrous climb up the mountain of Purgatory in the second book of The Divine Comedy, Dante’s guide, the Roman poet Virgil, leaves him at the threshold of the summit called Earthly Paradise—as we leave you, dear readers, at the gates of the realm of Chianti—with these parting words: I’ve brought you here through intellect and art; from now on, let your pleasure be your guide; you’re past the steep and past the narrow paths. Look at the sun that shines upon your brow; look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs born here, spontaneously, of the earth.8

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NOTES

Epigraph. Viviani Della Robbia 1957, 9. Translation by Frances Di Savino. Quoted with permission from Corso and Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel.

1. T H E O R I G I N A L C H I A N T I

Epigraph. Dante 1856, 25 (ch. 13). Translation by Frances Di Savino. 1. 2.

3.

4.

Oliva 1925, 6. In 1911 the legal names of these three townships were changed to include the suffix in Chianti. The township of Greve (as of 1972) and several other towns in the Chianti Classico appellation also incorporate the words in Chianti as part of their official names. For simplicity, we generally refer to all such townships and towns in this text by their common names without this suffix. Historical variants of the toponym Chianti include Clantius, Klantis, Kiantis, Clantis, Chiantis, Clanti, and Clante. The root Clan raises a possible etymological association with the Etruscan words clan (son) and clanti (adopted son). According to one scholar specializing in Etruscan, clanti means “a natural son,” in contrast with an adopted or juridical one (Nielsen 1999, 67). Given the potential filial relationship (whether adoptive or natural) between Chianti’s small Etruscan settlements and their larger surrounding metropolises (mother cities), perhaps Chianti was referred to as the son or adopted son of larger Etruria. Map by Leonardo Checcucci in Garuglieri 1994, 19.

2 77

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37.

Edlund-Berry 2006, 121. The direct route linking the Etruscan cities of Volterra and Chiusi was the high ridgeway extending through Chianti past what are now Castellina and Radda and the Etruscan settlement on Mount Cetamura in the Chianti Mountains. Garuglieri 1994, 19. Giambullari 1549, 96. Gran-Aymerich with Turfa, 2013, 400. Zifferero 2010, 68. White et al. 2002, 28. Rasmussen 1979, 105. De Grummond et al. 2015. According to De Grummond, as of 2015 more than three thousand grape seeds have been recovered from a second excavated well at the Cetamura site, dating from the later Roman and medieval periods. Zifferero 2010, 71. Sereni 1997, 24. Paolucci 2000, 11. Edlund-Berry 2006, 117. Ibid. Marchetti and Tognaccini 2009, 19. Ammirato 1600, 391. The chain of mountains at the eastern edge of Chianti was known as the Monti del Chianti by the early fourteenth century. Reich 1975–76, 46. L. Passerini 1861, 44. Ammirato 1826, 473. Repetti 1839, 403. Sergio Raveggi, introduction to Raveggi and Parenti 1998, xi. Casabianca 1940, 208–9. Raveggi, introduction to Raveggi and Parenti 1998, xxx. Raveggi and Parenti 1998, 92. English translation from Sereni 1997, 121, of Tanàglia 1953, 31. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena 1974, 202. Stopani 2010, 55. Nanni 2003, 19. La Roncière 1993, 29–30, 35, 41. Jones 1997, 153, 171. As a class, the vinattieri of Florence appear to have invested more in land than in movable assets such as financial instruments, suggesting that they were motivated to secure a portion of their market supply independently of the mediatori. Based on our analysis of the tax reports filed by the forty-nine self-designated vinattieri in the 1427 Catasto, only ten owned any shares in the public debt of the Florentine Republic. Herlihy et al. 2002. Jones 1997, 163. La Roncière 1993, 18. Goldthwaite 2009, 510. Virgil 2005, 3.

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NOTES TO PAGES 2–9

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

Salimbene da Parma 1972, 137. Jones 1997, 173. Brucker 1998, 251. Goldthwaite 2009, 43. Nanni 2003, 21. Goldthwaite 2009, 531. Ibid., 541. Duby 1968, 138. Melis 1984, 57. La Roncière 1993, 46. Melis 1984, 34, 55. S. L. Mazzei 1998, 99. Veseth 1990, 49. Melis 1984, 34, 44. Conti 1966, 45. Melis 1984, 35–38. Lopez 1971, 3. Giannetto 2008, 31–39. Medici 1991, 12. Maria Daniela Nenci, “La distribuzione geografica,” section 3 of the introduction to Muzzi and Nenci 1988, 21–22. The noble family of Castello Monterinaldi in Radda, likely having settled in the city of Florence as citizens, entered into ten mezzadria contracts for their landholdings in Radda in the thirteenth century (more than are found in any other single place in Chianti). These contracts indicate the established presence of individual, named poderi (e.g., Pesa, Monterinaldi, Cerreto, and Campomaggio). Ibid., 45. Emigh 2009, 199. Muzzi 1998, 66. In addition, notwithstanding the general division of produce in halves under this system, there are examples of mezzadria contracts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in which landowners reserved for themselves a greater share of the wine (e.g., two-thirds) or a higher percentage of the wine made from more prized vine varieties (e.g., Trebbiano). Pinto 2000, 49–50. Nenci 1998, 109. Unlike in other areas in Tuscany and Italy, however, the small independent farmer (piccolo proprietario coltivatore) never disappeared in Chianti. Bloch 1966, 143, 218. Young 1793, 507. Giannetto 2008, 108. This expression is based on Playing the Farmer, the title of Thibodeau 2011, which analyzes Virgil’s Georgics in the context of ancient Romans’ ambivalent attitudes toward agriculture. Maginnis 2001, 80–81. Petrarch 2005, 251. Goldthwaite 2009, 29.

NOTES TO PAGES 9–17

•

2 79

69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

Maginnis 2001, 29. Ibid., 55. Herlihy 1995, 321. Starn and Partridge 1992, 176. Until recently, most commentators had identified the second river as the Arbia (instead of the Elsa), because of the importance of the Arbia River Valley in historic Chianti (and perhaps the potential implications of acknowledging an enlarged geographic delimitation of Chianti, albeit artistic, based on the Elsa serving as Chianti’s natural western boundary). Unlike the Pesa and the Elsa, which flow into Florence’s Arno River, the Arbia runs south from Castellina, in the direction of Siena (opposite to the view in Vasari’s painting). Whether Vasari mistakenly chose the Elsa instead of the Greve or the Ema River, both of which also flow into the Arno, the Elsa does glance by Poggibonsi, a flash point in Florence’s centuries-long conflict with Siena, making its inclusion historically (though tangentially) relevant. Today, the Chianti Classico appellation includes pieces of the townships of Poggibonsi and Barberino Val d’Elsa, in the Elsa River Valley. Vasari 1819, 7. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 7. Gregg 2008, 136. Brolio Castle is depicted with high square walls and a tower at each corner in the road map commissioned by the Medici grand duke of Tuscany in the late sixteenth century. See Pansini 1989, c. 313. Starn and Partridge 1992, 177.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF CHIANTI THROUGH BETTINO RICASOLI

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Pult Quaglia 1993, 38. Morozzi 2011, 64. G. Targioni Tozzetti 1780, 13. Villifranchi 1773, 2:20. “Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi” was the pseudonym of Saverio Manetti. Minucci 1731, xxxxvi. Rombai, Pinzani, and Squarzanti 2000, 104. Ames 1691, canto 1, lines 50, 29, 49. Cochrane 1973, 262. Imberciadori 1953, 10. Beckford 1805, 248. Johnson 1989, 207. Paul 1906, 189. Casabianca 1941, 407–8. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 477. Ibid. Great Britain, Public Record Office 1878, 108.

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NOTES TO PAGES 17–24

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

Miller 1766, 74; Miller 1768, number 9. Villifranchi 1773, 2:269, 270. Ibid., 27. Ibid., 30–33. Barry 1775, 442. Bandini 1775, 58, 59. L. Cantini 1806. While there is historical evidence that the administrative units of the Tokaj region in Hungary were subject to certain wine-related regulatory controls beginning in the midseventeenth century, it was not until 1737 that a royal ordinance officially delimited the villages legally permitted to sell botrytized aszú wine bearing the Tokaj name. LambertGócs 2010, 123. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena 1974, 201. Mazzei 1980, 132. Ibid., 143. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena 1974, 200–205. Stuart 1876, 40. Breschi and Malanima 2002, 113; Cianferoni 1979, 15. Bowring 1838, 40. Malenotti 1831, 121. Bowring 1838, 45. Lambruschini 1830, 471. Ciuffoletti 2000a, 127, 130. Biagioli 2000, 332. Ciuffoletti 2000a, 130. Ibid. Paoletti 1774, xvi, xvii. G. Targioni Tozzetti 1791, 102. Ibid., 103. Ibid., 104. Betti 1827, 262–67. Ricci 1829, 215. Ricci 1830, 443–56; Malenotti 1831, 28, 29. Biagioli 2000, 337. C. Ridolfi 1818, 528. L. Ridolfi 1903, 67. Bowring 1838, 43. Emigh 2009, 104. Sonnino 1875, 207. Caruso 1877, 689. Rogari 2007, 8. Chapman 1906, 10. B. Ricasoli 1887a, 515. Olmi 2000, 155.

NOTES TO PAGES 24–31

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2 81

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

Ciuffoletti 2009, 6. Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Cesare Studiati dated September 26, 1872, in B. Ricasoli 1961, 14. Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Cesare Studiati dated July 16, 1868, in ibid., 9. Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Cesare Studiati dated September 26, 1872, in ibid., 14. Gotti 1894, 67. Biagioli 2000, 349. Ibid., 350; Olmi 2000, 157. Biagioli 2000, 336. Fortuna 1876, 238. Rossati 1900, 505–6. Vizetelly 1874, 122. United States Commissioners 1891, 767. Vizetelly 1874, 122. Chapman 1906, 8. Spadolini 1980, 84–85; Ferretti 1885, 238. Olmi 2000, 159. Ross 1905, 100. T. Guarducci 1909, 224–25, 227–29. Chapman 1906, 8; T. Guarducci 1909, 224. T. Guarducci 1909, 234.

3. T H E B I RT H O F C H I A N T I C L A S S I C O A N D E X T E R N A L C H I A N T I

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

“History,” Melini Winery website, accessed January 26, 2016, www.cantinemelini.it /en/#storia. Bartolozzi 2000, 6. Fenzi, Jandelli, and Fossi 1878, 448–52. Rossati 1900b, 1072. Ciuffoletti 2000b, 176. Antinori 2011, 93. Viviani Della Robbia 1957, 19. Ottavi and Marescalchi 1903, 170. Moretti 1999, xiv n. 28. Canessa 1969, 19. Toniolo 2013, 617. T. Guarducci 1909, 198; Branzoli-Zappi and Mazza 1908, 424. Bandinelli et al. 2012, 10. Ottavi 1894, 679. Ibid., 698. T. Guarducci 1909, 84, 85. Rossi-Ferrini 1938, 19. Ciuffoletti 2000b, 194. Rossi-Ferrini 1938, 29.

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NOTES TO PAGES 31–41

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Ibid., 28, 29. Rossati 1900a, 497. Robertson 2008, 5. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1908, 120. Blakeney 2014, 10. World Intellectual Property Organization, Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, last amended September 28, 1979, www.wipo.int/treaties/en/text .jsp?file_id=288514. Gangjee 2012, 68. Ibid., 98. Mason 1908, 218. Gangjee 2012, 102 n. 112 (French original), 102 (English translation). Garavini 1929, 19, 20. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 300. Ciuffoletti 2000b, 194. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 301. Garavini 1929, 21–22. Ibid., 22. Saltini 2012, 11. Ottavi and Marescalchi 1903, 177. Garavini 1929, 20–21. Falchini 1990, 69. Ciuffoletti 2000b, 194; Garavini 1929, 23. Saltini 2012, 13. Garavini 1929, 24. Ibid., 23. Giorgi 1975, 14. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 17, 19. Notwithstanding this oratory, the following year Oliva published a book titled I vini tipici della Toscana (The typical wines of Tuscany), in which he explained that there were six definitions of Chianti: historic, geographic, geologic, classic, enologic, and commercial (Oliva 1925). Ironically, the Fornaciari Commission’s 1932 report cited this multipart definition as evidence in favor of its conclusion that the name Chianti was not the exclusive property of the Consorzio del Gallo (Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932). For the text of the consortium’s Statuto, see Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico del Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine 1924. Gazzetta ufficiale del regno d’Italia, July 31, 1928, 3564. Garavini 1929, 43. Saltini 2012, 23. Mocarelli 2013, 327. Garavini 1929, 25, 26.

NOTES TO PAGES 41–51

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52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73. 74.

Ibid, 26. Gaultiero Armando Nunzi, interview by Antonio Saltini, November 1989, transcript prepared by Saltini. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 303. Garavini 1929, 26–27. Ibid., 27. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 306–7. Garavini 1929, 30. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 309; Garavini 1929, 30. Garavini 1929, 31. Ibid. Saltini 2012, 30. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 309. Rossi-Ferrini 1932, 65–66. Giorgi 1957, 80. Mocarelli 2013, 329 n. 16. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, v. Ibid., xi. Ottavi and Marescalchi 1903, 176. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 4. Based on the data set forth in the Fornaciari Commission report, Chianti Classico produced approximately 16 percent (171,800 hectoliters, or 4,538,476 gallons) of the total volume of wine potentially to be declared as Chianti (1,062,065 hectoliters, or 28,056,789 gallons); the production of the six subzones of External Chianti was 86,497 hectoliters (2,285,009 gallons) in Montalbano, 50,550 (1,335,390) in Rufina, 148,218 (3,915,505) in Colli Fiorentini, 387,000 (10,223,458) in Colli Senesi, 100,000 (2,641,721) in Colli Aretini, and 118,000 (3,117,230) in Colline Pisane. Ibid., 150, 164, 180, 200, 221, 230. However, the commission estimated that the declarations of the subzones of External Chianti overstated the total volume of what would actually be denominated as vino tipico Chianti. Its report projected the total production of External Chianti vino tipico as only about 408,000 hectoliters (10,778,220 gallons). According to this estimate, by the mid-1930s, External Chianti would produce a volume of vino tipico Chianti equal to about 2.5 times that of the Consorzio del Gallo. Ibid, 362–63. Saltini 2012, 40. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 57. Sarrocchi 1942, 80, 81; Giorgi 1957, 76, 80, 86. However, the Consorzio del Putto’s legal counsel Giuseppe Morelli did not agree with Sarrocchi’s reasoning. In a 1943 rebuttal to Sarrocchi’s Per il “Chianti del Chianti,” Morelli (an Italian senator like Sarrocchi)

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NOTES TO PAGES 51–57

asserted that the 1932 ministerial decree delimiting Chianti was never expressly abrogated and that in any event, by the time Italian Law 1266 was passed, the Consorzio del Putto had “a vested right, if not in the strictly technical sense, [then] in the moral and commercial [one]” to the name Chianti. Morelli 1943, 116–17.

4. CHIANTI CLASSICO ENTERS THE GLOBAL MARKET

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Estimate attributed to Arturo Marescalchi, the architect of Italian Law 497 of 1924 on vini tipici. Giorgi 1957, 82 n. i. Cianferoni 1979, 19. Barbacciani and Nanni 2000, 211. Giuliani 1957, 30, 31. Simon 1952, 698. Lichine 1967, 196. Giorgi 1957, 84. Dalmasso 1957. L. Ricasoli 1957. Italian Law 930 of 1963, Article 5(f )(5). This provision was based on Article 2(11) of Italian Law 116 of February 3, 1963, authorizing the passage of the national denominations of origin law (which became Law 930), including the establishment of “transitional rules for the admission of production zones that had already been incorporated pursuant to the Minister of Agriculture’s decree in execution of Law 1161 of July 10, 1930.” “Law 1161” must be a typographical error, the correct citation being Italian Law 1164 of July 10, 1930. The allusion to the Minister of Agriculture’s 1930s decree refers to the July 31, 1932, ministerial decree (technically jointly issued by Minister of Agriculture Giacomo Acerbo and Minister of Corporations Benito Mussolini) memorializing the recommendations of the Fornaciari Commission report, including its enlarged denomination of Chianti. It bears asking why the architects of both Law 116 of February 1963 and Law 930 of July 1963 decided to reference the July 1932 ministerial decree rather than legally reinstate its provisions by expressly stipulating the delimitation of the enlarged Chianti denomination. If, as a matter of law, the 1932 ministerial decree was no longer “in vigore” (in effect) on the promulgation of Law 1266 of 1937, as the Consorzio del Gallo’s then-president Gino Sarrocchi asserted in his 1942 Per il “Chianti del Chianti,” was the juridical foundation for Law 930 and the 1967 Chianti DOC decree valid? And if not, was it the subject of a legal challenge by the Consorzio del Gallo in the lead-up to the passage of Law 930 and the 1967 Chianti DOC decree? Sarrocchi would have expected nothing less. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 166. Ibid., 159. Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico 1976, 18. Cianferoni 1979, 24. Barbacciani and Nanni 2000, 238 n. 47. Republic of Italy, Law 27, Article 15, Section 3 (1966). Barbacciani and Nanni 2000, 243, table 2A.

NOTES TO PAGES 60–66

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2 85

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

Cianferoni 1979, 37. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 209. Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico 1976, 17. Ibid., 18. Bosi 1972, 18. Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico 1974; “Il gallo nero classico,” in Catalogo ufficiale espositori Greve 12/13/14/15 settembre 1974, 10. Saltini 2012, 104. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 173. Rombai 1996, 52. Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico 1976, 18; Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 149. Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico 1984, introduction. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 189. Ibid., 201. Ibid., 237, 267. Ibid., 256. “The Places of Chianti,” Consorzio Vino Chianti, accessed March 1, 2016, www .consorziovinochianti.it/en/territorio/. In 2002, the subzone of Montespertoli was carved out of the Colli Fiorentini subzone, resulting in seven subzones within External Chianti, which Consorzio Vino Chianti represents. Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico del Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine 1928. All euro to U.S. dollar conversions in the text are based on a fixed notional exchange rate of 1 euro to $1.20. In 2014 and 2015, the sales volume of Chianti Classico increased to 266,956 and 284,523 hectoliters (7 million and 7.5 million gallons), respectively. “Complemento Statistico 2014,” 4; “Complemento Statistico 2015,” 6; both provided by Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico. Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali 2010. “Chianti chiaroscuro,” January 18, 2007, www.harpers.co.uk/people-and-opinion /harpers-says/chianti-chiaroscuro/302135.article. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 2004, 9. Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali 2013.

5. CHIANTI’S HIDDEN ROADS

Epigraph. Dante 1980, canto 34, lines 133–39. Translation by Allen Mandelbaum. Reproduced with permission from University of California Press Books. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Ibid., canto 2, line 140; canto 4, line 149; canto 16, line 62. Maginnis 2001, xix, 14. Dante 1980, canto 10, line 86. Montorselli, Moretti, and Stopani 1984, 138. King 2000, 15. Montorselli, Moretti, and Stopani 1984, 120.

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NOTES TO PAGES 67–100

7. 8. 9. 10.

Reich 1988. Mastrelli 1988. Marchetti and Tognaccini 2009, 66. Dante 1980, canto 31, line 41.

6. T H E G E O G R A P H Y O F C H I A N T I C L A S S I C O

1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

“Regulations: Production Code of ‘Chianti Classico’ Denominazione di Origine Protetta (DOP) Wine,” Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico website, accessed March 12, 2015, www .chianticlassico.com/en/vino/disciplinare/. “Territorio: Caratteristiche,” Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, accessed March 12, 2015, www.chianticlassico.com/territorio/caratteristiche/. C. Cantini et al. 2015, 7. “Territory - Features,” Consorzio Olio DOP Chianti Classico, accessed March 16, 2016, www.oliodopchianticlassico.com/en/il-territorio/caratteristiche/. Villifranchi 1773, 2:28. Chapman 1906, 3. “Territory - Features,” Consorzio Olio DOP Chianti Classico. Ente Mostra Vini—Enoteca Italiana, Siena 2013, 45. C. Cantini et al. 2015, 32, fig. 6.2. Ibid., 33, fig. 6.3. “Brolio Chianti Classico DOCG 2003,” Barone Ricasoli website, accessed April 28, 2015, www.baronericasoli.com/labels/wines/brolio/2003. C. Cantini et al. 2015, 32. Ibid., 33., fig. 6.3. Ibid. Mancini 2000, 9. Rezoagli 1965, 29. Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico del Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine 1924, articolo 4. Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali 2013.

7. T H E S E C R E T O F S A N G I O V E S E

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Villifranchi 1773, 2:20. Crescenzi 1851, 12. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1885, 11. Villifranchi 1773, 1:90–161. Malenotti 1831, 205–24. “Lo stampatore a chi legge,” in Soderini 1734, iiii. “Sangiogheto” in the 1734 edition. Soderini 1622, 98, 100, 111, quote on 81. Girolamo di ser Bastiano Gatteschi da Firenzuola, “Sopra la agricultura” (September 16, 1552), CL.XIV, 19, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (hereafter referred to as Firenzuola BNCF). See also Giannetto 2008, 162–64.

NOTES TO PAGES 102–119

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2 87

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Anonymous, preface to A. Firenzuola 1889, xiii. G. da Firenzuola 1871, 2. Ibid., vi. “Proemio in escusazione dell’Autore,” in Girolamo di ser Bastiano Gatteschi da Firenzuola, Sopra l’agricultura, Fondo Ashburnham, n. 538, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (hereafter referred to as Firenzuola BML), 2. A. Firenzuola 1889, xi–xii. Tagliolini 1981, 297. Repetti 1846, 101. Fiacchi’s lecture at La Colombaria was first published in 1907, and a handwritten copy is appended to the front of the BNCF’s version of Firenzuola’s 1552 manuscript. The quote appears on p. 2 of this copy. See also Fiacchi 1907. Giannetto 2008, 162–63. Davanzati 1853, 487 n. 2. Firenzuola BML, 38. See Tanàglia’s similar description of vermiglio. Tanàglia 1953, 33. Firenzuola BML, 36. In the BML manuscript “Sangioveto” appears as “Sangioueto.” G. da Firenzuola 1871, 37. Trinci 1764, 72–73. He reduced maceration to limit volatility; lauding it to blend. Villifranchi 1773, 1:95. Acerbi 1825, 262–63. Dalmasso 1957, 135. The 1932 report of the Fornaciari Commission (of which Dalmasso was also the viticultural and enological expert) that delimited Chianti cited the 1871 published text of Firenzuola’s treatise (and the manuscript on which it was based in the Biblioteca Comunale di Siena) as the foundation of Davanzati and Soderini’s treatises, concluding, “Come si vede, il plagio fioriva anche nel ’500 !” (As you see, plagiarism flourished even in the 1500s!) Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932, 89 n. 1. Fiacchi lecture, 8, in Firenzuola BNCF. Falchini 1990, 13. Comitato Centrale Ampelografico 1879, 21–22, equates Sanvicetro with Sangiovese piccolo, as does Molon 1906, 1067. Molon’s earliest source is Villifranchi’s Oenologia toscana, later than Falchini by about sixty years. Falchini 1990, 59, 69. Villifranchi 1773, 1:96. Moro quoted in Vergari and Scalacci 2008, 18. Moro’s original text is in the BNCF. Steinberg 2004, 221; George 1990, 86. Perrin 1834, 89. J. F. Vouillamoz et al., 2004. In-depth discussions of this finding and challenges to it may be found in Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz 2012, 942–46; and D’Agata 2014, 428–30. Mendola 1868, 13. Gallesio 1839, 143. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1877, 507. Biagioli 2000, 295. Ibid., 472.

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NOTES TO PAGES 119–124

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Ciuffoletti 2009, 124. B. Ricasoli 1961, 14. Pollacci 1876, 28. Soldati 1969, 97. Molon 1906, 1061–62. Bachechi and Di Vecchi Staraz 2015. Falchini 1990, 13–14. Micheli 2008, 274. Dizionario delle scienze naturali nel quale si tratta metodicamente dei differenti esseri della natura . . . , vol. 19 (Florence: V. Batelli, 1848), 480. Nesto 1998, 25. Consorzio Vini Tipi di San Marino 2008. “Rapporto statistico novembre 2015,” 4, provided by Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico. Ziliani 2008.

8. V I T I C U LT U R E I N C H I A N T I

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Pinto 2000, 42. Firenzuola BML, 28. Ibid., 9. Falchini 1990, 16. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 38. Ibid., 11. Villifranchi 1773, 1:60. Ibid., 47. Ibid., 67. Ibid., 2:84. Denise 1779, 54–55. Tabarrini 1856, 192. Bigliazzi and Bigliazzi 1997, 24, 26. Firenzuola BML, 10. Villifranchi 1773, 1:80. Ciuffoletti 2000a, 131. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1877, 506. Pollacci 1883, 546–47. Chapman 1906, 8. Loreti and Scalabrelli 2007, 394. Barbacciani and Nanni 2000, 206. Loreti and Scalabrelli 2007, 394. Stopani 1990, 104. Redi 1685, 33. Firenzuola BML, 11.

NOTES TO PAGES 124–138

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28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

Ibid. Sangiovese merited this care: “havendo cura a quel vizzato.” Firenzuola BML, 36. Ibid., 28. Miller 1768, 480. Ibid., 483. Ricci 1827, 40. Ibid., 43. L. Ridolfi 1903, 43. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena 1974, 202. According to Paolo Socci in an interview on November 1, 2014. Biagioli 2000, 247. Firenzuola BML, 3. Falchini 1990, 11. Ibid., 31. Villifranchi 1773, 1:165. Ibid., 87. Ibid., 2:204. Ibid., 208. Landucci 1842, 136. Pinto 2000 42. Firenzuola BML, 16. Falchini 1990, 23, 24. Villifranchi 1773, 1:67, 62. Ross 1883–84, 407. Firenzuola BML, 11. Biagioli 2000, 338. Ibid., 480. B. Ricasoli 1887b, 494–95. Villifranchi 1773, 2:234–46. Biagioli 2000, 355. Flower 1979, 196. Ciuffoletti 2000a, 144. Torelli 1884–85, 131–32. Biagioli 2000, 355. Ibid., 356. For more information about the timing and circumstances of the arrival of phylloxera in the vicinity of Brolio, see Firidolfi 1890, 29–60. Trentin 1895, 163. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1877, 506. Villifranchi 1773, 1:116. Sestini 1845, 5. Acerbi 1825, 298–99. Biagioli 2000, 351. Pollacci 1876, 28. Trentin 1895, 163. Mondini 1903, 136, 198, 304, 311, 230.

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NOTES TO PAGES 138–145

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

Ibid., 236. Ibid., 267. Breviglieri 1957, 103. Istituto di Ricerca sul Territorio e l’Ambiente “Leonardo” 2005, 232–57. Barbacciani and Nanni 2000, 243, table 2A. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 157. Cianferoni 1979, 37, tabella 7. “L’argomento di vino, part V,” Notiziario del Chianti Classico, August 1971, 7. Stopani 1990, 108. Bandinelli, Boselli, and Pisani 2007, 333. Breviglieri 1957, 105. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1877, 515; Rovasenda 1877, 70. The list is available at www.chianticlassico.com/en/vino/disciplinare/. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio 1885, 13. Racah 1911, 87. Ibid., 94. Soderini 1622, 101. Villifranchi 1773, 1:93, 107. Micheli 2008, 52; O. Targioni Tozzetti 1809, 1:190. Biagioli 2000, 480. D’Agata 2014, 51. Calò, Scienza, and Costacurta 2001, 456. Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz 2012, 583. Trinci 1764, 62–63. Vino Chianti Classico Gallo Nero 2006, 1–3.

9. E N O L O G Y I N C H I A N T I

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Gallo 1566, 62, 63. Saltini 2014, 447. Firenzuola BML, 40. Capponi 2013, 51. Falchini 1990, 81, 82. Villifranchi 1773, 2:160–66. Firenzuola BNCF, 1. Firenzuola BML, 36. Ibid. Ibid., 36–37. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 38. Falchini 1990, 70. Ibid., 70–71. Villifranchi 1773, 2:19.

NOTES TO PAGES 145–165

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291

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

Firenzuola BML, 38. Spelled correctly “melagrane” in Firenzuola BNCF, 54. Villifranchi 1773, 2:19–23. Fabbroni 1819, 61. Villifranchi 1773, 2:219. C. Ridolfi 1818, 512–16. Biagioli 2000, 501. Ibid., 357, 499, 500. Ciuffoletti 2009, 108–9. Ibid., 110. Firenzuola BML, 39. Ibid., 44. Falchini 1990, 71. Ibid., 70. P. Mazzei 1980, 132. Villifranchi 1773, 2:22. He specified “Colore Dolce,” translated in our text as Colorino. Ibid., 23. N. Passerini 1905, 3–4. This book includes a list of authors who discussed the governo and analyzed its positive and negative attributes. Gallesio 1839, 143. Garoglio 1965, 535. Antinori 2011, 100. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 89. Ceccarelli 2009, 26. Antinori 2011, 44. Nesto 1999b, 24. Sergio Manetti, “Dialogo tra sordi,” Veronelli Newsletter, transcript of an interview with Gambelli recorded on July 22, 1993. Macchi 2007, 101, 75. Macchi 2016, 25, 35. Nesto 1999b, 26. Macchi 2016, 41. Macchi 2007, 101.

10. C H I A N T I C L A S S I C O W I N E G R O W E R S BY S U B Z O N E

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Costantini 2013. Ciuffoletti 2009. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena 1974, 203. Villifranchi 1773, 2:25. Costantini, Barbetti, and L’Abate 2006, 14, fig. 2; 15, fig. 3. Viviani Della Robbia 2005. Viviani Della Robbia 1957 is the Italian original. Agnoletti 2013, 338.

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11. THE MEDICI CODE

Epigraph. “A Wood of Love (The Golden Age),” in Medici 1991, stanza 112. Translation by Jon Thiem. Reproduced with permission from The Pennsylvania State University Press. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Repetti 1833, 695–96. Bosi 1972, 23. L. Cantini 1806. Pratilli and Zangheri 1994, 779–80. Saltini 2012, 17. Angiolini, Becagli, and Verga 1993. “The State and Condition of Brittish [sic] Trade at This Place,” Leghorn, July 24, 1715, in State Papers (SP) 98/23, Public Record Office (PRO), National Archives of the United Kingdom. Thanks to the curator at Kiplin Hall, the estate in North Yorkshire County, England, that Crowe purchased in 1722, we were able to examine Crowe’s personal account book from Livorno dating from 1710 to 1715. It has 188 double-sided pages and is written in French. Though it includes dozens of references to barrels, barriques, pipes, cases, and even flasks of wine bought and sold by Crowe, there is not one mention of Chianti. What’s more, the generic word vin identifies virtually all of the wine. The only exceptions are a few mentions of “Florence,” “Montalcino,” and “Venise” wines and a handful of entries referring to French wine by place-name, including “Hermitage,” “Champagne,” “Nice,” and “Provence.” The absence of any reference to Chianti in Crowe’s account book (even in his personal commercial dealings involving wine with the British envoy to the Florentine court of Cosimo III) suggests that wine from Chianti (and from other areas of Tuscany) was generally known, at least in the export trade by the early eighteenth century, as “Florence Wine” rather than being identified by its specific place of origin. Two other former high-level officials of the Chianti Classico consortium corroborated that certain members of the board of directors knew about the September 24, 1716 bando as early as the 1960s. Consorzio del Marchio Storico 1999, 146. Ibid., 149. Turrini 2003. Ibid., 18. Ibid., 18–19. Ibid., 19–20. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 18. Cochrane 1973, 308; Pult Quaglia 1993, 40. Negri 1722, 371; Crescimbeni 1714, 213. Magalotti 1968, 17. Paola Bettaccini on behalf of Piero Antinori, memorandum emailed to the authors, September 22, 2015.

NOTES TO PAGES 252–267

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22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

“Documento 13011 di 58223,” record of Sergio Camerani, “Archivio dei Baroni Ricasoli Presso il Castello di Brolio” (1942), Centro per la Ricerca e lo Sviluppo di Metodologie e Applicazioni per gli Archivi Storici, www.maas.ccr.it/h3/h3.exe/aguida/d13011 /fDocumento. Also suggesting that the 1716 bandi were not in the Ricasoli family archives in 1942 is the fact that neither the Fornaciari Commission’s 1932 report, Per la tutela del vino Chianti (Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti 1932), nor Antonio Casabianca’s 1941 Notizie storiche sui principali luoghi del Chianti contains any reference to them, notwithstanding the fact that the authors of both works did independent archival research at Brolio Castle (the Fornaciari Commission report, for example, cites letters and documents from the Brolio Castle archives from 1715, 1716, and 1717 without mentioning either bando). Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 21 (London: House of Commons, 1803), 148. “Bando sopra il commercio del vino” (July 18, 1716), Legis.I 54/1.29, Regia Consulta 14.561, Archivio di Stato di Firenze. “Bando sopra la dichiarazione de’ confini delle quattro regioni Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano, e Vald’ Arno di Sopra” (September 24, 1716), Legisl.I 54/I.36, Regia Consulta 14.563, Archivio di Stato di Firenze. The Il Chianti map in T. Guarducci 1909 also includes a reference to Castagneto, a minuscule locality cited in the delimitation of the “Vald’ Arno di Sopra” region in the September 24, 1716, bando (raising a legitimate question about whether Guarducci or the map’s draftsman based it on this bando and whether the original text of Guarducci’s manuscript made any mention of the bando). After Guarducci’s “Il Chianti vinicolo” manuscript won the Georgofili Academy’s 1906 competition for a handbook on enological Chianti, he unexpectedly died. As a result, officials of the academy edited and supplemented it prior to its publication in 1909. We made a request to see Guarducci’s competition manuscript to learn whether it mentions the September 1716 bando. The Georgofili’s archivist reported that he was surprised to discover that it is not in the archives. In a 2007 essay titled “Il ‘penultimo’ Chianti” (The “penultimate” Chianti), Piero Guarducci observed that the author of Il Chianti vinicolo, a cousin of his grandfather’s, “mostra di conoscere i limiti indicati dal Bando Granducale del 1716” (demonstrates an awareness of the limits set by the 1716 granducal bando). P. Guarducci 2007, 136. Wine for thought! By hiding Cosimo III’s 1716 bandi, these same merchant-producers and scholars also squandered the opportunity to build a stronger historic foundation for the European Union laws and international treaties regarding the protection of designations of origin and geographical indications that Italy and its fellow EU member countries strenuously invoke to defend their wine and agricultural products in the twenty-first century. Because these bandi were kept out of sight, legal historians have overlooked to what extent Cosimo’s July 18 bando not only anticipated the French appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) law of 1935 but also may have been the conceptual blueprint for Article 1 of the French law of 1824 that imposed criminal penalties on “every merchant, factor, or retailer” who knowingly trafficked in goods marked with a false place of origin. This law was in turn the foundation of the French law of 1857 that underpinned the legal

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29.

concept of “indication of source” in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1883. Thus the Medicis deserve recognition for not only introducing the principles of Italian gastronomy to France but also helping to lay the groundwork for French wine law. Since 1873, the David has been housed in Florence’s Accademia di Belle Arti museum, with a replica in its former place at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.

A F T E RW O R D

1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

The Consorzio Vino Chianti describes its territory as “The places of Chianti” on its website (www.consorziovinochianti.it/en/territorio) and has a link of the same name on its home page. Commission Regulation (EC) no. 607/2009, July 14, 2009, OJ L 193/60, Official Journal of the European Union, also available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN /TXT/?qid=1456071325372&uri=CELEX:32009R0607. “Atti di programmazione: Deliberazione 27 marzo 2015, n. 37,” Bollettino ufficiale della regione Toscana 46, no. 28, pt. 1 (May 20, 2015): 35–36. European Landscape Convention, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on July 19, 2000, and opened for signature in Florence on October 20, 2000, Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 176, also available at www.coe.int/en/web /landscape/about-the-convention. “Piano di indirizzo territoriale con valenza di piano paesaggistico,” scheda ambito di paesaggio 10, Chianti (Regione Toscana), also available at www.regione.toscana.it /-/piano-di-indirizzo-territoriale-con-valenza-di-piano-paesaggistico. Pilsen Urquell v. Industrie Poretti SpA, ETMR 168, 172 (Corte Suprema di Cassazione 1996), quoted in translation in Gangjee 2012, 209. Ibid., 210. Dante 1982, canto 27, lines 130–35. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. Reproduced with permission from University of California Press Books.

NOTES TO PAGES 272–276

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

These are the texts that were foundational for our research on and study of the region of Chianti and the wine zone of Chianti Classico. For a full bibliography, see “Works Cited.” Accademia Economico-Agraria dei Georgofili. Convegno del Chianti. Florence: Vallecchi, 1957. Angiolini, Franco, Vieri Becagli, and Marcello Verga, eds. La Toscana nell’età di Cosimo III. Florence: Edifir, 1993. Belfrage, Nicolas. The Finest Wines of Tuscany and Central Italy: A Regional and Village Guide to the Best Wines and Their Producers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Biagioli, Giuliana. Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell’Ottocento—Bettino Ricasoli: Il patrimonio, le fattorie. Florence: Olschki, 2000. Bosi, Enrico. Atlante del Chianti Classico. Florence: Sansoni, 1972. Calò, Antonio, Attilio Scienza, and Angelo Costacurta. Vitigni d’Italia. Bologna: Caderini Edagricole, 2001. Casabianca, Antonio. Guida storica del Chianti. Rome: Multigrafica, 1940. Cianferoni, Reginaldo. Il Chianti Classico fra prosperità e crisi. Bologna: Agricole, 1979. Ciuffoletti, Zeffiro. Alla ricerca del “vino perfetto”: Il Chianti del barone di Brolio. Florence: Olschki, 2009. , ed. Storia del vino in Toscana: Dagli Etruschi ai nostri giorni. Florence: Polistampa, 2000. Commissione Interministeriale per la Delimitazione del Territorio del Vino Chianti. Per la tutela del vino Chianti e degli altri vini tipici toscani. Bologna: Antonio Brunelli, 1932. Consorzio del Marchio Storico. Un gallo nero che ha fatto storia: Personaggi e vicende del Consorzio Chianti Classico. San Casciano: Consorzio del Marchio Storico, 1999.

297

Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, ed. Il Chianti Classico. Florence: Il Cenacolo, 1974. D’Agata, Ian. Native Wine Grapes of Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. Flower, Raymond. Chianti: The Land, the People and the Wine. New York: Universe, 1979. Gangjee, Dev. Relocating the Law of Geographical Indications. Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. George, Rosemary. Chianti and the Wines of Tuscany. London: Sotheby’s, 1990. Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Guarducci, Torquato. Il Chianti vinicolo: Manuale pel commerciante di vini nella regione del Chianti. Edited by Italo Moretti. Florence: Libreria Chiari, 1999. Montorselli, Giovanni Brachetti, Italo Moretti, and Renato Stopani. Le strade del Chianti Gallo Nero. Florence: Bonechi, 1984. Nanni, Paolo, ed. Storia regionale della vite e del vino in Italia: Toscana. Florence: Polistampa, 2007. Paronetto, Lamberto. Il magnifico Chianti. Verona: Enostampa, 1967. Robinson, Jancis, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz. Wine Grapes. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Saltini, Antonio. Agrarian Sciences in the West. Translated by Jeremy J. Scott. 3 vols. Florence: Nuova Terra Antica, 2014. . Vino, conti e contadini: Cinquant’anni di scontri per le denominazioni del Chianti. Florence: Nuova Terra Antica, 2009. Sereni, Emilio. History of the Italian Agricultural Landscape. Translated by R. Burr Litchfield. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Viviani Della Robbia, Maria Bianca. Fattoria nel Chianti. Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1957. Translated by E. H. Morrill as A Farm in Chianti. Florence: Paolo Sacchi, 2005.

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INDEX

420A rootstock, 145, 147 775 Paulsen rootstock, 207 779 Paulsen rootstock, 207 1427 Classification (Catasto), 11, 19–20, 278n33 3309 rootstock, 224 Abrostine, 150, 169, 170 Abrusco, 150, 152 Accademia dei Georgofili. See Georgofili Academy Accademia del Cimento, 28 Acerbi, Giuseppe, 121, 144 Acerbo, Giacomo, 56, 285n10 Acer campestre (hedge maple), 136, 138. See also alberata and maritata training methods; testucchio system acidity, 85, 129, 164, 168. See also volatile acidity acylated anthocyanins, 130–31 advertising. See marketing aging categories and regulations, 61, 64, 85–86 aging practices, 161, 168, 169, 174, 184, 186. See also oak containers Agrarian Sciences in the West (Saltini), 161–62 L’agricoltore sperimentato (Trinci), 121, 153, 288n22

Agricoltori del Chianti Geografico, 72–73, 184 agricultural cooperatives, 43, 62, 72–73, 75, 84, 235, 263 agricultural treatises, 9, 12, 118–22; the Georgofili Academy competitions, 28. See also specific authors and works agricultural workers, 156. See also mezzadria system agriculture: in ancient Tuscany, 4, 9, 133; Baron Ricasoli’s influence, 31; Chianti’s soils and, 106, 115; crops other than grapes, 107, 137, 138, 146, 155; in the eighteenth century, 26–28; in Florentine and Tuscan culture, 9, 14–15, 19, 30, 47; the Georgofili Academy’s improvement efforts, 28–31; government and EU assistance programs, 64, 66–67, 72, 219; independent farmers in Chianti, 279n61; in medieval and Renaissance Tuscany, 8, 10, 16, 232. See also mezzadria system; monoculture; polyculture; viticulture agriturismi, 83–84 alberata and maritata training methods, 4, 9, 26, 30, 132, 135, 136. See also testucchio system

313

alberello training method, 4, 9, 158; Baron Ricasoli’s variation, 142; basics and advantages of, 158; in medieval and Renaissance Tuscany, 9, 16, 132, 137–38; producers using, 132, 149, 158, 203, 215, 219, 226, 243; proponents of, 133–36; quality and, 26, 30, 133, 134, 138–39 alberese (rock type and related soils), 111, 112, 129 Albola, 68, 160, 191map, 196 alcohol levels: additions to boost, 168–71; DOC and DOCG regulations, 64, 82, 85, 93; trend toward higher alcohol, 173; viticultural practices and, 107, 108, 133, 157–58 Aliatico, 24 Alicante, 145 Alicante Bouschet, 152, 227 Alicante San Giorgio, 145 altitude: grape varieties for higher elevations, 151; higher-elevation vineyards and soils, 19, 107–8, 110, 128–29, 137–38, 151 Alvalhao, 145 Ama (producer), 153, 199map; Gran Selezione release, 93; and the Marchio Storico consortium, 84; profile and tasting notes, 202–3 Ama (town), 6, 165 America. See United States American oak, 173 Ames, Richard, 23 Ammirato, Scipione, 5 Ancellotta, 152 Anderson, Burton, 94 Anello, Leonello, 159 anguillari, 133, 134, 137 Anichini, Angiolo, 102 Anichini, Beppe, 102, 194 Anichini, Clementina, 102 Anichini, Ilaria, 154, 158, 194 Anichini, Mirella, 102 Anichini, Rosita, 205 Anichini family, xiii. See also Le Corti annata wines, 93. See also specific producers Anne, Queen of England, 23–24 Antico Lamole, 220 Antinori, Antonio, 266–67 Antinori, Giovanni di Piero, 259 Antinori, Lodovico, 36–37, 52, 95

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INDEX

Antinori, Marchesi (producer), 83, 93, 250, 259; Chianti Classico vineyards, 80, 95, 98; and the consortiums, 51, 53, 74–75, 84, 91, 95; founding of, 36–37; and the Super Tuscans, 70–71, 77–78, 176; Tachis at, 75, 77, 78, 148, 175–77; and the Tranvia del Chianti, 38–39 Antinori, Niccolò, 53, 70, 77, 175–76 Antinori, Niccolò Francesco, 259, 269 Antinori, Piero, 37, 38–39, 53, 70, 77, 175–77, 259 Antinori family, 172, 271 Antonini, Alberto, 86 Anzilotti, Guglielmo, 63, 76, 257–58, 262–63, 267 appellations of origin: French appellation d’origine (AO) system, 25, 43, 62, 63, 274, 294–95n28. See also denominations of origin; specific DOCs and DOCGs Arbia River, 99, 106, 114map. See also Val d’Arbia Arbois, 162 Arceno (locality), 19, 265 Arceno (producer), 33, 35, 150, 228map Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), 256, 260, 265, 266, 268 Archivio di Stato di Siena (ASS), 263, 264 arenaria (rock type and related soils), 111–12 Arezzo, 2, 114map Arno River, 10, 114map. See also Valdarno L’art de faire, de gouverner, et de perfectionner les vins (Chaptal), 167 L’arte di fare il vino perfetto e durevole da poter servire al commercio estero (Paoletti), 28–29, 254 Artimino, 23, 144 ASF (Archivio di Stato di Firenze), 256, 260, 265, 266, 268 ASS (Archivio di Stato di Siena), 263, 264 Assjè di Marcorà, Adriana, 223 Associazione Enotecnici Italiani, 45, 184 Atlante del Chianti Classico (Bosi), 75, 254, 257, 261, 262 Bacchus, in Vasari’s painting, 18 Bacco in Toscana (Redi), 137 Badia a Coltibuono, 3, 5, 79, 185, 199map; grape varieties at, 151–52, 153, 154; profile and tasting notes, 198, 200 Badia a Montemuro, 11 Badia a Passignano, 5, 98, 237map, 243, 244 Badia di San Salvatore, 119 Bagno a Ripoli, 145

Bain, Norman, 68 Balbi Valier, Elisabetta, 203–4 Baltimore, Charles Calvert, Lord, 23 Bandinelli, Bartolomeo, 268 Bandinelli, Roberto, 124, 126, 149–50, 153, 219 Bandini, Annamaria, 213fig. Bandini, Bandino, 213, 213fig. Bandini, Luciano, 181, 184 Bandini, Salustio Antonio, 25 bandi of 1716, 23, 252–72, 253fig.; authors’ archival research into, 259–60, 263–66, 267–68, 294n27; authors’ interviews about, 256–59, 261–63; British presence in Livorno at time of the first (July) bando, 259–60; Chianti Classico consortium’s relationship to, 257, 258, 261, 262–63, 267–68, 271–72, 293n9, 294–95n28; Chianti’s boundaries defined under the September 24, 1716 bando, 252, 270–71; contemporary references to, 259–60, 263–65, 268, 293n8; disappearance and rediscovery of, 254, 256, 258, 268–69; enforcement and penalties, 25, 265, 268–69, 270; historical significance of, 252, 269–72, 294–95n28; issuance, purposes, and requirements of, 25, 252, 269–70, 274; Magalotti’s work as precursor of, 265–67; as precedent for the Carmignano DOC, 273; published references to, 156, 254, 256, 257, 262; Sienese producers and, 263–65, 268–69; third (November) bando, 268; and the twentieth-century Chianti boundary debates, 254, 256 bando of 1611, 22–23 Barbaresco, 58, 130 barbatelle, 141, 147 Barberino Val d’Elsa, 54map, 106, 114map; Chianti boundary debates and, 46, 47, 52, 56, 280n73; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; Chianti Classico subzone, 114map, 115 Barbieri, Elisabetta, 149, 250 Barbieri, Valerio, 75, 148–49, 156, 250 Bargino, Antinori winery at, 259 barili, 10–11 Barolo, 58, 130 barrels and casks. See barriques; tonneaux; containers; oak containers

barriques: for Chianti Classico/Sangiovese wines, 83, 130, 172–73, 183, 184, 186; for Super Tuscans, 77, 78, 79 barrocci, 38 Barry, Edward, 25 Battle of Montaperti, 99, 101 Bellaccini, Leonardo, 154 Belluzzo, Giuseppe, 51, 52, 53 Bernabei, Franco, 82–83, 184, 185–86, 232 Betti, Paolo, 29 Bianchetto di Francia, 144 Bianchi, Aldo, 68 Bianchi, Fabrizio, 151, 236 Bianchi, Laura, 236, 238 Bianchi Bandinelli, Alessandro Boscu, 234, 235 Bianchi Bandinelli, Andrea, 234, 235 Bianchi Bandinelli, Ranuccio, 234–35 Bianco della Lega, 83 Bibbiano, 108, 153, 180, 183, 206map; profile and tasting notes, 205, 207–9 Biblioteca Comunale di Siena Firenzuola manuscript, 119–20, 288n25 Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML) Firenzuola manuscript, 119, 120 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF) Firenzuola manuscript, 119, 120 bigoncie, 162, 165, 169 Bimbi, Bartolomeo, 126 Bindi, Arturo, 41 Bini, Bruno, 195 biodynamics, 159–60, 228 Biondi Santi, Ferruccio, 125, 126, 179 Biondi Santi, Franco, 125, 180 Biondi Santi, Tancredi, 179–80, 181, 183, 207 Biondi Santi and Co., 180 Bisi, Tommaso, 53 Blackborne, Robert, 24 Black Death, 8, 10, 17 black rooster emblem: branding and promotional efforts, 60–61, 73–74; Consorzio del Gallo’s adoption of, 50; early history and legends associated with, 6, 18, 50, 97, 245; licensing of, 89; mandatory use of, 91; on seals and labels, 53, 58, 60–61, 73–74, 80–81, 91; trademark protection and disputes, 50, 57, 81–82 Le Bocce, 184 Bolingbroke, Henry St John, Viscount, 24

INDEX

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315

Bonaccorsi, Anna di Filippo, 31 Bonacossi, Ugo, 61, 273 Le Boncie, 91, 97, 132, 153, 154, 158, 159, 228map Bordeaux: Bordeaux wines in the English market, 265; consultants’ connections with, 175, 176, 185, 186, 187, 188 Bordeaux grape varieties, in Chianti, 78, 83, 92. See also specific varieties Bordini, Remigio, 127, 149, 215 Il Borghetto, 172, 217, 247map Borgogna Bianca, 144 Borgogna Nera, 144 Bosi, Enrico, 75, 254, 257–58, 261, 262, 267 botrytis, 110, 127, 129, 155, 192 botti, 173 Bourgeois, M., 140 bracciali alla chiantigiana, 136–37, 147 Bracciola Nera, 152 Braganti, Michele, 151 braiding (intrecciatura), 159, 197, 221 Brancaia, 68, 86, 186 Brettanomyces, 185

33; zonation study, 113. See also Ricasoli, Barone Brolio Castle, 5, 6, 18, 103, 280n78; and the bandi of 1716, 254, 261, 267–68, 294n23 bronconi, 133, 134 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 99 Brunello di Montalcino, 58, 79, 125, 195, 207, 275; the Biondi-Santi Brunellos, 125, 126; Brunellogate, 90, 92, 130, 150; Gambelli and, 180 Brunesco di San Lorenzo, 79, 123 Bruni, Leonardo, xv bubonic plague, 8, 10, 17 bucchero wine wares, 3 bulk wine market: after DOC establishment, 74, 76; and/after DOCG establishment, 79–80, 82, 84, 86–88; before DOC establishment, 40, 41, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 69, 73, 180; new certification requirement for bulk sales, 91 Buon governo (Lorenzetti), 15–16, 17, 132–33, 232 Burgundy, 15, 25, 135, 144, 148, 185

Breviglieri, Nino, 145, 147 Brini, Francesco, 50 Brini, Giulio, 44 Brini Batacchi, Paola, 178, 181–82 Brini Batacchi, Paolo, 178 Britain: British landowners in Chianti, 68; British market and trade before 1900, 23–25, 28, 33–34, 259–60, 265–66, 268–69, 293n8; as modern export market, 84; wine preferences in, 265, 266 Brolio (locality), 165 Brolio (producer), 199map; Baron Ricasoli’s revitalization of, 30, 31–34, 124; Baron Ricasoli’s winemaking practices, 31–32, 124, 125, 167–68; and the Consorzio del Gallo, 49; consultants associated with, 86, 186; Gran Selezione release, 93; grape varieties and viticultural practices at, 31, 139, 142–43, 144–45, 150, 153, 200–201; nineteenth-century pests and diseases at,

Caberlot, 149 Cabernet grape varieties, 145; Cabernet Franc, 217. See also Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon: allowed under DOCG regulations, 85, 90; characteristics of, 83, 129, 154; for higher-elevation vineyards, 151; introduction/increased planting in Chianti Classico, 67, 83, 90, 148; producers using, 154, 217, 227, 230, 231; in Sangiovese blends, 67, 130, 145, 154, 183; in Sassicaia

143; pre–nineteenth century wine exports, 24, 31; profile and tasting notes, 200, 201; rainfall amounts, 109; the Ricasoli blend and its influence, 32, 118, 124–25, 144, 152; twentieth-century reputation and outside ownership, 34, 69–70, 200; Vizetelly on,

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INDEX

and Tignanello, 77, 78, 177; varietal profile, 154; Vitiarium research, 150 Cacchiano, 6, 34, 69, 104, 165, 199map; Gambelli and, 180; grape varieties and viticultural practices at, 124, 151, 158; profile and tasting notes, 203–4 Caciorgna, Paolo, 181 Calabrese, 123–24 Calabrese di Montenuovo, 123–24 Calabrese di Montepulciano, 124 calanchi, 232 calcium carbonate, 112 California “Chianti,” 36, 41, 48 Camaiori, Giovanni, 33 Camerani, Sergio, 267–68 Campoli, 2, 247map

Canaiolo (Canaiolo Nero): biotypes, 151; characteristics of, 124, 151; in the Chianti blend, 50, 117, 122–23, 124–25, 144, 173; Chianti Classico 2000 research, 155; Consorzio del Gallo requirement, 50; diminishing use of, 148, 151; DOC and DOCG requirements, 65, 82, 85; early mentions of, 23, 120, 123, 124; Gambelli’s views on, 151, 183; for the governo, 170, 171; phylloxera and, 145; producers using, 151, 195, 211, 217, 223, 226, 230, 231, 238; in the Ricasoli blend, 32, 124–25; varietal profile, 151 Canaiolo Bianco, 124, 170 Canali, Stefania, 210 candelabra training method, 144, 158, 215, 219 Candialle, 127, 149, 158, 187, 216map; profile and tasting notes, 215, 217 cane pruning, 157–58 canopy management, 129, 158–59 Cantina Sociale Colline del Chianti e di Geggiano Pontignano Chianti Classico, 235 Cantina Sociale Senese, 43 cantine, 21 cantine sociali (cooperatives), 43, 62, 72–73, 75, 84, 235 Capaccia, 184, 191map Capannelle, 153 Caparsa, 191map; profile and tasting notes, 190, 192 Capezzana, 273 capogatto propagation, 140–41 capovolto (Tuscan arched cane) trellising, 147–48, 157, 215 Cappelli, Francesco Bernardino, 123 Cappelli, Giovanni, 86 Cappelli, Minuccio, 123 Capponi, Niccolò, 162, 225, 226, 256–57 Capponi, Sebastiano, 225 carbonation, 168, 169, 171, 181 Carignon, 145 Carletti, Federico, 186 Carmenet, 145 Carmignano, 23, 25, 27, 52, 252, 270 Carmignano DOC, 273 Il Carnasciale, 149 Carpineta Fontalpino, 228map; profile and tasting notes, 227–29

Carrai, Paolo, 35 Casabianca, Antonio, 46, 56, 254, 294n23 Casa Chianti Classico, 89 Casa Vecchia, 36 case coloniche, 12, 13, 21, 97, 100 Caselli, Raffaello, 36, 40 casks and barrels. See barriques; tonneaux; containers; oak containers Casole, 9, 19, 134, 138, 146, 158, 216map Cassia Nova (road), 2 Castagneto, 294n27 Castagno, Cristiano, 190, 246, 248, 249 Castagnoli, 34 Castelfiorentino, 140 Castellare, 79, 153, 171, 185, 206map, 250 Castelli, Maurizio, 82–83, 184; background and views, 185, 193, 246; clients and associates, 185, 193, 228; at Quercia al Poggio, 244, 245, 246; on Tachis, 177 Castelli del Grevepesa cooperative, 72, 75, 218, 247map, 263 Castellina in Chianti, 2, 56, 99, 277n2, 278n5; and Chianti boundary debates, 44, 46, 47, 49, 52; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; early history of, 2–3, 4, 6, 7, 12; included in the Chianti of the bando of September 24, 1716, 252, 270; maps, 54, 114, 206; as part of Chianti storico, 41, 46, 165; producer profiles, 205–15; in Vasari’s painting, 18–19 Castell’in Villa, 228map; profile and tasting notes, 229–30 Castello di Brolio. See Brolio (producer); Brolio castle Castellucio, 225 Castelnuovo Berardenga (township), 54map, 108, 114map, 232; Chianti boundary definitions and, 44, 46, 49, 52, 111, 115; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; producer association, 94, 234 Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico, 114map, 115, 228map; producer profiles, 227–35 Castelvecchi, 126, 191map Castiglioni, Sebastiano, 159 castles, 103–4. See also specific estate names Catasto of 1427, 11, 19–20, 278n33 Catholic Church, 2, 5, 14–15 Cattedre Ambulanti, 44, 46–47 Cavalli, Girolamo, 257

INDEX

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317

Cavanna, Gianvittorio, 202 CCL Sangiovese clones, 127 Cecchi, 71–72, 80, 206map Cecchi, Luigi, 75 Cellai, Alessandro, 250 ceramics, Etruscan, 3, 102 ceramic vats and urns, 172, 174, 217 Ceruelliera, 152 Cetamura, 3–4, 54map, 102, 278n5 Champagne, 87 Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 167 Chardonnay, 150, 219 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 43 Checcucci, Francesco, 226, 227 Chellini, Marco, 151, 173 chemical use, 67, 76, 143, 147, 148, 159–60 chestnut casks and vats, 77, 79, 168, 171, 172, 173, 176 Chianina beef, 101 Il Chianti (Rezoagli), 111 Chianti blends: DOC and DOCG regulations, 65, 78–79, 82, 85, 92, 130, 150, 152; evolution of, 117–18, 122–23, 124–25, 130, 144, 145, 150; foreign varieties in, 78, 90, 144–45, 148, 183, 186; the Ricasoli blend and its influence, 32, 118, 124–25, 144, 152; white varieties in, 78, 82, 83, 85, 92, 150, 168, 173, 176. See also grape varieties; specific varieties and producers Chianti boundaries: and the bandi of 1716, 252, 264–65, 270–71, 273–77; Consorzio del Gallo’s first delimitation, 49–50; the Fornaciari Commission’s delimitation, 56; geographic and geologic Chianti, 46–47, 53, 54map, 57, 111; historic Chianti, 46, 54map, 56; Law 930 and the 1967 Chianti DOC, 62–66, 79, 285nn10,11; maps, 54, 114; twentieth-century debates before the DOC, 1–2, 43–47, 50, 51–53, 55–57, 59, 60, 261–62; in Vasari’s painting, 18, 280n73. See also bandi of 1716; Fornaciari Commission; specific townships and hamlets Chianti brand: associated with non-Chianti wines, 36, 40–42, 43–44, 48, 61; the black rooster and, 60–61; and Chianti Classico DOCG establishment, 85; Chianti viewed as a wine type independent of origin, 1, 45, 47, 51–52, 53, 56; evolution of, 19–20, 35–36, 39,

3 18

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INDEX

40–42, 45, 61. See also Chianti boundaries; Chianti markets and trade Il Chianti Classico (Chianti Classico consortium, 1974), 263 Il Chianti Classico (Righini), 254 Chianti Classico 2000 project, 125, 127, 128, 155, 186 Chianti Classico consortium (Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico; 1968-present): archives of, 261, 262, 263; and the bandi of 1716, 257, 258, 261, 267–68, 271–72, 293n9, 294–95n28; and Bianco della Lega, 83; Chianti DOC and DOCG advocacy, 65, 79–81; consultants and technical directors, 180, 185, 186; creation of the Chianti Classico Co., 89; current status and activities, 88–89, 90–92, 234; internal divisions and debates, 73–74, 91–92, 93–94, 94–95, 261–62, 271; and the Marchio Storico consortium, 81–82, 84, 89; and market challenges of the 1990s and 2000s, 87–88; membership and production dominance, 65, 73, 84, 91; 1970s activities and challenges, 73–75, 76; Notiziario magazine, 76, 262, 267; published history of, 257; quality enforcement programs, 66, 74, 80–81, 89, 90, 91; scientific research and support, 76; UNESCO World Heritage Site designation application, 274. See also black rooster emblem; Consorzio del Gallo; Consorzio del Gallo Nero; Consorzio del Marchio Storico Chianti Classico Chianti Classico DOCG, 114map; current allowed wine categories, 93; current quality control programs, 89, 90–91; establishment of, 84–86, 88; governo prohibition, 171; Gran Selezione category, 92–94, 130; soils and viticulture regulations, 85–86, 111, 221–22; the Super Chianti Classico proposal, 184; tasting certification requirement, 89, 91, 187; varietal regulations, 85, 90, 92, 130, 150, 152, 153, 173. See also Chianti Classico wines; specific producers Chianti Classico DOP olive oil, 107 Chianti Classico producers: current number of, 189; divisions between small and large producers, 73–74, 91–92, 93–94; dominant producers of the early post–World War II

period, 69–72; economic challenges for, 60, 61–62, 65, 68, 69, 83–84, 87–88; outside investors, 68, 83–84; producer-bottlers in the 1970s, 73, 74–75, 76; profiles of, 189–251; recent purchases by large companies, 95. See also Chianti Classico consortium; Consorzio del Gallo Nero; specific producers and subzones Chianti Classico subzones, 113–16, 114map; authors’ naming system, 115; debates over labeling, 94–95; local producer associations, 94; Masnaghetti’s zonation maps, 113, 115–16; potential Ruffoli subzone, 223, 225; proposed Panzano subzone, 115–16 Chianti Classico wines: early critical journalism, 75; 1990s and 2000s fraud scandal, 89–90; recent style changes, 92. See also Chianti blends; Chianti Classico DOCG; Chianti markets and trade; enology; prices; production levels; quality; specific producers Chianti Classico zone, xiv, 1, 105–6, 114map; “Chianti Classico” road signs, 101; in the Fornaciari Commission report, 56; on historic maps, ii, 2, 7–8; Law 930’s provision on, 62–63, 285nn10,11; post–World War II land values and outside investors, 68, 69–70, 83–84; vineyard acreage in, 66–67, 106–7, 146. See also Chianti boundaries; Chianti Classico subzones Chianti del Chianti, 57 Chianti DOC, 63–66, 256, 271; reconciling with current EU law, 274–75; regulations and compliance, 64–66, 78–79. See also Chianti boundaries; External Chianti Chianti DOCG, 79–81, 82, 85, 88–89, 114map. See also External Chianti Chianti Fiorentino, 15, 18–19, 46, 106, 108, 245 Chianti geografico, 46–47, 54map, 57 Chianti Geografico cooperative, 229 Chianti geography, 19, 105–16; administrative divisions, 105–6; authors’ tour, 97–104; “Chianti” as a place name, iii, 2, 19, 102, 277n3; early visual portrayals of, 5–6, 15–16, 18–19, 280n73; impact of small farm sizes, 61–62; recent legal landscape determination, 274; rivers and streams, 98, 106, 109,

114map; roads and transportation networks, 2, 38–39, 104, 105, 114map, 278n5; topography, 11, 107–8, 232; vineyard exposures and elevations, 107–8, 110–11, 128–29; vineyards vs. other land uses, 67, 100, 107, 160. See also Chianti Classico zone; climate and weather; External Chianti; maps; soils Chianti geologico, 47, 53, 54map, 57, 111 Le Chiantigiane cooperative, 73, 247map Chianti history, before 1600, 1–20; agriculture and the mezzadria system, 8–14, 15, 16–17, 19, 279nn57,59; ancient Chianti, 2–4, 5, 277n3; the Catasto of 1427, 11, 19–20, 278n33; Chianti in medieval painting, 15–16, 18–19, 132–33, 232; conflict as hallmark of, 1–2, 5–6, 19; Florence-Siena rivalry and Florentine consolidation of power, 5–8, 17–18, 97, 99, 103–4; reputation of Chianti wines, 11, 14–15, 19, 120, 122, 131, 137–38; Sienese influence, 15–17; wine industry and trade, 3, 4, 8–9, 10, 19–20, 278n33 Chianti history, 1600–1870s, 21–34; Baron Ricasoli and his influence, 31–34; Chianti regions and wine types before 1800, 22–23; eighteenth-century agricultural practices, 26–28; the Georgofili Academy’s improvement efforts, 28–31; nineteenth-century developments, 28–34; reputation of Chianti wines, 23–25, 27, 28; seventeenth-century viticulture and winemaking, 21–22; vineyard expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 22; wine industry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 21–25, 27–28 Chianti history, 1870s–1945, 35–58; Chianti in exhibitions and competitions, 32–33, 36, 50; Chianti trade’s dependence on outside merchants, 38–39; commercialization of Chianti wines in the late nineteenth century, 35–40; debates over Chianti boundaries, 1–2, 43–47, 50, 51–53, 55–57, 59, 60, 261–62; impacts of phylloxera and war, 57–58; the Marescalchi Law and founding of the Chianti consortium, 47–50; the rise of Antinori, 36–37. See also Chianti boundaries; Consorzio del Gallo; Fornaciari Commission

INDEX

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319

Chianti markets and trade: adulteration and fraud, 24–25, 27, 44, 60, 61, 65, 89–90; before 1600, 3, 4, 8–10, 19–20, 278n33; Chianti Classico consortium’s production dominance, 65, 73, 84; Chianti DOC designation and, 64; cooperatives in, 72–73, 75, 84; early export markets and challenges, 23–25, 27–29, 33, 34, 38–40; the fiasco and, 60, 68–69; growers’ dependence on merchants, 38–39, 73; nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 33–34, 35–42; post–Second World War, 59–62, 69–72, 76–77, 84, 86–89, 219; seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 21–25, 27–28, 260, 263–65; and the Super Tuscans, 77–79; transportation networks and, 38–39, 42; the U.S. as export market, 71, 76–77, 79, 84, 86. See also bandi of 1716; bulk wine market; Chianti brand; marketing; prices; production levels; specific merchants and firms Chianti Mountains, 6, 98–99, 107, 114map, 278nn5, 19; authors’ tour, 100, 103; soils, 112 Chianti Putto consortium. See External Chianti consortium Chianti Senese, 15–17, 46, 106, 108, 235, 245; exclusion of Sienese producers under the bandi of 1716, 263–65, 268–69; in medieval and Renaissance painting, 15–16, 18–19; zonation study, 113 Chianti storico, 46, 54map, 56 Chianti Superiore, 85, 274 Chianti: The Land, the People and the Wine (Flower), 254 Chianti: The Story of Florence and Its Wines (Paronetto), 254 Chianti Valley, 102 Il Chianti vinicolo (Guarducci), 46, 254, 255map, 271, 294n27 Chianti wines: the Catasto of 1427, 11, 19–20, 278n33; durability and stability of, 28–29, 32, 162, 164; early reputation of, 10–11, 14–15, 19, 23–25, 27, 28; white wines, 10, 23, 83, 117. See also Chianti blends; Chianti brand; Chianti Classico wines; Chianti DOC; Chianti markets and trade; specific localities and producers Chioccioli, Stefano, 86, 184

320

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INDEX

chioppio, 136 Chiusi, 2, 3, 5, 278n5 Chronicle (Salimbene), 9–10 Cianferoni, Gianna, 190, 192 Cianferoni, Paolo, 190, 192 Cianferoni, Reginaldo, 190, 192 Cigliano, 36 ciglioni, 140, 156, 219 Ciliegiolo, 124, 129, 145, 151–52, 211 cimatura (topping), 159 Cinciano, 104, 237map; profile and tasting notes, 238–40 Le Cinciole, 216map, 242 Ciuffoletti, Zeffiro, 256 Civitella, 120, 163. See also Poggio di Civitella clairet, 162 clay soils, 108, 110, 112, 115, 129, 185, 207 climate and weather, 19, 108–11; characteristics of recent growing seasons, 100, 107, 109, 110, 128–29, 158–59, 189–90, 248; Chianti boundary debates and, 46; global warming and its impacts, 107–8, 128–29, 173; spring frosts, 109, 110, 129, 158, 215; temperatures and grape quality, 109; topography and, 107, 108, 110–11; and varietal expression in Chianti, 83; winter weather, 108–9 CLUNTNI cup, 102 Cogliati, Enrico, 41 Colle, 47 Colle ai Lecci, 180 Colli Aretini, 56, 275, 284n71 Colli Fiorentini, 52, 53, 56, 82, 275, 284n71 Colline Pisane, 56, 275, 284n71 Colli Senesi, 56, 275, 284n71 colmate di monte, 140 color: early descriptions of Chianti wine color, 165; enological techniques and, 130, 166, 167, 168–71, 173, 174; grape varieties for, 152–53; Ricasoli’s views on, 168; valorization of darker wines, 130, 152, 187, 188 Colore Dolce. See Colorino Colorino, 100, 145, 155, 183; for the governo, 169, 170, 171; producers using, 152–53, 195, 208, 210, 211, 231, 238; varietal profile, 152–53 Colorino del Valdarno, 152 Coltibuono, 6, 54map coltura promiscua, 13, 14. See also polyculture Comizio Agrario di Siena, 43–44

Commissione per la Tutela del Chianti, 44 Communist Party, 72, 73 competitions. See Georgofili Academy; wine competitions comuni (townships), 105; the “in Chianti” suffix, 49, 106, 218, 277n2; on labels, 94–95, 242, 250; vs. subzones, 113–15, 114map. See also specific comuni Con.Vi.To, 263 conca d’oro, 99, 115 concrete vats, 171, 172, 184 I confini storici del Chianti (Casabianca), 46 Connaissance et travail du vin (Peynaud), 229 Consorzio dei Vini Toscani (proposed), 53, 55 Consorzio del Gallo (Consorzio per la Difesa del Vino Tipico del Chianti e della Sua Marca di Origine; 1924–1968), 48–52, 214, 218; and Chianti boundary debates before the DOC, 51, 52–57; and the Chianti DOC, 63–66; and the Consorzio del Putto, 52–53; and fiasco use, 69; founding and influence of, 48–51; founding-member estates, 102; internal debates, 50, 64, 261–62; and Law 1266, 57, 284–85n74; 1957 Radda conference, 61; 1968 name change, 65; post–World War II efforts to restrict use of the Chianti brand, 60; and the Second World War, 58; Statuti (bylaws) of, 49–50, 52, 53, 56, 85; voluntary quality control programs, 57–58, 60. See also black rooster emblem; Chianti Classico consortium Consorzio del Gallo Nero (founded 1987), 81–82. See also Consorzio del Marchio Storico Chianti Classico Consorzio del Marchio Storico Chianti Classico, 81–82, 84, 89 Consorzio del Putto. See External Chianti consortium Consorzio Vino Chianti, 286n34, 295n1 Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico. See Chianti Classico consortium Constellation Brands, 95 Consulente Enologica, 181 consulting enologists and viticulturists, 75, 82–83, 86, 148–49, 187; current influence of, 187; profiles of, 174–87. See also specific individuals contadi, 5

containers: after the 1950s, 171–73, 174, 176; bigoncie, 162, 165, 169; Castelli’s views, 185; ceramic vats and urns, 172, 174, 217; cleanliness and spoilage potential, 164, 184; concrete, 171, 172, 184; for fermentation, 162; Gambelli’s views, 184; terra-cotta, 172, 174; traditional chestnut, 77, 79, 168, 171, 172, 173, 176; for wine transportation, 29, 38. See also aging practices; barriques; tonneaux; fiaschi; oak containers Conte, Giorgio, 211 Convegno del Chianti (1957), 61–62, 121, 145 cooperatives, 43, 62, 72–73, 75, 84, 235, 263 cordone speronato trellising, 148, 157 cordon pruning, 157 corrective additions: chaptalization, 167; current practices, 171; DOC and DOCG regulations, 64, 82; the governo, 162, 168–71, 183; with wine from outside Chianti and Tuscany, 60, 62, 64, 76, 82, 90, 168 Corsini, Duccio, 249 Corsini family, 249, 271 Cortevesio, Mario, 75 Le Corti (Anichini), xiii, 46, 102, 216map Le Corti Corsini, 186, 247map, 250; profile and tasting notes, 249 Corzano e Paterno, 242 Costantini, Edoardo, 113 Cotarella, Riccardo, 177, 193 cover crops, 149, 155–56 Cramer, Josephin, 187, 215, 217 Cresti, Filippo, 227, 228 Cresti, Gioia, 86, 186, 227–28 Crete Senesi, 108, 232 critics and wine journalism, 75, 77–78, 79 Crowe, Christopher, 259–60, 293n8 “I cru di Enogea” maps (Masnaghetti), 113, 115–16 D’Afflitto, Enrico, 64, 261–62 D’Afflitto, Nicolò, 86, 196, 252 Dalmasso, Giovanni, 55, 61–62, 63, 121, 288n25 D’Amico, Raffaele, 250 Dante Alighieri, 1, 96, 99, 227, 276 Datini, Francesco di Marco, 10 D’Attoma, Luca, 86 Davanzati, Bernardo, 120 Davaz, Andrea, 242

INDEX

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321

Davaz, Johannes “Giovanni,” 100, 242–43 Davaz, Kathrin, 242 David (Michelangelo), 272, 295n29 De agricultura (Tanàglia), 7, 120 Degli Albizzi, Vittorio, 252 de Grummond, Nancy Thomson, 3, 4, 278n11 délestage (rack-and-return), 183, 185 Deleuze, Gilles, 217 Dell’agricoltura: Libri tre. See Firenzuola, Girolamo da Della Robbia, Maria Bianca Viviani, 212 Delle viti e dei vini di Borgogna (Sestini), 135 Del Taia, Giulio, 263–65 Del Taja, Giulio Grisaldi, 265 De Lucchi, Italo, 44, 48–49, 50 De Marchi, Marta, 240 De Marchi, Paolo, 128, 129, 154–55, 156, 240–41, 275 Denise, Dom, 135 denominations of origin: the bandi of 1716 as precedent for, 23, 25, 294–95n28; the Carmignano DOC, 273; Chianti Classico DOCG establishment, 84–86, 88; Chianti DOC establishment, 63–66; Chianti DOCG establishment, 79–81; the current situation, 88–89; early Italian debates over, 43–45; EU regulations and compliance programs, 90–91, 273–74; French law, 25, 43, 62, 63, 274, 294–95n28; IGT classifications as, 70–71; Law 164 regulations (1992), 84–85; Law 930 establishing the DOC/DOCG system, 62–63, 79, 285nn10,11; modern wine marketing and, 275; recent debates over inclusion of subzones on labels, 94–95; varietal expression and, 131; vino tipico designations and, 48, 52; vs. the vino tipico approach, 47. See also bandi of 1716; Chianti boundaries; Chianti brand; specific DOCs and DOCGs denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG), 63. See also Chianti Classico DOCG; Chianti DOCG; denominations of origin denominazione di origine protetta (DOP) regulations, 274 denominazioni di origine controllata (DOC), 63. See also Chianti DOC; denominations of origin

322

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INDEX

Desana, Paolo, 63 Le dieci giornate della vera agricoltura, e piaceri della villa (Gallo), 161–62 Di Napoli, Luca, 159, 174 Discorso dell’agricoltura (Tedaldi), 120 disease, 143–44; clonal selection and, 127, 128; mal dell’esca, 156, 157; varietal diversity and, 117–18; vineyard exposure and, 129 The Divine Comedy (Dante), 96, 99, 227, 276 Dizionario geografico, fisico e storico della Toscana (Repetti), 46, 56, 254 DOCs and DOCGs. See Chianti Classico DOCG; Chianti DOC; Chianti DOCG; denominations of origin Dorcalados, 145 downy mildew, 118, 129, 143–44 drainage and runoff, 139–40, 146 dried grapes, 23, 123; the governo, 169–71, 183 drought. See climate and weather; water availability Dubourdieu, Denis, 187 Dunkley, John, 68 EEC (European Economic Community), 59–60, 62 The Effects of Good Government (Buon governo) (Lorenzetti), 15–16, 17, 132–33, 232 Elsa River, 18, 106, 114map, 280n73. See also Val d’Elsa Ema Creek and Valley, 11, 216map, 280n73 Empoli, 140 England. See Britain enology, 161–88; and Chianti’s quality evolution, 161–62, 187–88; Falchini’s advice, 164–65, 169; Firenzuola’s advice, 162, 163–64, 169, 170; French techniques and influences, 78, 79, 92, 161–62, 166–68, 175–77, 185, 186, 187–88; impact of the Chianti Classico DOCG rules, 85–86; influential consultants, 70, 75, 82–83, 86, 174–87; nineteenth-century developments, 166–68, 170–71; potential for spoilage and oxidation, 162, 164, 184; practices and trends after the 1950s, 82–83, 171–74, 187–88; practices before 1800, 21, 27, 162, 163–66; Ricasoli’s research and methods, 31–34, 167–68; use of dried grapes, 123; use of the governo, 168–71, 183; Villifranchi’s advice, 162,

165–66. See also aging practices; alcohol levels; Chianti blends; containers; corrective additions; fermentation and maceration practices; specific grape varieties and producers enology education, 172 Enopolio (Poggibonsi), 58, 71, 179–80, 181 Enoteca Pinchiorri, 224 erosion, 67, 139–40, 147, 155 estate wines, 22, 73; Baron Ricasoli’s improvements and influence, 31–34; prizewinning wines of the nineteenth century, 32–33. See

External Chianti consortium (Consorzio del Putto): and the Chianti DOC, 63–66; and the Chianti DOCG, 79, 80; and the early Chianti boundary debates, 53–57; early labeling practices, 59; founding of, 51–52; and Law 1266, 284–85n74; Tesi and, 262 External Chianti subzones: addition of Montespertoli, 286n34; the Fornaciari Commission’s subzones, 56–57, 64; as potential new DOCGs, 275; subzone names on labels, 59, 64, 85, 275

also specific estates and producers ethyl acetate, 121 Etruscan Chianti, 2–4, 5, 102, 277n3 EU. See European Union European Economic Community (EEC), 59–60, 62 European Landscape Convention, 274 European Union (EU): agricultural assistance programs, 64, 66–67, 72, 219; appellationlaw compliance programs, 90–91; DOC designations and, 64, 65, 273–74; prohibition of corrective additions, 82 éventail (candelabra) training method, 144, 158, 215, 219 experimental vineyards: Baron Ricasoli’s vineyard, 31–32, 144–45; the Chianti Classico 2000 project, 125, 127, 128, 155,

F9 Sangiovese clone, 127, 128, 221 I Fabbri, 156, 216map Fabbroni, Adamo, 166 Falchini, Domenico, 47; on grape varieties and viticulture, 122–23, 126, 134, 136, 139, 141; on winemaking, 47, 162, 164–65, 169–70 Fanfani, Amintore, 73

186; the Vitiarium, 103, 147, 149–50, 154 exports. See Chianti markets and trade; specific export markets exposures (expositions), 19, 50, 56, 108, 110–11, 113, 128–29, 147. See also specific producers External Chianti, xiv, 1, 114map; and the Chianti Classico road signs, 101; and the Chianti DOC, 63, 64, 65; DOCG regulations, 82; dominant firms of the 1960s and 1970s, 71–72; economics of External Chianti production, 88; potential new DOCGs, 275; prices, 1990s and 2000s, 86, 88; production levels in the 1950s–1960s, 57, 60, 65, 284n71; widening application of the term Chianti, 19–20, 24–25, 35–36. See also Chianti boundaries; Chianti DOC; Chianti Senese; External Chianti consortium; External Chianti subzones; specific townships and subzones

A Farm in Chianti (Della Robbia), 212 farmworkers, 156. See also mezzadria system Fascist Party and government, 50–51, 55. See also Italian government fattori, 13, 21–22, 31, 37–38 fattorie, 13 Fèlsina, 79, 185, 228map; profile and tasting notes, 232–34 Femfert, Léon, 210–11, 212 Femfert, Peter, 210, 212 FEOGA (Fondo Europeo di Orientamento e Garanzia Agricola), 66, 72, 229, 241 fermentation and maceration practices: after the 1950s, 171–74; ambient yeasts, 174, 228; before 1800, 162–66, 170, 288n22; Castelli’s views, 185; current trends, 188; Falchini on, 164–65; Firenzuola on, 162, 163–64; French vs. Italian, 162, 187; Gambelli’s views, 183–84; the governo, 168–71; malolactic fermentation, 174, 176, 183, 185; nineteenth-century developments and the Ricasoli method, 32, 167–68, 171; Sangiovese color development and, 130; Villifranchi on, 165–66 fermentation science, 166–67 Ferrini, Carlo, 86, 177, 186, 209, 211, 228, 231 fertilizer use, 76, 141, 147, 148 Fiacchi, Luigi, 119, 122

INDEX

•

323

fiaschi, 22–23, 24, 32, 35–36, 38, 45, 68–69, 162 Fiesole, 2, 5 filtration, 174 Fiore, Alessandro, 224–25 Fiore, Claudio, 225 Fiore, Jurij, 110, 147, 223, 224, 225 Fiore, Roberto, 224 Fiore, Vittorio, 82–83; background and views, 184, 223; clients and associates, 149, 184, 215; on Foglia Tonda, 153; on higher-elevation vineyards, 107; on Montevertine’s prices, 195; Poggio Scalette, 110, 184, 216map, 223–25; on the T19/RL Bosche clone, 127 Firenzuola, Agnolo, 119 Firenzuola, Girolamo da, xiv, 119–21, 288n28; on Chianti’s reputation, 119–122, 131, 137–138, 163; on Sangiovese and other grape varieties, xiv, 120–21, 122, 137–138, 162–63, 290n28; on viticulture, 133–34, 136, 137–38, 139, 141; on winemaking, 162, 163–64, 169, 170 Firidolfi family, 6. See also Ricasoli-Firidolfi family flavescence dorée, 159 Florence, 2, 54map, 114map; agriculture in Florentine culture, 9, 14–15, 19, 30, 47; the bando of 1611, 22–23; Chianti Classico Co.’s enoteca, 89; the city as point of Chianti sales, 22, 37; early agriculture and wine industry in, 8–9, 10, 12–15; the Florentine Renaissance, 8–11, 12, 14, 15; the iris as symbol of, 101; medieval conflict and consolidation of Florentine power, 5–8, 17–18, 97, 99, 103–4; the 1966 flood, 262; province of, 46, 106; provincial archives of, 256, 260, 265, 266, 268; transportation links, 38; Vasari painting in the Palazzo Vecchio, 17–18, 271–72. See also bandi of 1716 “Florence wine,” 23–24, 260, 293n8 Flower, Raymond, 254 Foglia Tonda, 150, 153, 211 Folonari, Ambrogio, 185 Folonari, Nino, 63 Folonari family and winery, 71, 172 Fondazione per la Tutela del Territorio, 89, 274 Fondo Europeo di Orientamento e Garanzia Agricola (FEOGA), 66, 72, 229, 241

324

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INDEX

Fonterutoli, 73, 74, 93, 107–8, 183, 206map; consultants associated with, 86, 180, 183; profile and tasting notes, 209–10 Fontodi, 79, 172, 174, 185, 216map Forconi, Mario, 245–46 Formigli, Silvano, 202 Fornaciari, Julo, 55 Fornaciari Commission, 55–57, 61, 63, 64, 283n45, 285n10, 288n25, 294n23; resultant ministerial decree delimiting the Chianti production zone (1932), 55–56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 256, 261, 271, 284–85n74, 285nn10,11 Fortuna, Augusto, 32 Fossi, Duilio, 75 France: agricultural advancement in the eighteenth century, 27. See also French grape varieties; French wines; specific regions Francigena (road), 2, 214 Frascati, 64 frazioni (localities), 105–6, 113 Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, 104 French grape varieties, in Chianti, 78, 90, 144, 145, 148, 183, 186. See also Bordeaux grape varieties; specific varieties French oak, 173, 184 French wines and wine industry: appellation d’origine system, 25, 43, 62, 63, 274, 294–95n28; Britain as export market for, 34, 260, 265, 293n8; Chianti imported for, 40; as influence on Italian winemaking, 32, 161–62, 166–68, 175–77, 185, 186, 187–88; in the Middle Ages, 9–10, 15; phylloxera and, 40, 43; Villifranchi on, 28–29 Frescobaldi, 51, 95, 196, 252 fruit trees, 132, 137, 138 fungal diseases, 118, 129, 143–44, 156, 157 Furmint, 145 Gabbiano, 98, 247map, 250 Gaiole in Chianti, 2, 6, 7, 56, 102–3, 277n2; and Chianti boundary debates, 41, 44, 46, 47, 49, 52; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; included in the Chianti of the bando of September 24, 1716, 252, 270; in the Lega del Chianti, 6; maps, 54, 114, 199; producer profiles, 198–205 Galatrona, 11

Galestro (wine type), 83 galestro (rock type and related soils), 111, 112, 129 Galileo Galilei, 28, 99 Gallesio, Giorgio, 124, 171 Gallo, Agostino, 161–62 gallo nero. See black rooster emblem Un gallo nero che ha fatto storia, 257 Gallo Winery (U.S.) trademark dispute, 81–82 Gamay, 145, 227 Gambelli, Cosetta, 181, 182 Gambelli, Giulio, 177–84, 178fig., 188; associates of, 181; background and education, 75, 179; employers and clients of, 75, 178–83, 195, 207, 208, 214; personal qualities, 181–83; profile, 177–84; talents and work habits, 178, 179, 181–83; views on viticulture and winemaking, 75, 128–29, 151, 183–84 Gambelli, Matilde, 181 Garoglio, Pier Giovanni, 63, 171, 172, 175 Garrè, Ferdinando, 240 Garrè, Ottavia, 240 gattaiole, 139 geographic Chianti (Chianti geografico), 46–47, 54map, 57. See also Chianti geography geographic origin protections: French advocacy for, 42–43; Italian debates over, 43–47. See also denominations of origin geologic Chianti, 47, 53, 54map, 57, 111 geology. See soils Georgofili Academy, 28–31; and Chianti boundary debates, 46; Fiacchi’s 1803 lecture, 122; Gallesio’s advice to, 171; S.B. Guarducci’s prizewinning 1820 essay on viticulture, 135–36; T. Guarducci’s prizewinning 1906 treatise on enological Chianti, 46, 294n27; 1957 Convegno del Chianti, 61–62, 121, 145; Ridolfi’s paper on winemaking, 167; Villifranchi’s treatise as prizewinner, 28, 121, 135 Germany: early winemaking in, 161; eighteenthcentury agricultural advancement, 27; as export market, 28, 86 Ghibellines, 5–6, 101 Giornale agrario della Toscana, 29 Giovannini, Andrea, 238 Giulio Gambelli: L’uomo che sa ascoltare il vino (Macchi), 181, 182, 183 Giunti, Filippo, 118

GIV (Gruppo Italiano Vini), 71 glass fiaschi, 22–23, 24, 32, 35–36, 38, 45, 68–69, 162 global warming, 107–8, 128–29, 173. See also climate and weather Glories, Yves, 187 governo, 162, 168–71, 183. See also corrective additions Il governo del vino come si pratica in Toscana (Passerini), 170 Gozzoli, Gaetano, 135, 144 Granducato Enopolio, 58, 71, 179–80, 181 Gran Selezione category, 92–94, 130 grapes: evidence at Etruscan sites, 3, 4, 278n11. See also grape varieties; viticulture; Vitis; specific varieties grape varieties: Baron Ricasoli’s research and experimentation, 31, 144–45; Chianti Classico DOCG regulations, 85, 90, 92, 130, 150, 152, 153, 173; Chianti DOCG regulations, 82; Chianti DOC regulations, 65, 78–79; climate and varietal expression, 83; Consorzio del Gallo’s early requirements, 50; in early viticultural treatises, 118–19, 120–21; in the eighteenth century, 23; foreign varieties in Chianti, 78, 90, 144–45, 148, 183, 186; introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, 67, 76; nomenclature challenges, 118; profiles of the non-Sangiovese varieties, 151–55; recent authorizations for Chianti Classico, 92; the San Felice Vitiarium, 103, 147, 149–50, 154; varietal diversity in Tuscany, 117–18, 144; viziati (old native varieties), 149–50. See also Chianti blends; Sangiovese; other specific varieties and specific producers Green plans (Piani Verdi), 66–67, 72 Il Greppo, 179, 180 Greve in Chianti, 6, 7, 38, 101–2, 106; and Chianti boundary debates, 44, 46, 47, 48, 52; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; included in the Chianti of the bando of September 24, 1716, 252, 270; maps, 54, 114, 216; producer profiles, 215–27 Greve River, 98–99, 106, 114map, 280n73. See also Val di Greve Grignano, 99 Grosso Lamole, 127

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325

Gruppo Italiano Vini (GIV), 71 Guarducci, Piero, 294n27 Guarducci, Sabatino Baldassarre, 135–36 Guarducci, Torquato, 41, 46, 56, 254, 255map, 271, 294n27 Guelphs, 5–6 Guerra del Chianti, 1–2, 96, 271. See also Chianti boundaries Guerra del Gallo trademark dispute, 81–82 Guerrini, Guglielmo, 37 Guida storica del Chianti (Casabianca), 46, 254 Guillaume, Pierre-Marie, 127–28, 241 Guldener, Roberto, 68 Guyot trellising, 148, 157–58, 197, 227 Habsburg-Lorraine rule, Tuscany under, 26–28, 256 hail, 110 Hardys, 200 Harsevelii Tokai, 145 hedge maple, 136, 138. See also alberata and maritata training methods; testucchio system herbicides, 147. See also chemical use; organic viticulture Hermitage, 145, 158 higher-elevation vineyards, 19, 107–8, 110, 128–29, 151 historic Chianti, 46, 54map, 56 History of the Florentine People (Bruni), xv Holy Roman Empire, 5 Hungarian grapes and wines, 145, 281n24 IGP wines, 106–7, 153, 275; producers and tasting notes, 153, 205 IGT wines, 70–71, 84–85, 275; producers and tasting notes, 151, 153, 171, 192, 210, 217, 218, 220, 223, 227, 231, 233, 238, 240, 242, 249 immigrant workers, 156 incastellamento, 5 Incisa della Rocchetta, Mario, 77–78, 176 Incisa della Rocchetta, Nicolò, 77, 176 indicazione d’origine, 274. See also denominations of origin indicazione geografica protetta (IGP) wines, 106–7, 153 indicazione geografica tipica. See IGT wines Inferno (Dante), 96, 99, 227

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INDEX

insecticides, 159–60. See also chemical use; organic viticulture intrecciatura (braiding), 159, 197, 221 irises, 101 irrigation, 129 Ischia, 64 Isole e Olena, 68, 84, 237map; consultants associated with, 75, 128, 148; grape varieties and viticulture at, 79, 154–55, 156; profile and tasting notes, 240–42. See also De Marchi, Paolo Ispoli, 247map; profile and tasting notes, 246, 248–49 Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “Bettino Ricasoli,” 172 Istituto per lo Sviluppo Viticolo Enologico ed Agroindustriale (ISVEA), 181 Italian government: agricultural assistance programs, 64, 66–67, 72; the Consorzio del Gallo’s ties to, 50–51; the Consorzio del Putto’s ties to, 52, 55, 63–64; and debates over denominations of origin, 44, 45, 52–57, 54map; wine price caps of 1942, 58. See also Fornaciari Commission Italian law: Law 116, 285nn10,11; Law 164, 84–85; Law 930 establishing the DOC/ DOCG system, 62–63, 79, 285nn10,11; Law 1164, 55, 57, 285n10; Law 1266, 57, 284–85n74, 285n11; laws governing vini tipici, 47–48, 52, 55, 57, 284–85n74; the Marescalchi Law (Law 497) and its implementation, 47–48, 52–57; recent case law on designations of origin, 274 Italian politics, 42, 72–73 Italian Swiss Colony, 41 Italian wines: Chianti name associated with wines from other regions, 40–41, 43–44; early geographic origin protections, 43–45; France as export market, 40; Petrarch on, 15. See also specific wine regions and producers Japan, as export market, 84 Juergens, Ingeborg, 212, 213fig. kantharos goblets, 3 Kober 5BB rootstock, 147 Krasniki, Akik, 213fig. kyathos cups, 3

labeling: the black rooster emblem on labels, 53, 58, 60–61, 73–74, 80–81, 91; “Chianti Classico” on labels before 1996, 59, 85; Consorzio del Gallo producers, 59; Consorzio del Putto producers, 59; the DOCG fascetta, 80, 81; use of estate names, 33, 35; use of township or subzone names, 59, 85, 94–95, 242, 250, 275; use of vineyard names, 236 labeling regulations, 236 Lamberth, Roger, 70 Lambruschini, Raffaelo, 29 Lambrusco Maestri, 152 Lamole (hamlet), 7, 19, 138, 216map; and Chianti boundary debates, 115; and Chianti Classico subzones, 115; early mentions of Lamole viticulture and wines, 11, 50, 146, 163; soils, 111; as source of Chianti’s Sangiovese biotype, 126; viticulture in, 9, 13, 27, 158 Lamole (producer, Fattoria di), 138, 140, 152–53, 156, 216map; profile and tasting notes, 217–21 Lamole di Lamole, 216map, 220 Landeschi, Giovan Battista, 140, 156 Landi, Lorenzo, 86, 153, 187 land ownership: in medieval Tuscany, 10, 12–14, 15, 17, 19, 279nn57,59. See also mezzadria system Landscape Convention, 274 Landucci, Leonida, 140 Lanza, Piero, 187, 196–97 Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent de, 166–67 law: the bando of 1611, 22–23. See also bandi of 1716; denominations of origin; Italian law Law 930, 62–63, 79, 285nn10,11; Chianti DOC establishment, 63–66; Chianti DOCG establishment, 79–81; first Italian DOCGs, 79; first Italian DOCs, 64 layering (propagginazione), 140–41, 145 leafhopper pest, 159–60 League of Chianti. See Lega del Chianti Le Corti (producer). See Corti Lega del Chianti (medieval), xiii, 6–7; the black rooster emblem, 6, 18, 50, 97; boundaries proposed as Chianti appellation boundaries, 46 Lega del Chianti (modern), 76, 262

Lega di Val di Greve, 7 Lenzi, Diana, 231 Lenzi, Gian Luigi, 231 Lenzi, Pamela Mangini, 230–31 Leopold II, 29–30 Le Roy de Boiseaumarié, Pierre, 43 Lessona, 240 Liberatore, Giuseppe, 91, 258, 261, 263 Liccioli, Giuseppe, 40 Lichine, Alexis, 61 Lilliano, 178–79, 180, 182 Lippi, Lorenzo, 23 Livorno, 114map; British Factory at, 259–60; as export point, 23, 24, 29, 37, 38 località, 106 localities (frazioni), 105–6, 113 Lodo di Poggibonsi, 6, 97 Longland, Charles, 24 Lorena rule, Tuscany under, 26–28, 256 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 15–16, 17, 98, 132–33, 232 Lucolena, 11, 19, 120, 163, 216map Macchi, Carlo, 181, 182, 183 maceration. See fermentation and maceration practices Machiavelli, Ippolita, 246 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 246 macigno (rock type and related soils), 111, 112 La Madonnina, 68, 184, 216map Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods, 42–43, 48 maestri assaggiatori (master tasters), 75, 178 Magalotti, Lorenzo, 265–66 maglioli, 141 mal dell’esca, 156, 157 malolactic fermentation, 174, 176, 183, 185 Malvasia Bianca (Malvasia del Chianti): Chianti Classico DOCG requirements, 85, 92, 150; Chianti DOCG requirements, 82; Chianti DOC requirements, 65; Consorzio del Gallo varietal requirements (1924), 50; diminishing use of, 83, 144, 148, 150; mentioned by Villifranchi, 23; in nineteenth-century Chianti, 124, 125, 144, 145; in non-Chianti Classico wines, 78, 171; in the Ricasoli blend, 32, 124–25; for vin santo, 245

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327

Malvasia Nera, 32, 153; producers using, 153, 198, 204, 210, 211, 217, 231 Mammolo, 23, 117, 118, 120, 124; producers using, 154, 193, 211, 225; varietal profile, 154 Manetti, Giovanni, 174 Manetti, Martino, 195 Manetti, Saverio, 134. See also Villifranchi, Giovanni Cosimo Manetti, Sergio, 180, 195 maps: Castellina estates, 206; Castelnuovo Berardenga Classico estates, 228; Chianti Classico subzones, 114; early maps of Tuscany, ii, 2, 7–8, 280n78; the Fornaciari Commission map, 56; Gaiole estates, 199; Garavini map of multiple Chiantis (1929), 54; Greve estates, 216; Guarducci map of Chianti (1909), 255, 271, 294n27; Masnaghetti Chianti Classico maps, 113, 115–16; Radda estates, 191; San Casciano Classico estates, 247

Marzemino, 23, 117, 118 Marzi, Federico, 205, 208 Marzi, Pier Tommaso, 207 Marzi, Tommaso Marrocchesi, 153, 182, 205, 207, 208 Mascheroni, Carlo, 192 Masnaghetti, Alessandro, 113, 115–16 Mason, Frank H., 43 La Massa, 216map, 242 Le Masse di Lamole, 171, 216map Le Masse di San Leolino, 68 Massellone Creek, 6, 102, 106, 199map Mattheis, Bernd, 246 Mattii, Giovanni, 126 maturation. See aging practices; ripening Maurisca, 145 Mazzei, Agnese, 209 Mazzei, Filippo, 25, 170, 183, 186, 209 Mazzei, Francesco, 209, 210 Mazzei, Ser Lapo (fourteenth century), on the wines of Lamole, 10, 11 Mazzei, Ser Lapo (of Fonterutoli), 73, 74, 200, 209, 263; authors’ interviews with, 258, 261; and the Consorzio del Gallo’s internal

Marconi, Valerio, 156, 239–40 Marescalchi, Arturo, 45, 46, 47, 48, 56 Marescalchi Law, 47–48, 52; implementation of, and Chianti boundary negotiations, 52–57 Marinai, Renzo, 153, 154, 155–56, 174, 216map maritata and alberata training methods, 4, 9, 26, 30, 135, 136. See also testucchio system marketing: the Chianti Classico Co., 89; Chianti Classico consortium’s current focus on, 90–91; Chianti Classico marketing challenges, 78; “Classico” epithet and, 59; the Guerra del Gallo trademark dispute, 81–82; internal debates about, 73–74; the Marchio Storico promotional consortium, 81–82, 84, 89; marketing potential for new External Chianti DOCGs, 275; of the Super Tuscans, 78 marl, 112 Marone, Giorgio, 86 Marrugà, 124 Marshall Plan, 59 Martini, Simone, 9, 14 Martini and Company, 25 Martini di Cigala, Elisabetta, 204 Martini di Cigala, Enrico, 204 Martini di Cigala, Francesco, 204, 205 Martini di Cigala, Luca, 151, 171, 204–5

debates, 62, 64, 261–62 Mazzei family, 10, 25 Mazzilli, Ruggero, 110, 159, 160 Mazzocolin, Giuseppe, 232, 233 Mazzoni, Andrea, 86, 181 mediatori, 8, 37 Medici, Alessandro de’, 17 Medici, Cosimo de’, 12 Medici, Cosimo I de’, 17, 120 Medici, Cosimo III de’, 23, 25, 259, 263–64, 265, 266, 269. See also bandi of 1716 Medici, Ferdinando de’, 269 Medici, Francesco de’, 17, 18 Medici, Lorenza de’, 198 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 12, 252 Medici code. See bandi of 1716 Medici estates: foreign grape varieties at, 144. See also specific estates medieval Chianti, 2, 5–8, 9–11 Medio Predappio (R24 Sangiovese clone), 127, 128, 221 Meleto, 6, 34, 104, 199map Meleto agricultural school, 29, 30

Marzamino nero, 123

Melini, Adolfo Laborel, 35

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Melini company, 35–36, 69, 70, 80 Melis, Federico, 262 “Memoria sulla preparazione dei vini toscani” (Ridolfi), 167 Mendola, Antonio, 124 Mercatale a Greve, 11 Merlot: allowed under DOCG regulations, 85, 90; characteristics of, 83, 129, 130; introduction and increasing use in Chianti Classico, 67, 78, 83, 90, 148; producers using, 194, 209, 210, 217, 223, 227, 231; in Sangiovese blends, 130, 183, 186; varietal profile, 154 mezzadria system, 12–14, 15, 19, 279nn57,59; Baron Ricasoli’s changes, 31–32; the Chianti trade as a supporting factor, 42; dissolution of, 60, 67, 68, 72, 118, 146, 240, 241; and the governo, 170–71; and the late nineteenthcentury Chianti trade, 37–38; nineteenthcentury debates about, 30–31; related agricultural and viticultural practices and their impacts, 13, 14, 21–22, 26, 27, 30–31, 134–38, 145–46, 170, 218; social structure and influence of, 22, 30, 60 mezzo vino, 22 Le Miccine, 149 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 99, 210; David, 272, 295n29 Micheli, Pier Antonio, 152 microoxygenation, 174 Migliorisi, Salvatore, 63 Minucci, Paolo, 23 mixed agriculture. See polyculture Moder, Ignazio, 234 Modi, Carlo, 75 mold. See botrytis; fungal diseases Molino di Grace, 102, 216map Molon, Girolamo, 125 Mondavi wine company, 95 Mondeuse Noire, 152 Mondini, Salvatore, 145 monoculture (specialized vineyards): in medieval Tuscany, 12–13, 16; nineteenth- and twentieth-century conversions to, 66–67, 146–48; quality and, 26–27, 133–36. See also polyculture Monsanto, 68, 84, 237map; profile and tasting notes, 236, 238 Montagliari, 79, 123

Montalbano, 51, 52, 53, 56, 284n71 Montalcino, 23, 53, 56, 126, 180, 207, 208–9, 248; use of the Chianti DOCG, 275. See also Brunello di Montalcino Monte Bernardi, 109, 187, 216map; grape varieties and viticultural practices, 128, 155, 159, 221–22; profile and tasting notes, 221–23; winemaking practices, 172, 174, 222 Monteficalli (Montefioralle), 6, 216map Montegrossi (Montegrossolini), 6, 103–4 Montemaggio, 154, 155, 158, 191map; profile and tasting notes, 194–95 Montemasso, 74, 216map Monte Morello Formation, 112 Montepulciano (town), 6 Montepulciano (Tuscany) wines, 24, 27, 51, 53, 56, 58; grape varieties, 124, 125; use of the Chianti DOCG, 275; Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, 58, 79, 275 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, 85, 130 Monteraponi, 151, 191map Monteriggioni, 46, 54map, 104, 108 Monterinaldi, 6, 191map, 279n57 Monte San Michele, 100, 114map, 216map Montescalari, 19, 120, 163, 216map Montespertoli, 54map, 275, 286n34 Montevertine, 75, 91, 152–53, 180, 191map; profile and tasting notes, 195–96 Monti del Chianti (Chianti Mountains), 6, 98–99, 100, 103, 106, 107, 112, 114map, 278nn5,19 Montorselli, Dionisio, 96–97 Montorselli, Giovanni Brachetti, 96–97, 101–2, 103, 257; authors’ tour with, 97–104 Morastello, 145 Morelli, Giuseppe, 284–85n74 Moretti, Italo, 177, 258 Morganti, Enzo, 78–79, 103, 149, 182 Morganti, Giovanna, 97, 132, 143, 153, 154, 159, 182, 183 Moro, Giuseppe del, 123 Morozzi, Ferdinando, 7, 21 Moscadello, 23 Moscadello Ulter, 145 Mussolini, Benito, 50, 56, 285n10 Nanni, Paolo, 145 National Archives of the United Kingdom, 259–60

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329

National Registry of Grape Varieties (Italy), 126, 150, 155, 200 Navarrino (Navarra), 153 Nebbiolo, 173 Nero d’Avola, 85, 124 New York, Chianti exports and, 44, 86 New York Chamber of Commerce, 44 Nine Years’ War, 265 Nittardi, 186, 206map; profile and tasting notes, 210–12 normale wines, 93 Notiziario del Chianti Classico, 76, 262, 267 Notizie storiche sui principali luoghi del Chianti (Casabianca), 294n23 Nozzole, 74, 216map Nunzi, Gualtiero Armando, 51, 72, 80, 261, 263 Nuova Congregazione del Commercio, 267 Nuova Congregazione sopra il Commercio del Vino, 252, 256, 263, 267, 268. See also bandi of 1716 La nuova enologia (Garoglio), 172 nurseries, 127, 147 oak containers: Brettanomyces risk, 185; for Chianti Classico, 83, 172–73, 184, 185, 186, 222; consumer preferences and, 188; Ricasoli’s use of, 168; Sangiovese and, 130, 172; for Super Tuscans, 77, 78, 79. See also barriques; tonneaux; specific producers O’Callaghan, Sean, 221 Occhiorosso, 225 Oenologia toscana (Villifranchi), 28, 121. See also Villifranchi, Giovanni Cosimo oidium (powdery mildew), 118, 129, 143–44 Oliva, Alberto, 49, 283n45 olives and olive oil, 69, 107, 132, 138, 146, 155, 185 oppio, 136 organic viticulture, 155, 159–60, 228, 248 organoleptic analyses, 75, 80, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 187 origin protections. See appellations of origin; denominations of origin; geographic origin protections Ormanni, 151, 178, 180 Ornellaia, 95 Orzese, 152

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Osteria 1126, 238 Ottavi, Edoardo, 46, 56 Pacini, Antonio, 229 paesi, 106 Pagli, Attilio, 86, 181 Pagliarese, 180 painting and painters, 15–16, 18–19, 98, 132–33, 232 palatista (master taster), 75, 178, 179 Pallanti, Marco, 202 pancate, 133, 134, 137 Pandura, 145 Panerai, Paolo, 67 Paneretta, 151, 237map Panzano in Chianti, 7, 11, 19, 38, 99, 216map; Chianti boundary debates and, 46; included in the Chianti of the bando of September 24, 1716, 252, 270; mentioned by Firenzuola, 120, 163; novel winemaking approaches in, 174; organic practices in, 159–60; producer organization, 94, 115–16, 159–60, 221, 242; proposed Panzano subzone, 115–16; soils, 113; vineyard maps, 113, 115; viticulture in, 9, 99, 110 Paoletti, Andrea, 241 Paoletti, Ferdinando, 28–29, 254 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 42, 294–95n28 Paronetto, Lamberto, 254 Passeggeri, 214 Passerini, Napoleone, 170 Pasteur, Louis, 164, 167 Paulsen rootstocks, 207 “Il ‘penultimo’ Chianti” (Guarducci), 294n27 Peränen, Jarkko Markus di, 127, 187, 215, 217 Perego, Amelia, 160 Per la tutela del vino Chianti e degli altri vini tipici toscani (Fornaciari Commission), 55, 56, 294n23. See also Fornaciari Commission peronospora (downy mildew), 118, 129, 143–44 Perrin, Giorgio, 123–24 Pesa River, 18, 98, 106, 114map, 280n73. See also Val di Pesa pescaioli, 140 Pestellini, Ippolito, 145 pests, 108, 143, 159–60. See also phylloxera

Peter Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany (Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena), 7, 25, 26, 28, 138, 202 Petit Verdot, 92, 130, 148, 186, 217, 227 Petrarch, 9, 14–15 Petroio, 186, 228map; profile and tasting notes, 230–31 Petrolo, 123 Peynaud, Émile, 92, 175, 176, 185, 229 phylloxera, 123, 141; arrival and spread in Chianti, 57, 143–44; in France, 40, 43; impacts on Chianti viticulture and production levels, 57, 60, 117, 118, 128, 141; social impacts in Chianti, 240; varietal diversity after, 117, 118, 128; vine replacement and resistant rootstocks, 52, 118, 128, 141, 144 Pianella, 112, 228map Pianigiani, Baldassarre, 49 Piani Verdi (Green plans), 66–67, 72 Piccini, 71, 206map Piccini, Livio, 218 Piedmont wines and producers: appellations of origin and, 44, 47. See also specific wines pietraforte, 112–13 Pignatelli, Coralia, 229–30 Pignatelli, Riccardo, 229 Pinchiorri, Giorgio, 224 Pinot grape varieties, 145; Pinot Noir, 130, 145, 173, 185 pioppo, 136 piote, 140 Pisani Barbacciani, Piero Luigi, 149 Pisignano, 112 plague, 8, 10, 17 Planitz, Markus von der, 250 planting density: after the 1960s, 67, 146–47; Baron Ricasoli’s views, 142; before phylloxera, 136, 138; Chianti Classico DOCG regulations, 85, 221–22; early twentieth century, 145, 146; in medieval Tuscany, 132, 133; quincunx planting, 141–42, 158 planting methods, 141–42 poderi, 10, 13, 22, 26, 279n57 Poggerino, 155, 172, 187, 191map, 242; profile and tasting notes, 196–97 Poggiali, Domenico, 232, 234 Poggiali, Giovanni, 233

Poggibonsi, 54map, 114map; and Chianti boundary debates, 44, 46, 47, 52, 280n73; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; Chianti Classico subzone, 114map, 115; during World War II, 58; the Enopolio at, 58, 71, 179–80, 181; the Poggibonsi Judgment, 6, 97; production facilities in, 71–72; as transportation hub, 38, 58 Poggio al Sole, 100, 158, 237map; profile and tasting notes, 242–44 Poggio di Civitella, 199map Poggio di Sotto, 209 Poggio Reale, 40 Poggio Scalette, 110, 184, 216map; profile and tasting notes, 223–25 Poggio Torselli, 36, 247map Poliziano, 186 Pollacci, Egidio, 125, 144–45 polyculture (mixed agriculture): in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 30–31, 134–37; in medieval and Renaissance Tuscany, 13, 14, 133; and the mezzadria system, 13, 14, 27, 30, 135–36, 137–38, 145, 218; quality and, 26–27, 30–31, 133–36; the testucchio system, 136–37, 141, 142, 170; in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 57, 66–67, 145, 218. See also monoculture Pomino (locality), 25, 51, 52, 252, 270 Pomino (producer), 252 Pomona, 206map, 213figs.; profile and tasting notes 212–14 Pontassieve, 38, 54map Porcinai, Stefano, 86, 108, 128, 173, 179, 205, 207, 208 Porta di Vertine, 180, 199map Portuguese grape varieties, 144–45 Portuguese wines, 28, 34 powdery mildew, 118, 129, 143–44 Pozzesi, Enrico, 154, 182, 183, 214 Pozzesi, Stefania, 214 Pozzesi, Vittorio, 214 prices: before 1900, 25, 27, 29, 30; DOCG establishment and, 79, 80; early twentieth century, 145, 146; in the 1950s–1960s, 60, 61–62, 65; 1970s and 1980s, 76, 80; 1990s and 2000s, 84, 86–88, 219, 222–23; wartime price stabilization, 58

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331

prizes and awards. See Georgofili Academy; wine competitions “The Problems of Chianti’s Enology” (Dalmasso), 61–62 producers. See Chianti Classico producers; specific producers production levels: and the Chianti Classico consortium voting structure, 91–92; DOCG establishment and, 79, 80, 82; 1930s, 284n71; 1950s and 1960s, 57, 60, 65, 76; 1970s, 74–75, 76; 1990s and 2000s, 84, 87, 129, 286n37 promiscuous agriculture. See polyculture promotion. See marketing propagation methods, 140–41, 145, 147; nursery-grown vines and rootstocks, 127, 147 Provenza Bianco, 145 Provenza Nero, 145 provinces (provincie), 105, 106 Prugnolino, 178 Prugnolo Gentile, 125 pruning practices, 108, 134, 142, 144, 156, 157–58. See also vine training methods Pugnitello, 150, 154, 211 Pulignani, Gionata, 107–8, 210 quality: adulteration and fraud, 24–25, 27, 43, 44, 60, 61, 65, 89–90, 130, 150; associated with locations within Chianti, 23; Baron Ricasoli’s research and improvements, 32–34; changing winemaking practices and, 161–62, 187–88; Chianti Classico wine quality rankings, 75, 94; early reputation of Tuscan wines, 11, 14–15, 19, 23–25, 27, 28; the Georgofili Academy’s improvement efforts, 28–31; quality classifications of Tuscany’s vini tipici, 56; traditional agricultural systems and, 22, 26–27, 30–31, 33, 133–36, 170; and the vineyard renovations of the 1960s–1970s, 67, 76, 83, 155; weather and, 109, 110 quality regulation: before 1700, 7, 22–23; Consorzio del Gallo/Chianti Classico consortium quality programs, 57–58, 60, 66, 74, 80–81, 89, 90–91; recent scandals and current quality enforcement, 89–91; tasting assessments for, 75, 80, 89, 90, 91,

332

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92, 93, 187; Tokaj, 281n24; under Italy’s DOC/DOCG Law, 63, 64, 80, 82; varietal analysis, 130–31; yields and alcohol levels, 64, 82, 85, 88, 93. See also bandi of 1716; denominations of origin; specific DOCs and DOCGs Quercia al Poggio, 151, 237map; profile and tasting notes, 244–46 Querciabella, 155, 159, 177, 216map, 225 quincunx plantings, 141–42, 158 R24 Sangiovese clone, 127, 128, 221 Racah, Vittorio, 46–47, 53, 151, 152 rack-and-return (délestage), 183, 185 racking, 21, 162, 166, 184, 185 Radda (producer, Castello di), 185 Radda in Chianti, 2, 6, 7, 38, 99, 193, 277n2, 278n5; Casa Chianti Classico, 89; and Chianti boundary debates, 44, 46, 47, 49, 52; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; Consorzio del Gallo’s 1957 conference in, 61; included in the Chianti of the bando of September 24, 1716, 252, 270; maps, 54, 114, 191; mentioned by Firenzuola, 120, 163; producer profiles, 190–97; reputation of Radda wines, 56; in Vasari’s painting, 18; vicariato di Radda, 7–8 Raffaione nero, 123 Raffaone, 120 railways, 38–39, 114map rainfall, 109–10, 129; drainage and runoff management, 139–40, 146. See also climate and weather Rampolla, 84, 91, 216map, 242, 250; and Tachis, 176–77; viticultural practices, 158, 159; winemaking practices, 172, 174 Raspi, Fernanda, 212 Raspi, Mario, 213fig. Raspi, Monica, 212, 213fig. Rauscedo nursery, 127 Redi, Francesco, 137 Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, 152 Le Regge, 156 regioni, 105 Regolamento agrario (Ricasoli), 124, 142, 167 Regoli, Lorenzo, 193 Relazioni sul governo della Toscana (Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena), 26

Rencine, 108, 180, 183, 206map Repetti, Emanuele, 46, 54map, 56, 254 Rezoagli, Giovanni, 111 Ribéreau-Gayon, Jean, 176 Ricasoli, Barone (producer), 199map; and Chianti boundary debates, 51; departure from the Chianti Classico consortium, 74–75; nineteenth-century history of, 31–34; profile and tasting notes, 200–201; remoteness and transportation challenges, 38, 39–40; the Ricasoli blend and its influence, 32, 118, 124–25, 144, 152; the Ricasoli low-training system, 142–43; stature of, 39–40, 69; under Seagram’s ownership, 69–70, 74 Ricasoli, Bettino (great-great-grandson of the Iron Baron), 64, 69–70, 74, 261, 262, 263 Ricasoli, Bettino (the Iron Baron), 31–34, 38, 62, 142–43, 200; and renewed respect for Sangiovese, 118, 124–25; views on viticulture, 31, 142–43; winemaking views and practices, 31–32, 124, 125, 167–68. See also Brolio (producer); Ricasoli, Barone Ricasoli, Francesco (third great-grandson of the Iron Baron), 125, 153, 200 Ricasoli, Luigi (great-grandson of the Iron Baron), 49, 50–51, 62, 64, 125, 261, 268 Ricasoli, Piergiovanni, 7 Ricasoli company. See Ricasoli, Barone Ricasoli family, 31, 38; family archives and the bandi of 1716, 254, 267–68, 294n23 Ricasoli Firidolfi, Giovanni (grandson of the Iron Baron), 34 Ricasoli-Firidolfi, Giovanni (owner of Cacchiano), 203–4 Ricasoli-Firidolfi family, 5–6, 7, 11, 18, 34, 104; estates owned by, 34, 69–70. See also Brolio (producer); Ricasoli, Barone Ricci, Lapo de’, 29 Ridolfi, Cosimo, 29, 30, 140, 156, 167, 168 Riecine, 68, 79, 172, 199map Riesling, 145, 151 Rietine, 6, 199map Riflessioni sopra la poca durata dei moderni vini di Toscana (Targioni Tozzetti), 29 Righini, Gaspero, 254 Rignana, 180, 216map, 242 rigoverno, 171

ripening: climate change and ripening dates, 107–8, 128; and viticultural choices and methods, 128, 158, 159 Riserva wines, 61, 64, 78, 85, 86, 93–94. See also specific producers rittochino planting, 139, 147 rivers and streams, 98, 106, 109, 114map RL Bosche (T19) Sangiovese clone, 127, 149, 215, 217 Rocca delle Macìe, 68, 156, 206map Rodano, 154, 180, 182, 183, 206map; profile and tasting notes, 214–15 Roman agriculture and agricultural literature, 9, 12, 122 Romoli, Giuseppe Maria, 268 rootstocks, 197, 224; for clay soils, 207; own-root vine research, 150; phylloxera-resistant, 118, 144, 145; twentieth-century rootstocks, 76, 147 Rossetto di Francia, 144 Rossi, Michela, 244, 245 Rossi, Vittorio, 244 Rosso di Montalcino, 275 Rosso di Montepulciano, 275 Roussanne, 145 Ruffino, Ilario, 36 Ruffino, Leopoldo, 36 Ruffino company: abandonment of the fiasco, 69; Bernabei and, 185; bottling location exception for, 86; Chianti Classico estates, 71, 74, 80; departure from the Chianti Classico consortium, 74–75; Gran Selezione release, 93; and the Marchio Storico consortium, 84; in the 1960s and 1970s, 71, 73; in the nineteenth century, 36, 38; political ties, 63; in the post–World War II period, 70, 71 Ruffoli, 9, 19, 111, 115, 134, 216map; potential Ruffoli subzone, 223, 225 Rufina, 51, 95, 275, 284n71; and Chianti boundary debates, 51, 52, 53, 56; DOCG regulations, 82; nineteenth-century wines from, 40 Rupestris du Lot, 224 saffron, 101 salasso (saignée), 173 Salimbene, 9–10 Saltini, Antonio, 161–62, 257, 262

INDEX

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333

Salvi, Paolo, 86, 181, 182, 195, 214 San Casciano Classico: maps, 114, 115, 247; producer profiles, 246–51 San Casciano in Val di Pesa: Antinori estates and facilities in, 36, 38–39, 250; and Chianti boundary debates, 46, 47, 51, 52, 53, 257, 259, 271; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; geography and soils, 105, 106, 108, 112; maps, 54, 114, 247; museum, 98; producer organization, 51, 94, 250; transportation links, 38–39 San Colombana, 23 San Colombano, 23, 117 San Donato Classico, 114map, 115, 237map; producer profiles, 236–46 San Donato in Perano (producer), 95, 199map San Donato in Poggio, 54map, 97, 114map, 227map sandy soils, 111–12, 143 San Fabiano Calcinaia, 186, 206map San Felice (locality), 103 San Felice (producer), 74, 93, 103, 228map; consultants associated with, 97, 180, 182–83; Gran Selezione release, 93; grape varieties, 153, 154; Vigorello Super Tuscan, 78–79; the Vitiarium, 103, 147, 149–50, 154 Sanforte, 122, 123, 126, 225 San Gimignano, 23, 97, 275; Vernaccia di San Gimignano, 64, 71 Sangioeto, 122, 123, 126 Sangiovese (Sangioveto), 117–31; before the twentieth century, xiv, 23, 32, 117, 118–25; the Biondi-Santi selection, 125, 126, 179; Chianti Classico 2000 research, 155; clonal selections, 109, 125, 127–28, 149, 183, 186; Consorzio del Gallo varietal requirements (1924), 50; in current Chianti blends, 150; DOC and DOCG requirements, 65, 82, 90; early reputation for making flawed wines, 118–19, 120–22; eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury admirers of, 122–25; enological advantages and challenges, 83, 122–23, 130, 131; Ferrini’s views on, 186; Firenzuola’s views and mentions of, xiv, 119, 120–22, 131, 137–38, 163, 290n28; Gambelli’s views on, 75, 128–29, 183; for the governo, 171; in nineteenth-century blends, 32, 118, 124–25, 144; oak and, 130, 172, 173; 100 percent

334

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INDEX

Sangiovese wines, 78–79, 85, 125, 130–31, 180; phylloxera-resistant rootstocks for, 145; provenance and ampelographic analyses, 123–24, 125–26, 151; recently-developed clones, 127–28, 215, 217, 221; renewed respect for, 122–25; soils and, 112; spelling variations, 120, 121, 122, 123, 126, 288n20; Tachis’s views on, 177; twentieth-century reputation, 121; Vitiarium research, 150; viticultural characteristics and challenges, 117, 125–26, 129; vs. Sanforte, 126. See also Chianti blends; Sangiovese biotypes Sangiovese biotypes, 125–26; early mentions of, 122, 123–24, 125, 288n27. See also specific biotypes Sangiovese di Lamole, 224 Sangiovese dolce, 125. See also Sangiovese grosso Sangiovese forte, 125, 126. See also Sangiovese piccolo Sangiovese grosso, 122, 123, 125, 126 Sangiovese montanino, 126 Sangiovese piccolo, 122, 123, 125, 126, 288n27 San Giusto alle Monache, 34 San Giusto a Rentennano, 79, 104, 199map, 242; governo wines, 171; profile and tasting notes, 204–5; soils, 198, 205; viticultural practices, 155, 156, 204–5 San Guido, 77, 177. See also Sassicaia San Gusmè, 49, 52, 54map, 228map, 265 San Miniato, 140 San Polo in Chianti (hamlet), 11, 100–101, 114map, 216map San Polo in Rosso, 34, 104, 185 San Sano, 6, 165, 199map Santa Cristina (Antinori), 70–71, 176 Santa Margherita group, 220 Santa Maria Novella in Chianti, 99–100 Sant’Angelo a Vico l’Abate, 98, 247map Santedame (Ruffino), 180, 206map Santi, Clemente, 125 Sanvicetro, 122, 288n27. See also Sangiovese grosso; Sangiovese piccolo Sarrocchi, Gino, 50, 57, 214, 261, 284–85n74, 285n11 Sassicaia, 70, 77–78, 176, 177 Sauvignon Blanc, 145, 219 Scaphoideus titanus, 159–60

Scaramuzzi, Franco, 149 Sceriman, David, 24 Schmelzer, Jennifer, 221 Schmelzer, Michael, 109, 110, 128, 159, 174, 187, 221–22 Schuster, Danny, 241 Scienza, Attilio, 118, 123–24 Seagram’s, 69–70, 74 Sebasti, Lorenza, 202 Selvi, Enrico, 212 Selvole, 6 Sémillon, 145 Serristori company, 70, 71, 74 Serristori family, 263–64 Sestini, Domenico, 135, 144 sharecropping. See mezzadria system Siena, 2, 5, 38, 54map, 114map, 232; FlorenceSiena rivalry and Florentine consolidation of power, 5–8, 17–18, 97, 99, 103–4; included in Chianti geologico, 47; Lorenzetti’s Buon governo, 15–16, 17, 132–33, 232; province of, 43–44, 106. See also Chianti Senese silty soils, 112 Simon, André Louis, 60–61 Simonte, Sacha, 213fig. Sindacato Enologico Chiantigiano, 44 Sindacato Vinicolo Piemontese, 44, 45 skin contact, 32, 130, 163, 165–66, 167–68, 173, 183. See also fermentation and maceration practices Slavonian oak, 173 SO4 rootstock, 197 Soave, 63 Socci, Carlo, 218 Socci, Giorgio, 218 Socci, Giovanni, 126 Socci, Juliane, 220 Socci, Paolo, 115, 126, 138, 140, 146, 152–53, 156, 217–19 Società Enologica, 29–30 Soderini, Giovan Vettorio, 118–19, 120, 121, 152 I Sodi, 151 soils: Chianti boundary debates and, 46–47, 53, 111; Chianti Classico requirements, 50, 111; clay-rich soils, 108, 110, 112, 115, 129, 185, 207; cover cropping, 155–56; erosion, 67, 139–40, 147, 155; at higher altitudes, 24, 110,

137–38; phylloxera and, 57, 143; planting density and, 138; poverty of, 4, 11, 12, 19, 100, 107; terracing and, 139–40, 146–47; types and characteristics, 111–13; vine training methods and, 137, 138; water availability, 106, 107, 110, 111–12, 129. See also specific producers Solaia, 176 Soldera, 180 Solum nobis motto, 59 Sonnino, Sidney, 30–31, 45 Sopra la agricultura or Sopra l’agricultura. See Firenzuola, Girolamo da spacing. See planting density Spaltenna, 34 Spanish grape varieties, 145, 152, 153 Spanish wines, 28, 34 Spedaluzzo, 216map, 252, 270 SPEVIS (Stazione Sperimentale per la Viticoltura Sostenibile), 160 Lo Spugnaccio, 180 Staderini, Federico “Fred,” 86, 128, 183, 192, 226, 227, 230 Starda, 103, 199map Stazione Sperimentale per la Viticoltura Sostenibile (SPEVIS), 160 steel tanks, 171, 172, 184, 185 Stianti, Giovanella, 192 Le Stinche (brand), 219, 220–21 Le Stinche castle, 46, 220 stone walls, 67, 134, 138, 140. See also terraces Storia della cantina di Brolio (Ricasoli), 124 Storia del vino in Toscana (Ciuffoletti, ed.), 256 Straccali, 71, 180, 206map Straccali, Giulio, 53, 71, 75 stravecchio Chianti Classicos, 61 Strozzi, Ferdinando, 33 Strucchi, Arnaldo, 45 Stucchi Prinetti, Emanuela, 198 Stucchi Prinetti, Paolo, 198 Stucchi Prinetti, Roberto, 151–52, 198 Studiati, Cesare, 32, 124, 167–68 sugar additions, 167 sulfites, 174 sulfur, 143 Super Chianti Classico, 184 Superiore designation, 85, 274 Superstrada del Palio, 71, 104, 105

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335

Super Tuscan wines, 67, 70, 73, 77–79, 188, 193; Castell’in Villa Santacroce, 230; Fèlsina Fontalloro, 232–33; San Felice Vigorello, 78–79; Sassicaia, 70, 77–78, 176, 177; Tignanello, 36, 78, 166, 176 sustainable viticulture. See biodynamics; organic viticulture sweet wines, 23. See also vin santo Swiss landowners in Chianti, 68 Switzerland, as export market, 41, 84 Syndicat des Vignerons de Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 43 Syrah, 67, 85, 90, 130, 145, 148; producers using, 154–55, 217; varietal profile, 154–55 T19 Sangiovese clone, 127, 149, 215, 217 Tachis, Giacomo, 75, 174–77, 175fig.; associates of, 75, 148; employers and clients, 70, 175–77, 229, 230, 250; fondness for the fiasco, 69; on Niccolò Antinori, 70; and the Super Tuscans, 70, 77, 78, 79, 166, 176; wine style preferences, 75, 92, 175, 176, 188 Tachis, Ilaria, 175, 250 Il Tagliato, 156, 216map, 225 Tamburini, Barbara, 184 Tanàglia, Michelangelo, 7, 120 Tani, Gabriella, 86, 184 Targioni Tozzetti, Giovanni, 29, 152 tasters (palatistas), 75, 178, 179 tasting, for quality assessment, 75, 80, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 187 Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, 54map, 106, 112, 114map; Chianti boundary debates and, 47, 52, 56; Chianti Classico DOCG and, 105, 113; Chianti Classico subzone, 114map, 115 taxation, of wine and other agricultural products, 9, 11, 21, 28, 260 Tedaldi, Giovambatista, 120 temperatures, 109, 110, 128–29; frosts, 109, 110, 129, 158, 215; global warming, 107–8, 128–29, 173 Tempranillo, 153 tenant farmers. See mezzadria system Teroldego Nero, 152 Terrabianca, 68, 149, 184, 191map terraces, 67, 138, 139–40, 146–47, 156 terra-cotta containers, 172, 174 Terranuova, 31

336

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INDEX

Terret San Giorgio, 145 terroir/territorialità, 15, 160 Tesi, Piero, 262 Testaferrata, Agostino, 140, 156 testucchio system, 136–37, 141, 142, 170 Tibbits, Benjamin, 29 Tignanello, 36, 78–79, 98, 166, 176, 178, 247map Tilli, Paolo, 40 tinaie, 21 Tinto Morello, 144 tipo di Chianti wines, 40, 41 Tokaj, 281n24 tonneaux, 130, 172–73, 174, 186 topography, 11, 107–8, 232; terrace systems and renovations, 67, 138, 139–40, 146–47, 156 topping, 159 Torsoli, 164, 216map Toscana coltivazione delle viti e delli arbori (Davanzati), 120 La Toscana nell’età di Cosimo III, 258 tourism, 79, 84 townships, 105–6; the “in Chianti” suffix, 49, 106, 218, 277n2; on labels, 94–95, 242, 250; vs. subzones, 113–15, 114map. See also specific townships trademark protection and disputes, 50, 57, 81–82 Traité d’oenologie (Ribéreau-Gayon), 176 transportation: Chianti’s isolation and the wine trade, 38–39, 42; historic roadways, 2, 104, 278n5; road and rail networks in the Chianti region, 38–39, 42, 71, 114map; wine stability/durability and, 24, 29, 33 Tranvia del Chianti, 38–39 Trattato chimico ed economico sopra i vini (Chaptal), 167 Trattato della coltivazione delle viti, e del frutto che se ne può cavare (Soderini), 118–19, 120, 121, 152 Trattato di agricoltura (Falchini), 47, 122–23, 126, 134, 136, 139, 141, 164–65 Trattato per regolare il commercio del vino (Magalotti), 265–66 Trebbiano (Trebbiano Toscano Bianco): after phylloxera, 145, 150; Chianti Classico DOCG regulations, 85, 92, 150; Chianti DOCG regulations, 82; Chianti DOC requirements, 65; Consorzio del Gallo varietal requirements

(1924), 50; diminishing use of, 83, 148, 150; for the governo, 171; in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chiantis, 32, 124, 144, 145, 150, 168; in Tignanello, 78; white wines made from, 23, 117 trees, vines trained on. See alberata and maritata training methods; testucchio system trellises, 147–48. See also vine training methods Trentin, Pompeo, 144 Triacca family, 68 Trinci, Cosimo, 121, 153, 288n22 Tuscan arched cane (capovolto) trellising, 147–48, 157, 215 Tuscany, early maps of, ii, 2, 7–8, 280n78 Ulliade San Giorgio, 145 UNESCO World Heritage Site designation application, 274 Unione Produttori Vino Chianti (UPVC), 39 Unione Viticoltori di Panzano (UVP), 94, 115–16, 159–60, 221, 242 United Kingdom. See Britain United States: California “Chianti,” 36, 41, 48; Chianti in American competitions, 32–33; Chianti wines in, xiii; as export market, 41, 71, 76–77, 79, 84, 86; Italian wines in, 41 University of Florence: enology education at, 172; Sangiovese clones, 127, 221 University of Pisa, 32 UPVC (Unione Produttori Vino Chianti), 39 Urban V, Pope, 14–15 Uve (Bimbi), 126 UVP (Unione Viticoltori di Panzano), 94, 115–16, 159–60, 221, 242 Vade-mecum del commerciante di uve e di vini in Italia (Ottavi and Marescalchi), 46, 56 Vagaggini, Francesco, 204 Vagaggini, Paolo, 86, 187, 204, 235 Vagliagli, 49, 52, 54map, 228map Val d’Arbia, 1, 2, 11, 280n73 Valdarno, 97, 98–99, 100–101, 103 Valdarno di Sopra, 23, 25, 107; in the bandi of 1716, 252, 270–71 Val d’Elsa, 44, 97, 106, 280n73 Val d’Ema, 11

Val di Greve, 1, 7, 11, 19, 46, 98, 106, 137–38 Val di Pesa, 1, 2, 11, 19, 98, 106, 280n73 Valdirubbiana, 11 Vallombrosan order, 5 Valoritalia, 90 Valpolicella, 63 Varro, 4 Vasari, Giorgio, 17–18, 271–72 Vecchie Terre di Montefili, 115–16, 184, 216map vecchio Chianti Classicos, 61, 64 Verdea, 23 verdea, 162 vermigli, 22, 35, 120, 169 Vernaccia, 23 Vernaccia di San Gimignano, 64, 71 Veronelli, Luigi, 77, 262 Vertine, 6, 104 Via Chiantigiana, 38, 99, 101, 102 Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, 57 Vieusseux, Giovan Pietro, 29 Vignamaggio, 155, 216map Vigorello, 78–79 La Villa (Podere), 247map; profile and tasting notes, 250–51 Villa Antinori, 70, 71, 78 Villa a Sesta, 180, 228map Villa Cafaggio, 216map, 242 Villa Calcinaia, 151, 156, 162, 172, 216map; profile and tasting notes, 225–27 Villa Cerna, 71, 206map Villa di Geggiano, 228map, 268–69; profile and tasting notes, 234–35 Villa Franchi, 68 Villa Lappeggi, 122, 126, 134, 144 Villarosa, 180 Villifranchi, Giovanni Cosimo, 23, 28, 108, 117, 121, 202; on Ama wines, 202; on the Chianti wine trade, 24–25, 28; on grape varieties, 23, 117, 118, 121, 126; on viticulture, 108, 134–35, 140, 141, 143; on winemaking, 162, 165–66, 170 vinattieri, 8, 278n33 vine training methods, 133–39; alcohol levels and, 133; before 1600, 4, 9, 16, 132–33; braiding (intrecciatura), 159, 197, 221; the candelabra method, 144, 158, 215, 219; capovolto (Tuscan arched cane) trellising, 147–48, 157, 215; current practices, 157–58;

INDEX

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337

vine training methods (continued) in the eighteenth century, 26, 27, 134–36; Firenzuola’s advice and opinions, 133–34, 137–38; quality and, 26–27, 30, 133–36, 170; the Ricasoli low-training system, 142–43; trellis types, 147–48; yields and, 26–27, 30, 132, 133–34, 137–38, 157–58, 159, 170. See also alberata and maritata training methods; alberello training; specific producers vineyard workers, 156. See also mezzadria system vini all’usanza di Chianti, 47 vini all’uso di Chianti, 40 vini da pasto, 55 vini da tavola, Super Tuscans as, 77, 78 vini pregiati di determinata origine, 57, 58 vini tipici, 47–48, 274; Chianti as a vino tipico, 1, 45, 47, 51–52, 53, 56; denominations of origin and, 45, 53, 55, 274; governing laws, 47–48, 52, 55, 57, 284–85n74; the Tuscan vini tipici and their geographic denominations, 53. See also Fornaciari Commission I vini tipici della Toscana (Oliva), 283n45 vini tipo di Chianti, 40, 41 Vino, conti e contadini: Cinquant’anni di scontri per le denominazioni del Chianti (Saltini), 257, 262 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, 58, 79, 275 vin santo, 23, 55, 170, 245 vintages: first DOCG vintage, 80–81; recent growing season conditions, 100, 107, 109, 110, 128–29, 158–59, 189–90, 248; recent weather extremes, 158–59; seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 24, 25 Virgil, 9, 96 viruses, 127, 128 Vistarenni, 33, 35, 45, 199map La Vita Nuova (Dante), 1 Vitiarium, 103, 147, 149–50, 154 Viticoltori del Chianti Classico Sancascianese, 94, 250 viticultural education, 172 viticulture, 132–60; Baron Ricasoli’s views, 31, 142–43; before 1600, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12–14, 132–33, 137–38, 279nn57,59; canopy management, 129, 158–59; chemical use and fertilization, 67, 76, 141, 143, 147, 148, 159–60; the Chianti Classico 2000 research project, 125, 127, 128, 155, 186; cover

338

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INDEX

cropping, 149, 155–56; disease infestations, 143–44, 156, 157; early twentieth-century developments, 145–46; early viticultural treatises, 118–21; in the eighteenth century, 22, 26–28; Firenzuola’s views, 133, 134, 137–38; fraudulent Chianti Classico vineyards, 89–90; impact of the Chianti Classico DOCG rules, 85–86; influential consultants, 75, 148–49, 185, 186; irrigation, 129; mechanization, 67, 146–47, 157; medieval harvest rules, 7; modern farm labor sources, 156; nineteenth-century developments, 140, 142–45; organic and biodynamic, 155, 159–60, 228, 248; pest and disease management, 67, 108, 143, 159–60; phylloxera and its impacts, 57, 60, 117, 123, 128, 141, 240; planting and propagation methods, 140–42, 145, 147; post-phylloxera practices, 145–46; pruning practices, 108, 134, 142, 144, 156, 157–58; ratio of vineyards to other land uses, 67, 100, 107, 160; renovations of the 1960s–1970s, 66–67, 76, 83, 146–48, 155; replantings in the early 2000s, 67; specialized vineyards in medieval Tuscany, 12–13, 16; terracing and drainage systems, 67, 138, 139–40, 146–47, 156; the testucchio system, 136–37, 141, 142, 170; vineyard acreage figures, 66–67, 106–7, 146; vineyard exposures and elevations, 107–8, 110–11, 128–29; vineyards in medieval painting, 16, 18, 132–33, 232; Vitiarium research vineyard, 103, 147, 149–50, 154. See also climate and weather; grape varieties; mezzadria system; monoculture; planting density; polyculture; vine training methods; yields; specific producers and grape varieties Vitis rupestris, 118 Vitis silvestris, 3 Vitis vinifera, 3, 99–100, 144 Vizetelly, Henry, 33 viziati (native grape varieties), 149–50, 174. See also Abrostine; Abrusco; Foglia Tonda; Pugnitello volatile acidity, 121, 164, 183 Volpaia, 79, 185, 191map; profile and tasting notes, 192–94 Volterra, 2, 278n5

War of Chianti (Guerra del Chianti), 1–2, 96, 271. See also Chianti boundaries War of the Spanish Succession, 260 water availability, 106, 107, 139; rainfall patterns, 109–10; soils and, 106, 107, 110, 111–12, 129 weather. See climate and weather weeds and herbicides, 147, 148 white grape varieties: in Chianti blends, 78, 82, 83, 85, 92, 150, 168, 173, 176; Firenzuola on, 162; foreign varieties in Chianti, 144, 145. See also specific varieties white wines, 10, 23, 83, 117, 162 Widmer, Brigitte, 68 Widmer, Bruno, 68 Winder and Aikman, 260 winds, 108–9, 110–11 wine competitions: early twentieth-century, 50; nineteenth-century, 32–33, 36, 40–41 wine criticism and journalism, 75, 77–78, 79 wine cups and goblets, Etruscan, 3, 102

wine industry and trade: Etruscan, 3, 4; French, 9–10, 43. See also Chianti markets and trade wine law: the bando of 1611, 22–23. See also bandi of 1716; denominations of origin; Italian law Wine Spectator, 81 wine storage. See containers; specific producers wine taxation, 9, 11, 28, 260 World War II, 57–58, 59–60 yeasts, 174, 228 yields, 64, 76, 79, 88, 173, 222; vine training methods and, 26–27, 30, 132, 133–34, 137–38, 157–58, 159, 170. See also production levels Zano, 71, 74 Zavadnikova, Valeria, 194 Zingarelli, Italo, 68 zonation maps and studies, 113, 115–16 Zonin, Michele, 196 Zonin family, 68

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339