Chianti today is one of the best Italian wines – 08/20/2023 – Red or White

“Forget the wine in the bottle with a straw hanging in the canteens”, so Luca Alves, chianti wine ambassador, opened the Chianti Lovers Latam masterclass at the beginning of August in São Paulo. “Chianti has undergone an enormous qualitative evolution over the last three decades. In addition to its natural vocation to accompany food, today it has one of the best price/quality ratios on the market.”

The class, followed by a tasting, was given to an audience of wine professionals who already know that chianti is a great wine, far superior to the cheap, tasty Italian wine of the popular imagination. However, the objective of the action promoted by the Consorzio Vino Chianti (producers’ association), which is repeated every year with small variations, is to beat this idea until it reaches the ears of the largest possible number of wine consumers.

It is necessary because, despite being one of the best-known wines in the world, chianti lost much of its prestige among higher-income consumers in the 1970s and 1980s, when large industries released huge quantities of bottles of cheap chianti onto the market. low quality.

The origin of the name chianti is not known for sure. It is known that, in the beginning, he was referring to the geographical area where today Chianti Classico is located (since 1996, an appellation of origin separate from the rest of Chianti), in Tuscany, very close to Florence. “Chianti wine begins to appear on the table in Florence in the Middle Ages,” said Alves.

In 1716, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Medici, demarcated and made protected by decree four regions that he considered most suitable for the production of wine in Tuscany and Chianti was among them. According to Alves, the curious thing is that in the beginning chianti was mainly a white wine. Gradually, red chianti grew in prestige. However, it was only in the mid-19th century, with the work of Baron Bettino Ricasoli, that sangiovese became the main grape in chianti wine. Today, according to the rules of the consortium, it must represent at least 70% of the blend, with other red grapes being allowed, such as canaiolo and cabernet sauvignon, and even white, such as malvasia and trebbiano.

Over time, the area known as Chianti grew and took over the provinces of Florence, Siena, Arezzo and Pistoia. Today there are seven sub-regions (Chianti Rùfina, Chianti Colli Aretini, Chianti Colli Fiorentini, Chianti Colli Senesi, Chianti Colline Pisane, Chianti Montalbano and Chianti Montespertoli), covering an area of ​​15,500 hectares of vineyards, which produce 800,000 hectoliters of chianti wine per year.

The commitment to quality includes investments in field and canteen technology, but also by understanding the richness that can represent all the diversity contained in this small area. Each of the sub-regions has its own terroir, that is, different topography, soil, climate and culture conditions. Highlighting these identities is a way to attract more experienced consumers who seek uniqueness.

The sub-region that best understood this was Chianti Rùfina. Unlike others, their wines always highlight the DOCG (Denominazione d’Origine Controllata e Garantita) Chianti Rùfina. Very close to Florence, it is one of the oldest sub-regions. It was already part of the area delimited as Chianti by Cosimo III.

With altitudes between 250 and 600 meters and steep slopes covered with forests, it is the highest of the sub-regions. This makes it cooler and, therefore, its grapes have a slower maturation, which gives more delicate aromas, of fresh fruits and flowers, and greater freshness in the mouth. “Think of an elegant wine”, says Gerardo Gondi, marketing and sales director of the Marchesi Gondi group, to which Tenuta Bossi belongs. “It’s a very small region, which produces a very precise wine”.

There are only 22 producers out of the 3600 that exist in Chianti. Closely united, these producers decided in the middle of the last decade to bet even more on the precision of their wines. They then created a collective brand, Terraelectea, which positions some wines above the three established categories for all chianti wines.

Chianti are divided into annata (simple wines, with little or no aging in oak, light, fresh and good for everyday use), superiore (wines with a slightly higher alcohol content, full-bodied, with a minimum period of maturing for 9 months, at least 3 in the bottle, which usually goes through wood), and riserva (complex, powerful wine, with great aging potential, with a minimum of 24 months of maturing, of which at least 6 in barrels of oak).

“Terraelectea, in fact, is somewhat parallel to this classification”, explains Faye Lottero, who defines herself as wine artistic director (artistic director of wines) at Fattoria Lavacchio, her family’s property in Rùfina that combines a farm hotel with production of biodynamic wines and oils. A collective mark, the Terraelectae nomenclature can only be used for wines from a single vineyard, that vineyard being chosen by its owner as his best. Every Terraelectae is also Chianti Rùfina Riserva.

“We didn’t want something like the gran selezione of Chianti Classico, which is just one scale above the riserva,” she comments. “We wanted something that expressed the essence of Rùfina.” Some special vineyards, such as the grand crus of Burgundy, would thus represent the best of the appellation.

At Fattoria Lavacchio, the chosen vineyard was Vigna Casanova, two hectares of Sangiovese were planted in 1963. “He was already producing a special wine, which he called Ludie”, says Faye. “But we had to change the name because, to use the Terraelectae brand, the name of the wine has to be the name of the vineyard or a toponym associated with it.”

Poggio Diamante is the name of the Terraelectae of Tenuta Bossi. Family history tells that it was implanted in the 19th century by the widow Marie de Labrugiere, Gerardo’s ancestor and her father, who is the current Marquis. Most of the producers at Rùfina, by the way, are from noble families, even if this is not mentioned in the name of the winery. When visiting one of them, look for the family tree on the wall.

This is also the case for Azienda Agricola Colognole. Its current administrator, the Marquis Cesare Coda Nunziante, also descends from Count Spalletti on his mother’s side, in whose family the property has been for five generations. Very simple and gentle, even a little shy, Nunziante explains that Vigneto Le Rogaie is special due to a series of factors, of which the fact that it is behind a mountain where the sun sets an hour earlier and the fact that it passes through there is an underground stream. “When the sun sets behind the hill, we still have an hour of plenty of light,” he explains. “Then, the plant carries out photosynthesis. But as the light does not hit the grapes directly, the aromas are finer. The creek, on the other hand, provides the water that the vineyard needs. It suffers less than other vineyards, so it yields a more balanced wine” .

Before 2017, when the project took off for good, many winemakers, like the three mentioned above, already produced their single vineyard labels, always special and more expensive labels. In this way, they were able to bottle their first Terraelectae as early as 2018 simply by changing the label. Some, like the Fattoria Selvapianna, even had more than one wine from a single vineyard. In this case, they had to choose the one they thought best expressed the qualities of their terroir. Selvapianna chose Vigneto Erchi Riserva, whose 2018 vintage received 95 points from the English magazine Decanter.

Others, such as Fattoria di Doccia, had not yet invested in vinifying and bottling better quality plots separately. “We are still deciding what our Terraelectae will be”, says young Leonardo Sardelli, from the third generation of producers. “We have two very special vineyards, Cresole and Casale. Let’s see how the 2023 vintage turns out. We want to launch our Terraelectae for this vintage.”

All this is very new and has not yet arrived in Brazil. Many of these producers are not even imported into our country (although some are looking for an importer). Terraelectae productions are minimal. So, these are expensive wines. However, if you want to try them, you can try the previous vintages of Fattoria Lavacchio Ludie, for example, which cost between R$924.00 and R$1,018.00, at the importer Mondo Roso ([email protected]), or from Frescobaldi Montesoldi, whose 2016 vintage costs R$ 1,176.00 at Winebrands.

Most mortals, however, can get quite a kick out of regular chianti from good producers in Rùfina or other sub-regions.