Fabled Tuscany is Italy’s most famous wine region and the home of Chianti.

July 26, 2011

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Fabled Tuscany is Italy’s most famous wine region and the home of Chianti, the country’s best-known wine. In some years Tuscany produces more than 60 million cases, of which some 8 million are Chianti. Sangiovese, which is ubiquitous in Tuscany, is Chianti’s principal grape. It is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Carmignano and the legendary Brunello di Montalcino.

To this day, Tuscan old-timers fondly recall the fiasco (Italian for flask), the bulbous round bottle with its woven straw covering that for years was synonymous with Chianti. What they would rather not remember was that the fiasco was a symbol of mediocrity, of long years of indifference to what should have been the region’s proudest achievement. Throughout the world, Chianti was known as a cheap wine in a unique bottle. The formula was immensely successful, and the winemakers saw no reason to change.

Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, a new generation of Chianti winemakers recognized that great wines were being made everywhere else and that Chianti’s marvelous potential had never been realized. Led by the remarkable Piero Antinori, 25th generation head of his family’s wine business, leading Chianti producers began to innovate. Regulations demanded a certain amount of white wine in the Chianti blend. Antinori ignored the rules and began blending traditional French varieties, especially cabernet sauvignon, into his best sangiovese and aging the combination in small oak barrels. The result: astonishingly rich and elegant wines.

They couldn’t be called Chianti, so Antinori and his followers gave their wines what amounted to brand names, among them Tignanello and Solaia, and called these new wines, collectively, Super-Tuscans. Actually, it was not an untried adventure. A wine called Sassicaia was first produced by the Antinoris in 1948 using cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc and no sangiovese. But it was not introduced to the public until the early 1970s, around the same time as Tignanello. (Solaia sells for around $185 a bottle, Sassicaia for about $160 and Tignanello for about $100.)

Soon everyone was making Super-Tuscans. Then Chianti producers decided Super-Tuscans were too dependent on foreign grape varieties. They resolved to use new clones and superior vinification of the traditional Italian grapes to make great wines exclusively from sangiovese and other Tuscan varieties. These days, a Chianti Classico like Ruffino’s Riserva Ducale Gold Label (about $35) has much of the richness of a Super-Tuscan while remaining Chianti. (The specification “Classico” refers to the Chianti region’s most ancient area of production.)

The renowned Brunello di Montalcino, a powerful, tannic red, is made entirely from the Brunello grape, a sangiovese variant grown around Montalcino, northeast of Siena. It must be aged four years to be bottled as Brunello. With less aging it is known as Rosso di Montalcino. An Altesino Brunello, one of the best, sells for around $100.

Carmignano is a red wine made primarily from sangiovese with about 10 percent cabernet sauvignon and aged for up to 24 months.

Tuscan whites are largely indifferent. Most are made from the lackluster trebbiano grape. Trebbiano is valued for use in cheap table wine and as part of the traditional Chianti blend. One Tuscan white worth noting is Vernaccia (wine and grape) from the San Gimignano region. At least it’s better than trebbiano. — Frank Prial, Dec. 24, 2007

SOURCE: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/wines/tuscany/index.html

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