Chianti is an Italian red wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany, principally from the Sangiovese grape. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco. However, the fiasco is now only used by a few makers of the wine; most Chianti is bottled in more standard-shaped wine bottles. In the latter nineteenth century, Baron Bettino Ricasoli helped establish Sangiovese as the blend's dominant grape variety, creating the blueprint for today's Chianti wines.
A bottle of ordinary Tuscan table wine in the kind of traditional fiasco formerly used for Chianti
In 1716 Cosimo III de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, legislated the first official boundaries of the Chianti region in what is today part of the Chianti Classico DOCG.
Baron Bettino Ricasoli developed the first "modern" Chianti recipe that was Sangiovese based.
The Italian DOCG Chianti label
Tuscan wine is Italian wine from the Tuscany region. Located in central Italy along the Tyrrhenian coast, Tuscany is home to some of the world's most notable wine regions. Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano are primarily made with Sangiovese grape whereas the Vernaccia grape is the basis of the white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Tuscany is also known for the dessert wine Vin Santo, made from a variety of the region's grapes. Tuscany has forty-one Denominazioni di origine controllata (DOC) and eleven Denominazioni di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG). In the 1970s a new class of wines known in the trade as "Super Tuscans" emerged. These wines were made outside DOC/DOCG regulations but were considered of high quality and commanded high prices. Many of these wines became cult wines. In the reformation of the Italian classification system many of the original Super Tuscans now qualify as DOC or DOCG wines but some producers still prefer the declassified rankings or to use the Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) classification of Toscana. Tuscany has six sub-categories of IGT wines today.
Banqueting scene in the Tomb of the Leopards
Winemaker and politician Bettino Ricasoli
Vineyards around Siena.
Sangiovese grapes harvested in the Montepulciano region.