Chianti

From good Chianti, an aged wine, majestic and imperious, that passes through my heart and chases away without trouble every worry and grief… Francesco Redi, Bacchus in Tuscany

In the 17th century, naturalist and poet Francesco Redi was the first to note the virtues of ‘Florentine red’ from Chianti, but since then the Italians have invested a lot of worry and grief into defining exactly what ‘Chianti’ means.

The name apparently derives from an Etruscan family named Clanti; geographically it refers, roughly, to the hilly region between Florence and Siena, bordered by the Florence–Siena Superstrada del Palio and the A1 from Florence to Arezzo. The part within Siena province is known as Chianti Storico or Chianti Geografico, once the territories of the Lega del Chianti, a consortium of barons formed in 1385 to protect their interests (and their wine), who adopted a black cockerel as their emblem.