The Chianti Wine Lands

Tuscany, love at first sight
You can see that it is an enchanted land immediately.

Tuscany, with its heterogeneous landscapes that unfold from the austere and silent Apennines through gently rolling hills scattered with timeless villages, to the horizon between the scrub and sand of the Tyrrhenian Sea, is unique in terms of biodiversity and productive eclecticism.

Tuscany is the home of Chianti wine: Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Pisa, Pistoia and Prato are the provinces where our wine is made, whose soils, cultivated with vines for centuries and outlined by the production regulations, create those unmistakable scenarios impressed in the collective imagination of every wine lover.

These six provinces currently host seven so-called production “sub-zones”: «Chianti Colli Aretini», «Chianti Colli Fiorentini», «Chianti Colli Senesi», «Chianti Colline Pisane», «Chianti Montalbano», «Chianti Montespertoli» and «Chianti Rufina».

Towns and provincial capitals, like seven treasure chests filled with beauty and seven custodians of knowledge, where the Chianti style is expressed in a more confidential manner, in a remarkable kaleidoscope.

This environment, which is unique in terms of conformation and culture, shaped by the work of man, crossed by gently rolling hills carved into large terraces, by valleys and rivers, with steep vineyards, dotted with olive trees and woods, has become the very symbol of all things Tuscan.

Today, the ancient wine cellars have become architectural heritage to be visited and tourist attractions to be experienced intensely.

From a geological point of view, the Chianti region can be divided into four systems, in order of decreasing age of formation: Mio-Eocene pre-Apennine ridges, Pliocene hills, the intermountain basin of Valdarno Superiore with its Pleistocene deposits, and alluvial deposits. The altitude of the hills where the vines are cultivated averages out at between 200 and 400 m above sea level, with a suitable position and exposure.

The area’s climate can technically be defined as continental, from humid to sub-humid: from the ash-grey days of November, with their pouring rain and thick fog, via chimneys puffing out white smoke in the raw and harsh cold of January, to the confused flight of swallows among broom and irises in the fragrant springs; then torrid heat, the loud screams of children and ancient songs howling at the moon in the dusty farmyards in summer. Warm autumns, during the grape harvest and racking. Chestnuts roasted over the crackle of the first fire. Pheasant songs, from afar, amidst shades of amber.