By Igor Ryjenkov MW …It was still an early morning when the two riders, traveling in opposite directions, spotted each other. They met near Fonterutoli, about 20 kilometers outside of Siena, and, as it had been agreed, this was where the boundary between the rivaling Florence and Siena would be set…
The ride was triggered on both ends by a day-break rooster’s call. While Siena’s white bird had been well fed and pampered, the Florentines’ black rooster had been on a “diet” and kept in a dark small coop. Super-alert on the day of the ride, it was all too eager to announce the morning’s arrival, ensuring a head-start for the horseman from Florence. By the time they met, the Florentine rider had travelled for nearly three times as long as his counterpart from Siena. While this brought a peaceful resolution to a long standing dispute, it also ensured the territorial dominance of his city for centuries to come.
It is hard to trace the roots of this fable, attributed to the Middle Ages, but the recorded symbolic connection to Gallo Nero dates to the late 1200s, and the League of Chianti, a military alliance of three villages right in the heart of today’s Chianti Classico. Possibly, that story was already recounted then. Overtime, the local wines took the name of the area. The first recorded reference to Chianti as wine appears in 1398, a white wine at the time, although reds were also in the conversation.
In 1716 the Chianti wine producing area was formally delimited by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, making it one of the earliest designated continuously producing wine areas. It was not until 1924, when the Consorzio of Chianti Classico Wine was formed, that the Black Rooster became an official emblem for and later displayed on the bottles of the wines from the historic heart of the region.
Sangiovese is widely planted all over the Italian peninsula, but few would argue that Tuscany is where it reaches its peaks. Besides Chianti, the best of Brunello, made only with this grape, Vino Nobile and Morelino from the Coast are all excellent examples of regional expressions of Tuscan Sangiovese. While the grape does not travel well outside of the country, making the region virtually the exclusive source of top-shelf Sangiovese wines, we now know that a number of areas in Tuscany offer a welcome mat to a range of non-traditional grapes. However, it was a case to be proven, and it took some visionary people to prove it, the people behind the very first “Super Tuscans”.
Sassicaia, a personal project of Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta, was the first out of the gate. The wine was made at first for personal consumption since 1948 in the area that had no previous wine heritage and was not highly thought of since it was unsuitable for Sangiovese. The vineyards were actually planted to the French Cabernets, both Franc and Sauvignon. Its first commercial release was the 1968 vintage. Around that same time, from the Chianti area, Marchesi Antinori launched the inaugural 1971 vintage of Tignanello, a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Neither wine fit the existing DOC regulations, and had to be offered for sale as Vino di Tavola, the lowest designation available. However, they commanded the prices well in excess of what the top DOC producers were able to expect, and became known as Super Tuscans – mavericks defying conventions and succeeding at it.
With the international attention these garnered over time – it was far from an overnight success – their ranks grew, at first slowly – Ornellaia and Solaia came along, and then faster and faster. There is really no clear definition of Super Tuscans, and some may argue that it only should cover the original cadre. However, today the term is used to describe the slate of wines made with unusual grapes or blends, often with a more modern winemaking, or in unheralded parts of the region. It’s still widely used, even though the appellation system now has found a comfortable spot for the former breakaways in a recent Bolgheri DOC, with Sassicaia owning its one cru DOC designation, and in the IGT ranks for more recent experiments.
Thanks to the rooster and the mavericks, Tuscany is a home to some of the oldest as well as some of the newest reference wines in Italy. Chianti and the original Super Tuscans serve as bookends to a wide array of top Sangiovese as well as exceptional wines based on other grapes, including some interesting whites with Vernaccia and Vermentino grapes. These pages aim to offer you a representative cross-section of this spectrum, even specifically calling out the “Super Tuscan” efforts, so, without further ado – Buon divertimento, e Salute!