Essentially, Chianti Classico is a Sangiovese varietal wine. But that was not always the case. In 1773, Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi (the pen name of the Florentine medical doctor and botanist Saverio Manetti) explained that red “Vino nel Chianti” was primarily made of “Canajolo nero,” with additions of “S. Gioveto, di Mammolo, e di Marzamino o Marsamino.” (He mentioned that a white “Vino di Chianti” was made too, but with San Colombano and Trebbiano.)1 From the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, Canaiolo was dominant in the red Chianti blend, and Sangiovese was in the background. Canaiolo is a very old variety in central Italy. Piero de’ Crescenzi, writing from Bologna at the beginning of the fourteenth century, described what he called the canajuola grape as “come cinabro rossa molto dolce e servabile” (red like cinnabar, very sweet, and servable).2 One factor that might have contributed to Canaiolo’s popularity from the time of Villifranchi to the mid-nineteenth century was the advantage it enjoyed over Sangiovese when planted in systems that relied on trees for support. Sangiovese’s tendency to ripen late and give high yields make it difficult for tree-trained Sangiovese to ripen before fall rains. In 1885, an Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce report advised that “Canaiuolo nero comune” was better cultivated high, married to trees.3 Canaiolo’s popularity also coincided with the intensification of the mezzadria system, which relied on training vines up trees. However, the variety was at a disadvantage after the late nineteenth-century phylloxera infestation, since it is more problematic than others to graft on to rootstocks. Moreover, at least since the mid-nineteenth century, when Bettino Ricasoli and others devised the modern Chianti grape blend, there have been no convincing arguments that Canaiolo is better than Sangiovese for wine production. As for the other varieties that Villifranchi cited, in part because of the dominance of the Ricasoli Chianti formula, after the late 1800s, Mammolo was marginalized and Marzemino disappeared from Chianti. According to Attilio Scienza, a professor of agronomy at the University of Milan, Mammolo gave high yields grafted to Vitis rupestris–based rootstocks that were first employed as a solution to the phylloxera infestation. Mammolo wines, as a result, were low in perfume and oxidized easily. Scienza asserts that Marzemino was abandoned at the end of the nineteenth century because of its sensitivity to powdery mildew and its low and inconsistent productivity.
Chianti and its environs have been home to a great diversity of vine varieties. In his late eighteenth-century treatise, Villifranchi listed ninety-two.4 In 1815, Ignazio Malenotti, a priest at Montauto near San Gimignano, catalogued and described eighty-seven.5 This diversity diminished somewhat later in the nineteenth century when diseases such as powdery mildew (called oidium in Europe) and downy mildew (called peronospora in Europe) and infestations such as phylloxera devastated vineyards. The disintegration of the sharecropping system in Chianti and elsewhere in Tuscany from the 1950s to the 1970s also profoundly damaged varietal diversity.
It is difficult to know if the historical names used for vine varieties correspond to their modern names. Vine varieties move, proliferate, and change along the way, just as human populations migrate and change. Even if specific varieties remained stable over time, they may have been given different local names (with different spellings). For example, a casual reader might assume that Sangioveto, Sangiogheto, and San Zoveto were local names for the variety that today we call Sangiovese. However, what appears to be true might not be true. Hence, when considering what varieties were used in Chianti and in Tuscany in earlier epochs, we must always keep in mind that what seems to be a linguistic match may not be a genetic one, nor even an ampelographic one. The study of grape varieties through historical references necessitates contextual analysis, cross-referencing, and inference. Patterns of usage can reveal things not only about the history and character of the varieties mentioned but also about the personality and surrounding culture of their observers.
It is widely believed that Sangiovese, which dominates the modern-day Chianti Classico blend, was not selected and propagated as Chianti’s premier variety until the mid-nineteenth century. One question mystified us: why was it undervalued for so many centuries? We set out to find an answer.
Giovan Vettorio Soderini is unanimously cited as the first commentator to mention Sangiovese, or as he spelled it, sangioueto. His Trattato della coltivazione delle viti, e del frutto che se ne può cavare (Treatise on the cultivation of vines, and of fruit trees that can be harvested) was written in the 1590s and first published in Florence by Filippo Giunti in 1600.6 Soderini was from a prominent Florentine family. He had studied philosophy and law at the University of Bologna and, as punishment for a political plot against the Medicis, was exiled to Volterra, where he wrote his agricultural treatise. In addition to explaining that “sangioueto” is a generous producer of grapes and hence wine, Soderini issued this warning: “Guardati dal sangioueto, che chi crede farne vino ne fa aceto” (Beware of Sangioueto, for he who thinks to make wine with it will make vinegar).7
It was with great surprise that we found an author, Girolamo da Firenzuola, who mentioned Sangiovese even earlier. In 1552 he authored a seven-book agricultural treatise titled Sopra la agricultura.8 The first book covers viticulture; the second, vinification and maturation of wine. The remaining five discuss the cultivation of fruit trees and the principles of garden design. Though his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all served as high-level officials for the Medici rulers of Florence,9 Firenzuola was, in his own words, a man who had a “certain natural inclination” for grafting vines and fruit trees.10 He had inherited three properties in Galluzzo just north of San Casciano in Val di Pesa,11 but it is likely that he taught himself the “grande arte della Agricultura” (great art of agriculture)12 in his work as an administrator at the Vallombrosan abbey Badia di San Salvatore, in Vaiano north of Prato.13
Firenzuola wrote his treatise while serving a sentence in Florence’s Stinche prison (probably as a consequence of a dispute with the administrator of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence’s Duomo, or cathedral, regarding its lumber harvesting practices).14 He did not possess the writing skill of his brother, Agnolo, who was a well-known abbot and later author. His treatise was not a display of erudition but a practical handbook based on his personal experience planting and grafting vines and fruit trees—and making wine. Neither his manuscript nor his name publicly surfaced until 1803, when an abbot named Luigi Fiacchi (also known as Clasio) gave a lecture in Florence at the Georgofili Academy and another at the Academy of Science and Letters in Florence, called La Colombaria. In these lectures, he described an unedited work about agriculture from 1550 by a Girolamo di ser Bastiano Gatteschi da Firenzuola.15 He explained that it had been lost to history and, in contrast with the works of celebrated Tuscan authors such as Luigi Alamanni, Pier Vettori, Bernardo Davanzati, and Soderini, presented an entire system of agriculture, especially regarding the cultivation of olives and vines. According to Fiacchi, Firenzuola’s treatise was “sepolto ancora miseramente fra le tenebre di vergognosa dimenticanza” (still buried miserably in the shadows of shameful oblivion).16
We discovered what we believe to be Firenzuola’s original handwritten text from September 16, 1552, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF, or National Central Library of Florence). Its 157 numbered, double pages contain all seven books, the first two of which detail every aspect of planting vineyards, growing grapes, and making and aging wine. We also obtained a copy of what we assess to be an exact transcription, barring punctuation and spelling corrections, of this manuscript in a more legible handwritten version (though 117 double pages in length) from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML, or Laurentian Library) in Florence. The BML copy turned out to be our Rosetta stone for deciphering Firenzuola’s feverish and faded cursive script in the BNCF manuscript. His work was published in 1871 for the first and only time to date, in Siena. However, that volume contains only three books and is based on an abridged version of Firenzuola’s original manuscript in the Biblioteca Comunale di Siena (City library of Siena). This version veers away from the other two, streamlining ideas, omitting details, and even changing the order of chapters. It must be a condensation of the original manuscript by someone who, sadly, did not understand the seminal value of Firenzuola’s work or the practical art of agriculture.
Curiously, phrases in the 1871 text appear sometimes verbatim and always without attribution in the 1571 Discorso dell’agricoltura of Giovambatista Tedaldi, dedicated to Cosimo I de’ Medici; Toscana coltivazione delle viti e delli arbori of Bernardo Davanzati, written in 1579; and Soderini’s Trattato della coltivazione, probably penned in the 1590s before his death in 1596. Ideas and terminology in the BNCF and BML manuscripts, however, do not always reappear in this subsequent literature. For this reason, we believe that it must have been the abridged and corrupted version of Firenzuola’s treatise that was reportedly circulated in certain learned Florentine circles in the mid-to-late sixteenth century.17 The Florentine intelligentsia in search of literary fame borrowed heavily from it to compensate for a lack of hands-on agricultural experience. In the prefatory letter to his original Toscana coltivazione (not included in the version published in Florence by Giunti in 1622), Davanzati obliquely referred to an earlier, roughly written work that he “squeezed some of for its juice.”18
Firenzuola was the first known commentator to reference Sangiovese and among the earliest Tuscans to cite Mammolo and “canaiuola” (Michelangelo Tanàglia mentioned “canaviolo” in the 1490s in his poem De agricultura). He noted that sweet vermiglio was based on Canaiolo, with lesser amounts of Mammolo and Raffaone.19 Raffaone is an old Tuscan variety that is no longer planted for commercial wine production. Chapter 6 of book 2 of his treatise provides a method to “fare un vino prezioso” (make a precious wine). To do so, Firenzuola singled out Sangiovese and Sangiovese alone: “Above all, cherishing the variety Sangioveto for this choice.” The spelling used for Sangiovese in the BNCF manuscript is śgioveto. The spelling in the BML manuscript is Sangioveto. In the BML manuscript, Firenzuola first discusses sourcing for a vino prezioso: “One must take grapes from a vineyard of old vines growing in mountainous and rocky locations such as Lucolena, Montescalari, Radda, Panzano, Lamole, Civitella and similar.” What is remarkable is that these six towns are in Chianti or close to the Monti del Chianti. Hence, in Firenzuola’s day, Sangiovese, not Canaiolo, was the premier grape variety of Chianti, the only region he singled out for making a precious wine. Several sentences later on the same page, he identifies Sangiovese’s characteristics: “Notwithstanding that it makes richly colored and great wine in ample quantity, its proverb says that, instead of wine, Sangioveto makes good vinegar. The wine is not lacking in great flavor. It is a vine variety ideal for attaining success in business. Because it is fruitful, it is useful in large blends.”20 The abridged text published in 1871 (and presumably the manuscript on which it was based) omits mention of Radda, Lamole, or Civitella in this passage. Though it cites Sangioveto, it contains little praise for the variety in comparison with the BNCF and BML manuscripts. It incorrectly transforms the old “proverb” referred to in Firenzuola’s original manuscript into an unqualified warning about Sangiovese: “Avverti da sangioveto, chè chi crede far vino fa aceto” (Beware of Sangioveto, for he who thinks to make wine will make vinegar).21
Hmm? Something precious got lost in translation. Sangiovese is not, in fact, a variety that is prone to making wines that turn to vinegar. Amazingly, Soderini issued the same warning in the late sixteenth century.
In 1726, Cosimo Trinci of Pistoia published a seminal manual L’agricoltore sperimentato (The experienced farmer), which was so esteemed that it went through multiple reprintings. In the 1738 edition, “S. Zoveto,” as he called Sangiovese, “[f]a il vino senza odore; molto colorito, grosso, e spiritoso; ma portandoli nella estate, piglia facilmente d’aceto, o come altri dicono, di fuoco” (makes a wine without aroma; very colored, fat, and alcoholic; but during the summer, it turns easily to vinegar, or as others say, to fire).22 In Renaissance Italian, saying that a wine took on di fuoco most likely meant that it emitted the strong, acrid, nail polish–like smell of ethyl acetate. This chemical compound is associated with the presence of acetic acid, the principal volatile acidic compound in wine. Could two independent agronomic experts, Soderini and Trinci, have arrived at the same conclusion?
Almost fifty years later, Villifranchi wrote that Sangiovese makes wine with deep color, without smell, and with body, force, and high alcohol, but one that “facilmente in Estate prende come dicono volgarmente il fuoco, o sia l’acetoso” (easily in summer, as they say vulgarly, becomes fiery or vinegary).23 His book Oenologia toscana, published in 1773, was considered so authoritative that it won a prize offered by the Georgofili Academy. Ever since this book was written, it has been seen as the bible of late eighteenth-century Tuscan viticulture, enology, and wine commerce. Apparently Villifranchi too had the same bad “experience” with Sangiovese.
Giuseppe Acerbi, in the classic Italian tradition of the adventurer, translator, and politician (but neither farmer nor scientist) turned agronomist, wrote a compendium of information about Tuscan grape varieties that was published in 1825. He said of Sangiovese, “Fa il vino molto colorito e spiritoso, ma senza odore, e facilmente in estate prende, come dicono volgarmente, il fuoco, o sia l’acetoso” (It makes a very colorful and alcoholic wine, but without smell, and easily takes on in summer, as they vulgarly say, fire, or vinegary smells).24
It was not until the mid-1850s that Sangiovese’s reputation for producing flawed wine seemed to fade away. Surprisingly, it resurfaced a century later, in 1957. In a speech at the conference on the future of Chianti as an agricultural zone that was held at the Georgofili, Giovanni Dalmasso, the enological consultant to the conference and the most highly respected Italian wine scientist of his day, criticized Chianti’s winegrowers for using Sangiovese as the dominant variety in their wines, citing both Trinci’s and Villifranchi’s texts as evidence that it made wines that were too harsh and acidic.25 Unfortunately for Tuscany, a bad reputation, even ill founded, dies hard.
How the proverb quoted in Firenzuola’s original manuscript came about will likely remain a mystery. Its creator may have noticed that a vat or barrel of Sangiovese must or wine smelled of vinegar. This might have been caused by an attack of acetic acid bacteria before or during a stoppage in fermentation. A contaminated barrel could also have caused this smell. Firenzuola, though, was relating his own experience of successfully vinifying Sangiovese from the high hills of Chianti. Mentioning the proverb in his treatise was likely his way of dispelling a long-held rural myth. Unfortunately for Chianti, it may have been one flawed transcription of Firenzuola’s manuscript and repetition by Tuscany’s erudite (but hands-off) agronomists that sidelined Sangiovese for three centuries! (Why Firenzuola, the earliest champion of Sangiovese as Tuscany’s noble variety and of the Sangiovese-predominant wine hailing from Chianti, has been sidelined for 464 years is another story.)
One of the challenges in unearthing Chianti’s past is that until the nineteenth century it was a hinterland. Commentators, usually members of the intelligentsia, wrote from surrounding cities and towns. Unfortunately, the majority of them never farmed a vineyard or personally made a wine. Particularly during the Renaissance, there was such faith in the agricultural treatises of the Greeks and Romans that these writers cited such classical texts as if they were relevant to the present-day agronomic circumstances. They uncritically collected and compiled information. Their works largely were not the fruit of personal observation and empiric analysis, let alone of scientific inquiry. Firenzuola’s Sopra la agricultura was the exception. In his 1803 lectures to the Georgofili and Colombaria academies, Fiacchi credited Firenzuola with embracing the “gran parte della scienza Agraria” (most of the agrarian sciences).26 It bears asking to what extent the agrarian sciences, especially viticulture and enology, would have advanced in Tuscany if Firenzuola’s original work had seen the light of day.
There were, fortunately, winegrowers outside the echo chamber in which Sangiovese was believed to produce vinegary wine. They were not members of the intelligentsia. They grew and vinified Sangiovese. Domenico Falchini, the fattore at the Medici Villa of Lappeggi south of Florence, at the beginning of the 1700s described a “sangioveto grosso” (which, he wrote, was also known as sanvicetro) as having a dense bunch similar to Canaiolo, with colored skin and a sweet pulp. However, only when planted in humid spots, does he allow for its use in high quality wines. Perhaps he was under the spell of the agronomic literature that undermined its use. On the other hand, he made several references to a “sangioeto,” which he qualified further in two instances, indicating pigmentation in the case of “sangioeto colorito” (colored sangioeto) and berry or bunch size as well as pigmentation in the instance of “sangioeto piccolo rossigno” (small and light-reddish sangioeto). Falchini described the latter as an early-ripening vine with a small, sparse bunch that animals eat before large quantities can be harvested.27 Though he preferred that “canaiola” be the dominant variety in quality wines to be aged, such as Chianti and Montepulciano, he advised that one “aggiungere un poca di uva di sangioeto” (add a little sangioeto) to Chianti wines to ensure that they would last into the summer after the harvest, particularly during the hot days.28 This addition of a sweeter grape would have increased the sugar content of the must, resulting in higher-alcohol wines that would therefore have been more stable and resistant to microbiological attack. Without this higher alcohol content, spoilage would likely occur during the summer months. Falchini’s description and use of sangioeto fit those of what some Chianti Classico winegrowers used to call Sangiovese piccolo but is today recognized as Sanforte, a distinct variety. Moreover, Villifranchi’s comment that Sanforte makes a powerful wine that becomes excellent with age and is suitable to export also supports the equation of sangioeto with Sanforte.29
Giuseppe del Moro, a fattore in Colle Val d’Elsa, listed Sangiovese first among his preferred Chianti varieties ca. 1760: “Per il Chianti dove vi si fanno vini navicabili e potenti vi sono più qualità d’uva cioè Sangiveto nero, Canaiolo nero, Marzamino nero, Raffaione nero, Tribbiano bianco e queste sono le qualità d’uve per fare il Vino navicabile, ma la maggior parte d’uve pigliano S. Giveto, e Canaiolo, del Tribbiano” (For Chianti, where they make shippable and powerful wines, you need the higher-quality grape varieties, that is Sangiveto nero, Canaiolo nero, Marzamino nero, Raffaione nero, Tribbiano bianco, and these are the grapes of quality for making shippable wines, but S. Giveto, Canaiolo, and Tribbiano should make up the principal part of the blend).30
Thirty years later, in 1790, Francesco Bernardino Cappelli at Fattoria Montagliari, an estate in Panzano, made a 100 percent Sangiovese wine. The estate looks northeast across the Greve River up to the high-elevation vineyards of Lamole. The grapes for the wine were dried indoors for fifteen days and then fermented. The wine was kept in large barrels until San Lorenzo’s day, August 10, when it was transferred to smaller, two-hundred-liter (fifty-three-gallon) barrels. Hence the Cappelli family named the wine Brunesco di San Lorenzo. It matured in the small barrels for another four to eight months. The Cappellis ceased production of the wine in 1917 when phylloxera destroyed the vineyard. In 1980, Minuccio Cappelli revived production using the same recipe, which had been discovered among family documents.31
It took an outsider, as it often does, to openly assail the status quo, in this case the primacy of Canaiolo as the base of quality Chianti wine and the bad reputation of Sangiovese. In August 1833, Giorgio Perrin, the Swiss owner of the Petrolo estate (in Valdarno di Sopra just outside the southeastern border of Chianti), gave a presentation to the Georgofili Academy in which he identified “san Gioveto” as the best variety in his vineyards. He made experimental vinifications of varietal wines to test his hypotheses. Refining his choice further, he identified three biotypes of Sangiovese: “Calabrese,” “san Gioveto grosso,” and “san Gioveto piccolo.”32
Perrin’s reference to Calabrese as a member of the Sangiovese family is interesting, because genetic studies, the first published in 2004,33 have shown that Calabrese di Montenuovo, a variety previously native to Calabria (although now, according to Attilio Scienza, there are only two extant vines, one in Campania and the other at the University of California, Davis), is the parent of Sangiovese, along with Ciliegiolo, which is widely planted, particularly along the Tuscan coast. No one knows what Perrin was referring to as Calabrese. Baron Antonio Mendola, the legendary Sicilian ampelographer, read his 1834 account and assumed that Perrin meant the Calabrese native to Sicily, a variety that is commonly referred to as Nero d’Avola today and is distinct from Calabrese di Montenuovo. To Mendola’s knowledge, Perrin was the first person to refer to “Calabrese” in Tuscany. He did not have any cuttings from Perrin in his collection in Favara in Sicily, so he could not ascertain whether this was the same Calabrese that was present in Sicily.34 In 1839, affirming Perrin’s association, Giorgio Gallesio listed Calabrese di Montepulciano as a synonym for Sangiovese.35 In a report on its research from September 1875 to October 1876, the Ampelographic Commission of Siena identified “Sangioveto” and “Canaiolo,” then “Marrugà” and “Calabrese” as the most important grapes used to produce Chianti.36 The viticultural researcher Roberto Bandinelli, however, asserts that the Calabrese that exists now in Tuscany is neither Calabrese di Montenuovo nor a biotype of Sangiovese. Sangiovese is never short of mystery.
As a red grape, Sangiovese finally gained wide Tuscan recognition with Bettino Ricasoli’s recipe for Chianti wine in the mid-nineteenth century. The young Ricasoli who became a member of the Georgofili in 1834 was probably aware of Perrin and his research, and he later conducted viticultural and enological experiments to improve Castello di Brolio wine. The first indication of what he believed was the best varietal mix for his wine comes from Regolamento agrario (Rulebook for farming), which he drew up and had printed in 1843. It was the result of four years of his experience at Brolio.37 It was read out loud to all of the contadini (peasant farmers) living and working on Ricasoli’s properties at Brolio, Cacchiano, and Torricella in Gaiole. In the section titled “Crops and Their Maintenance,” the book instructed the contadini to plant “few varieties of grapes,” the best of which were “il Sangioveto, il Canaiolo bianco e nero, la Malvagia, il Mammolo, il Trebbiano.”38 Sangiovese was first in Ricasoli’s rulebook.
Beginning in 1851, he chronicled his observations and ideas in a series of diaries titled Storia della cantina di Brolio (History of the Brolio winery). In a letter dated October 10, 1871, he identified Sangioveto (Sangiovese) as being the predominant variety in his Brolio wines, stating that it would contribute at least 80 percent to his blend.39 On September 26, 1872, he explained his wine’s blend in a letter to his enological consultant, Professor Cesare Studiati of the University of Pisa. By then he had decided to base Chianti on a blend of solely Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia: “I confirmed the results of the first few experiments, in which Sangiovese gives the main dose of perfume (which I particularly like) and a certain vigorous sensation, Canaiolo gives softness, which tempers the hardness of the Sangiovese without taking away its perfume, and Malvasia, which one could omit in wines intended for aging, tends to dilute the blend of the first two grape varieties, enhances the flavor, and makes it lighter and more readily usable at the daily dinner table.”40
Ricasoli, by virtue of his dedication and prominence, firmly established Sangiovese as Chianti’s star, but it was one in a cast of three, sharing the stage with Canaiolo and Malvasia. Experts of Ricasoli’s day reinforced the idea that a blend of grapes was better than Sangiovese alone for Chianti, though they believed that it should be limited to about three varieties. Egidio Pollacci, the famous enologist and teacher, asserted that a blend of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia would make a better wine than Sangiovese or Canaiolo alone.41
One wonders, however, what could have happened if Ricasoli and his descendants had instead focused on Sangiovese alone, doing the same kind of scientific selection and propagation of biotypes that occurred more than a hundred years later in the Chianti Classico 2000 project (see “Sangiovese Purebreds” below) and afterward at Brolio under the leadership of Francesco Ricasoli. Perhaps Luigi Ricasoli was reflecting on the Iron Baron’s decision to make a blend rather than a 100 percent Sangiovese wine when, in 1930, sampling the 1891 and 1888 Biondi-Santi Brunellos, he lamented to Ferruccio Biondi Santi with a sigh, “Ecco, a questo io non ci arrivo!” (Here is what I am not arriving at!)42 While Bettino Ricasoli was refining his Chianti formula in the 1870s, Biondi Santi was continuing the selection and propagation of Sangiovese biotypes selected and propagated by his grandfather Clemente Santi. In an interview in 1998, Franco Biondi Santi asserted that in the 1870s, Ferruccio identified and separated out a special biotype or small family of biotypes called Brunello di Montalcino, which became the basis of the Sangiovese varietal wine of that name. It was a “super” Sangiovese varietal wine. Biondi Santi’s work was a precursor to the intensive selection process that characterized the work of the Chianti Classico 2000 project to identify and develop the best performing clones of Sangiovese.
Girolamo Molon described the differences between the Sangiovese grosso (big) or dolce (sweet) and the Sangiovese piccolo (small) families in his book on ampelography published in 1906: “Two are the types of Sangioveto, which have been long cultivated in Italy: the grosso, also called Sangioveto dolce; and the piccolo, called Sangioveto forte [strong]. The first . . . is without doubt the more important and the more widespread; it differs essentially from the other in having berries that are larger and looser in the bunch, and that produce much more [juice per bunch].”43 Until the 1990s, it was widely believed that there were two families or classes of Sangiovese, the grosso being associated with the Sangioveto of Chianti, the Brunello of Montalcino, and the Prugnolo Gentile of Montepulciano, and the piccolo being a small-berried family whose members were not clearly defined. However, during the 1990s, the scientific community determined that distinct grosso and piccolo families did not exist. The conclusion was that they are all part of one vine variety, Sangiovese. Because biotypes of Sangiovese selected in the field change their morphology when grown in different conditions, consistent familial strains could not be deduced. Even clones of the same biotype planted in two vineyard sites can grow and look different from each other. In the words of Giovanni Mattii, an associate professor of viticulture at the University of Florence, “Sangiovese is phenotypically unstable.” It is a chameleon of a vine variety.
The Lamole area is the legendary source of the biotypes of Sangiovese used in Chianti. It offers an added twist to Sangiovese’s genealogy. Paolo Socci, a grower-historian at Lamole, reports that until fifty years ago, growers there divided what they called Sangioveto into three families, grosso, piccolo, and forte. While the distinction between grosso and piccolo is not valid from a genetic standpoint, researchers have recognized and understood what the Lamolese called Sangioveto forte. Roberto Bandinelli was one of those who investigated this grape and determined that it was distinct from Sangiovese. In Italy’s National Registry of Grape Varieties, it was given the name Sanforte to distinguish it from Sangiovese.
Genetically, Sanforte and Sangiovese are not closely related. Neither are their morphologies. Sanforte’s harvests are substantially earlier than Sangiovese’s, and the musts derived from its grapes are higher in sugar.44 The name forte probably refers to the final alcohol content of the wine, which usually reaches 15 percent by volume. Though Villifranchi is given credit for the first mention of this variety in his Oenologia toscana, published in 1773, Falchini some sixty years earlier described “sangioeto piccolo rossigno” as distinct from “sangioveto grosso”: it ripened earlier, and its grapes were so sweet that farmers fenced them in to protect them from marauding animals. This is similar to the modern description of Sanforte. In addition, Falchini said that sangioeto piccolo rossigno vines should be planted at higher altitudes, in unfertile and dry soils.45 This fits Lamole and Sanforte’s other synonym, Sangioveto montanino (little mountain Sangioveto). Contemporaneously with Falchini’s mention of sangioeto, Bartolomeo Bimbi (the still-life artist who worked in the court of Cosimo III) painted a bunch of “Sangioeto” in his Uve, dated 1700. Bimbi made portraits of the plants grown in the Medici fattorie, such as the one at Villa Lappeggi, where Falchini was the fattore.46 These are the two earliest instances of the spelling sangioeto. The next was in a dictionary of the natural sciences published in 1848.47 Though it is always difficult to make conclusions based on spelling variation, particularly when they are attached to ampelographic identifications, it appears that sangioeto was a relatively rare variety in Chianti. That too fits what we know about Sanforte today.
Socci, forever the Lamole champion, has a hunch about how the Biondi Santi family of Montalcino selected its Brunello strain. According to Socci family lore, his great-grandfather, Giovanni Socci, the cellar master at Castelvecchi in Radda, was friendly with Ferruccio Biondi Santi and corresponded with him. At that time, viticulture in Lamole was considered the most developed in Tuscany, while that in Montalcino was less developed. Socci winked when he suggested that Biondi Santi might have come to Lamole to take cuttings of what became known as Brunello di Montalcino. Was what became Brunello di Montalcino really a transplanted “Brunello di Lamole”?
During the 1970s, three clones of Sangiovese were propagated for use, R10, R24, and F9. R and F indicate their developers, respectively the Rauscedo nursery and the University of Florence. The Rauscedo nursery in Friuli selected the original budwood for R10 from Lamole. Known as Grosso Lamole, it is a high-yielding clone that was criticized in the 1990s for making pale and thin wine. R24, known as Medio Predappio, was selected and developed in the Romagnan hills to the northeast of Tuscany. It was and has remained popular for making fruity and moderately colored wine. The University of Florence selected the F9 clone (more precisely, SS-F9-A 5–48) from Tuscany. The precise origin of the selection is not known. It has large berries similar to R10 but makes wines with deeper color.
There is some mystery surrounding another high-performing Sangiovese biotype. In 1970, the viticulturist Remigio Bordini selected a biotype called T19 in Emilia-Romagna. It was studied as a presumptive Sangiovese clone in the Chianti Classico 2000 project of the 1990s, along with other registered clones. In a 1998 blind tasting of microvinifications of Sangiovese clones (F9-A 5–48, R10, R24, and T19) conducted by the Chianti Classico consortium, although the R24 clone wine had the most fruit, the T19 sample had the deepest color and “had floral aromas and had firm tannins, not unlike those of R24.”48 According to Jarkko Markus Di Peränen of the Candialle estate in Panzano, T19 matures later than all the other Sangiovese clones that he has used, ripening about ten days after their average date. The bunches are loose, hence more resistant to mold. He maintains that the grapes also have the deepest color, most sugar, most acidity, and lowest pH among them. To taste a T19 Sangiovese wine, try Candialle’s Pli. That insiders know T19, alias RL Bosche, as a “best of breed” clone may be one of Sangiovese’s best-kept modern-day secrets. Because T19 has one or more viruses—two, according to Peränen—it has not been registered as a clone. Italian regulations do not permit the presence of viruses in registered clones. But though some viruses are deleterious to vine health, others have little if any impact. The Consorzio Vini Tipici di San Marino lists a Sangiovese clone named RL Bosche.49 The consulting enologist Vittorio Fiore reports that it is the same genetic material as T19. T19, then, must have been renamed and become a registered clone.
During the 1990s, the Chianti Classico 2000 project developed seven Sangiovese clones for use, CCL 2000/1 through CCL 2000/7. These were particularly popular when they were released, beginning in the early 2000s. Many other new clones were released from nurseries at that time. They were loosely called “the second-generation Sangiovese clones,” the first generation having been characterized by F9, R10, R24, and T19.
Since then, a new round of clones has been released. The names most often mentioned as the sources of this wave are Rauscedo and the French nursery Pépinières Guillaume. Since 1988, Pierre-Marie Guillaume has taken a particular interest in Tuscany, traveling there often to look for Sangiovese biotypes to propagate, study, and register as clones. His nursery has available at least twelve clones that he has selected from throughout Italy. Over the years he has worked closely with Paolo De Marchi of Isole e Olena.
However, there now is a trend against clones and toward mass selection, the choice and propagation of cuttings from one’s own or nearby vineyards. Giulio Gambelli, Chianti’s renowned master taster, was not a believer in using registered clonal selections sold by nurseries. The consulting enologist Fred Staderini is blunter: “We have been prisoners of clones. To get financing for your loans, you are required to buy and plant virus-free clones. There is a [counter]trend toward mass selection.” Many winegrowers reason that they can rely on the performance of what they propagate because they have witnessed the behavior of what they select. Among the characteristics that have been valued most for biotype selection are early ripening, loose bunches, small bunches, thick skins, small berries, growth that balances fruit and vegetation, and disease resistance. An argument can be made that selecting local clones helps to preserve the identity of an area. However, to search for the true Chianti, growers must select parent vines that predate the FEOGA years of the 1960s and 1970s and, even better, the 1930s, when phylloxera necessitated the extirpation of prephylloxera vines and the grafting of selected budwood on to resistant rootstocks.
Michael Schmelzer, a Panzano vignaiolo whose ideas often challenge the status quo, reports that he prefers the two classic Sangiovese clones F9 and R24 to the new generation of superclones. He does not want to make dark, astringent, and alcoholic wines, which have driven the selection process of the superclones. In general, he uses first-generation clones supplied by nurseries instead of a mass selection of budwood so that he can methodically compare and track the performance of his plantings in the field and in the glass. Stefano Porcinai, one of the architects of the Chianti Classico 2000 project, warns against too much reliance on the expected performance of clones. The management of a vine’s growth, he says, is much more important than its clonal selection.
One criterion in the selection of the second and third generations of Sangiovese clones needs reexamination. With global warming, Sangiovese is ripening several weeks earlier than it did twenty-five years ago. The emphasis should now be on the development of late-ripening clones. The resulting greater day-to-night temperature variation and generally cooler conditions at harvest would ensure slower development of sugar in the pulp, so that the maturation of skin and seeds could keep pace. Cooler temperatures also translate to lower pHs and higher acidities at picking and more-controlled onsets of fermentation. One great vintage that is memorable for its late harvest date is the 1995, which extended from the third week of September to the second week of October. The wines have the combination of high acidity and structure that will enable them to age for decades.
Moving Sangiovese to higher altitudes is a long-term solution to the global warming issue. During the 1990s, Gambelli, who knew Sangiovese wines better than anyone else in Chianti, recommended elevations of 300 to 350 meters (984 to 1,148 feet) above sea level. Those now need upward revisions of one hundred meters (328 feet). Traditionally, the best exposures were considered to be south to southwest. Gambelli preferred southwest, because he feared that the coincidence of morning heat and moisture rising from the ground would create ideal conditions for downy mildew. In most cases in France, growers prefer southeast-to-east exposures. Now with climate change, Italian growers are considering such exposures for Sangiovese. Northern exposures are the best in extremely hot vintages.
Sangiovese is a difficult variety to grow. Sometimes it needs help. It buds early, making it frost prone, particularly in March and April. If frost occurs, then buds are destroyed and yields drop precipitously. Paolo De Marchi remembers that the spring frost of 2001 destroyed about 40 to 45 percent of the Chianti Classico crop. Yet the production of 2001 Chianti Classico wine, 263,000 hectoliters (6.9 million gallons), was only 10 percent less than that of the previous year, 291,000 hectoliters (7.7 million gallons).50 Other varieties, some not legal, from outside Chianti Classico came to the “rescue” of the wine industry. Sangiovese suffers when the soil is too wet. Plant Merlot there instead—it does well in moist and rich soil. When it rains and rains, as it did in 2002, Sangiovese grapes swell up rapidly and can burst. Cabernet Sauvignon’s thick skins and small berries resist these conditions. In 2012, after a hot, dry summer, it rained before the harvest, causing dilution and botrytis problems. Sangiovese’s relatively thin skins make it prone to botrytis. Call in the Cabernet Sauvignon! Sangiovese flags when the temperature is high. Ciliegiolo does much better in such conditions. There is a lot of it planted in Chianti Classico. It blends right in because only an expert can tell a Ciliegiolo vine from a Sangiovese one. The pH of Sangiovese grapes can go rather high in hot conditions, but the resulting wine’s total acidity is less affected. Sangiovese wines rarely lose their sour zip. The coincidence of high temperatures and drought can make the vines comatose and the grapes dry up without ripening. Since the mercilessly dry and hot vintage of 2003, the regulations restricting the use of irrigation have been relaxed. The coincidence of high temperatures and sunlight can burn the thin skins of Sangiovese. This happened in the vintage of 2011. Canopy management, such as leaving the leaves on the vines’ western side, can provide a natural sun block. Clay soils result in dark, heavy, tannic wines; sandy-silty soils, in pale, light, aromatic ones. Sand and clay are the two extremes for Sangiovese, but together in a blend grapes grown on them work well. Gambelli’s ideal soil for Sangiovese was galestro based. Coming from vines grown on galestro, wines naturally have high perfume and longevity. Even in years with rain, galestro-based soil stays dry. Because alberese absorbs and conserves water, in very dry years it is the best soil base. These same stones, once they have drunk their fill, provide drainage in wet years. Galestro, however, can store some water between its foliations. Sangiovese rarely suffers mold problems when planted on galestro-based soil. That being said, with modern viticultural techniques, fine Sangiovese wine can be made from vines grown on a wide range of soils. Looking at the quality issue from another perspective, a fine, delicate Sangiovese that comes from sandy soil has to be assessed on its own terms, just as a dark, structured one from clay must be.
Vinifying Sangiovese has its challenges as well. It does not respond as well as Pinot Noir to prefermentation maceration. Color development is very slow at the beginning of fermentation, when the must is aqueous. Much of the color comes later, when the alcohol, now at higher levels, acts as a solvent. If Sangiovese skins are perfectly mature, long macerations of more than a month can yield excellent results. Wine aroma becomes more complex; astringency, better integrated and more softly textured.
Sangiovese wine does not blend well with varietal wines with strong personalities. The smell of Cabernet overwhelms it. Merlot seamlessly blends in. New oak smells in the nose also easily cover Sangiovese wine, particularly when it matures in barriques (225-liter, or 59-gallon, capacity). At the same time, if the new oak is carefully selected, its extracts can fill Sangiovese’s relatively vacuous middle palate with texture. Vacuous middle palates, however, in the presence of expressive aromas and long, fine, sour, astringent finishes characterize Barolo and Barbaresco, if not the best traditional-style Sangiovese wines. Such is the case for those that mature for a year or more in well-maintained large barrels. The middle road, tonneaux of five hundred liters (132 gallons), is the one most taken now. More than thirty months in a barrel of any type is pushing Sangiovese’s ability to resist oxidation. If it needs more maturation, leaving it in bottle is a safer solution.
Given the evolved technologies in the vineyard and the winery, it is possible to make a 100 percent Sangiovese wine almost every year in Chianti Classico. Unfortunately, “almost” is not a strong enough standard to convince many producers to lobby to make 100 percent Sangiovese Gran Selezione the law of Chianti Classico’s land. Producers are under pressure to deliver a fine and consistent product every year, despite varying harvest conditions. The regulations concerning the Chianti Classico blend allow up to 20 percent of other varieties, enough to offset problems associated with harvest conditions. Regardless of changes in some sophisticated markets, an important selling point to novice consumers is depth of wine color, the deeper the better. Among the allowed “other varieties,” some deepen the color of the final blend. Others perform other functions, such as adding alcohol, acidity, tannin, or flavor nuances. If 100 percent Sangiovese should ever become the rule for Gran Selezione or other Chianti Classico legal categories, producers will lose the varietal blending option.
Since the scandal that uncovered that Brunello di Montalcino wines were not all 100 percent Sangiovese as required by law, the technology with which consortia and legal authorities determine whether a wine has met its required standard of Sangiovese purity has come into wider use. It analyzes a wine’s amount of various monomeric anthocyanins, coloring pigments in the skins of grapes. In deeply colored grape varieties, such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, 20 to 40 percent of the anthocyanins are attached to chemical groups called acyls. The percentage of acylated anthocyanins in the skins of pale varieties such as Sangiovese and Pinot Noir is lower. At most 3 percent of the anthocyanins in Sangiovese grapes are acylated.51 After vinification, this decreases to 2 percent or less. Technology can now detect if more than 2 percent of anthocyanins in a wine are acylated. This means that Sangiovese wines with a small addition of highly pigmented varieties can be identified. We can now have more assurance that a 100 percent Sangiovese varietal criterion will not be sacrificed because of market or other pressures.
Sangiovese and terroir should shine in at least one category of Chianti Classico. Requiring one or more categories of Chianti Classico to be 100 percent Sangiovese would result in fewer color and flavor adjustments during blending. We say “fewer” because producers can still blend in different lots of Sangiovese, such as wines matured in different container types, press wine, and up to 15 percent from another vintage. Sangiovese is very sensitive to its growing conditions, whose clarity of expression the use of other varieties blurs. A voluntary reduction in the use of new oak barrels would also encourage Sangiovese and terroir to shine. Geographical identification would have more meaning if it were intrinsic to wine flavor rather than being simply an address. The character and quality of the wine would then be more the result of skill in viticulture and care throughout vinification and maturation. Though long obscured by a narrative that marginalized it as inferior, Sangiovese can now express the terroir of Chianti more purely than in the four plus centuries since Girolamo da Firenzuola first championed the precious Sangiovese wine of Chianti.