Chianti is a Tuscan red wine of worldwide renown. Its main production zone, Chianti Classico, lies between Florence and Siena.
It is made with the varieties Sangiovese (80%), Canaiolo (10%), Colorino (5%) and Trebbiano (5%), as laid down in the first regulations for Chianti. The white Trebbiano grape has been forbidden since the 2006 vintage and maximum red-grape yields have been reduced to improve the wine’s concentration.
The Chianti denomination appeared officially for the first time in 1398; in the fifteenth century it was the best-selling wine in the Florentine republic and by the seventeenth century it was already being exported successfully to England.
In 1924 the first consortium of winemakers in Italy was founded in Chianti. They decided to take as their symbol the black cockerel of the Military League of Chianti, which dates from the fourteenth century.