Regulations May Change Chianti’s Traditional Image

Chianti, once merely a wine that went well with checkered tablecloths, melting candles and little else, is growing up.

Piero Antinori, perhaps the most important wine producer in the history of Italy, tells the story. It’s not a story with a happy ending--yet--because the major changes in Chianti that are taking this potentially rewarding wine to greater heights have only just begun.

A recent column here about the development of top-quality Vino da Tavola in Tuscany (wines made mostly from Chianti’s primary grape, Sangiovese, but that do not conform with the law to qualify for the Chianti designation) led some readers to conclude that the best wines from Tuscany these days are not Chianti. That is an accurate conclusion, in part because more attention to detail is being paid to these Vino da

Tavola wines, which are made without the white grapes that are required under a Chianti law formalized more than 20 years ago. Also, grape varieties new to Italy, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, are being used to a greater degree than ever before, making the Vino da Tavola more like what Americans are used to.

But Antinori, who was visiting the Napa Valley last week, asserts that Chianti now is greater than it has been and soon will be greater still. If Italian wine producers are not careful, he points out, the new Vino da Tavola wines, despite their success, may affect Chianti’s long-term image as a fine-wine producing region.

Chianti is one of the world’s oldest classified wine regions. More than two and a half centuries ago, rules were established for the production of red wine in Tuscany. Yet no formal regulations for the region existed until the late 1960s, when the DOC laws (similar to France’s appellation of origin laws) were set up.

Thus, without rigid rules for centuries, the region developed a “system” of planting that Antinori calls promiscuous. Vines were planted side by side with wheat and corn, or in poor soils, or farmed with poor methods.

At the heart of this anarchistic development of Tuscan vines was a sharecropping system that had existed for centuries, but one that had begun to collapse before World War II and that continued to do so afterward.

Bruno Zaratin, export manager for Cantine Zonin, which represents the Castello di Albola Chianti, said the sharecropper system was a major drawback to the making of fine wine.

In an interview, Zaratin noted that many grape growers did so purely to make a living, with no eye toward making quality wine. And he said that three quarters of all wine called Chianti in the 1960s and early 1970s was awful, in part because the multitude of sharecroppers included only a few who grew grapes with any knowledge of what they were, how to grow them, where they should be planted, or how to maximize their quality.

“It was a fiasco,” said Zaratin, unintentionally creating a pun on the term that’s also used to describe the flask-shaped, straw-covered bottle in which most Chianti once was shipped.

In bitterly ironic terms, Zaratin called the sharecropping system one that “permitted the sharecropper to receive only 50% of all his production--exactly what his family needed to starve.”

The sharecropping system ended in 1960 but, Antinori noted, even that didn’t help matters immediately. All it did was begin phase two of the viticultural life of the region.

In the early 1960s, as land owners regained control of their land, huge blocks of acreage began to get replanted. More than 90% of all Tuscan vineyards were replanted between 1960 and 1970, said Antinori.

But when growers went to nurseries to get budwood for replanting, Antinori said, “They asked for large-producing clones.” The reasoning was based on profits, not quality wine. The land had produced only modest profits under the old system, so why not get huge crops and big profits under the new system? But huge crops usually produce poor wine. So phase two hadn’t yet boosted the quality of the Chianti.

Moreover, to satisfy the DOC law that any wine called Chianti had to contain at least 10% white grapes, many producers used not the shy-bearing Malvasia that at least adds some flavor interest, but switched instead to the high-bearing, lower-quality Trebbiano grape.

“The average quality of the wines was going down rapidly,” said Antinori. “They were starting to be thin, pale, short, light in color, high in acidity and low in tannin.”

In short, plonk.

In 1971, Antinori, seeing a DOC system that was collapsing, and seeing no new life in Chianti despite the DOC laws, developed a single-vineyard Chianti called Tignanello. It was expensive, but instead of being aged for many years in old wooden tanks, this wine was aged in new French oak barrels that lent a toasty element to the aroma.

Moreover, the aging was for a short time, a procedure that invested the wine with a fruity vitality, a zest rarely seen in Chianti. Even though this upstart, renegade wine won worldwide fame, some of Piero’s neighbors turned up their noses at his tactic. “French oak,” they said, disparagingly.

“Yes, but it was the wine that changed the face of Tuscany,” said Darrell Corti, a Sacramento wine merchant who was one of the first Americans to taste and then import Tignanello.

If that wasn’t enough of a left-field tactic, in 1975, the first Tignanello was made that was technically not Chianti since it contained--horrors--a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon, the Bordeaux grape.

Yet it was this wine (and one more Antinori development, three years later, a wine called Solaia) that gave impetus to the other producers--many of whom had pooh-poohed Piero earlier--to follow Antinori down the Vino da Tavola path, away from traditional Chianti.

It is this Vino da Tavola that is now gaining such attention, and yet the funny thing is that Antinori is a certified Tuscanophile, committed to the proposition that true Chianti wine and other formats for the Sangiovese grape are what will keep his beloved region unique in the world of wine.

“A big danger is that Italy is going too rapidly to produce Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, even Pinot Noir,” said Antinori with a shake of his head. “I am very concerned about this. I don’t want to see Italy producing copies of Burgundy or Bordeaux.

“What we should do is always try to improve our own wines, but to keep the character of Italian wines by using better clones and better viticultural techniques. And we should try to rediscover the old Italian varieties, such as Grechetto and Arneis.”

While saying this, Antinori poured a splash of his 1982 Tenuta Marchese Antinori, a superb Chianti Classico ($18) that has depth and richness, one that typifies true Chianti with its cherry and faint tar-and-smoke character.

Another Antinori Chianti of class and charm is the 1985 Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva ($8), a bargain for a wine with such deep fruit.

Zaratin’s 1986 Castello di Albola Chianti Classico ($7) is another wine that commands attention for its typical Italianate raspberry jam aroma and steely, tart finish. And the winery’s 1985 Riserva bottling, with a bit more depth, is $11.

All true Chianti wines since 1984 are made under a new law that now permits Chianti to contain as little as 5% white grapes. The law also permits Chianti Classico, from the heartland of Tuscany, to be as little as 2% white grapes.

Since the new law was imposed, a wave of replanting has gone on to put top-quality clones in the ground, leading to what Antinori calls the third phase of Chianti. And he says the Chianti we are now seeing, and soon will see, are better than the wines made in the past.

Despite Antinori’s commitment to Italian grape varieties, it’s important to note that the most impressive wines he has made in recent years are made with non-Italian varieties--though in all cases these wines contain some Italian grapes to lend a note of complexity as well as authenticity.

The best wine in the Antinori line, and the most expensive, is the 1985 Solaia ($50), a single-vineyard wine made from 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc and the remainder Sangiovese, aged in small French oak. There is an amazing amount of fruit and depth here without much overripeness, and the taste is lush and full. And the aftertaste is a fascinating combination of chocolate and the tar/raspberry showing evidence of Sangiovese.

“What I like,” said Antinori, referring to its Sangiovese parts, “is the fact that there is an element of Italy in this wine.” When this wine was entered in a major wine judging in Europe recently, it finished third against some mighty stiff competition, most of the wines in the event costing a lot more than Solaia.

Solaia is made only in exceptional vintages, and to date just three have been released. Little if any of the first one, from the 1979 vintage, made it to the United States; slightly more of the ’82 came here. The ’85 is nearly unobtainable.

What is available is the 1983 Tignanello, a steal at $25.

Tignanello may be called “Chianti in cutoffs.” Its main aroma typically is Italian, with hints of anise, tar, raspberry and tea. But the 10% of Cabernet used, along with small-barrel aging, gives the wine a dense, fleshy character that is rarely found in Italian wines.

It is impeccably made and actually less expensive than a lot of the Vino da Tavola now garnering the headlines.

His other nontraditional wines are equally exciting. In his 1986 Cervaro della Sala, Antinori uses 80% Chardonnay, barrel fermented and aged in new French oak, to produce a wine of huge buttery richness, with Grechetto adding a nutty quality. At $18, it is well-priced compared with other similarly styled Italian Chardonnays.

Also interesting and a good value is the 1988 Borro della Sala ($9), with a Sauvignon Blanc base and lovely melon and pear fruit components.

Antinori was in the Napa Valley in part to see his joint venture property, Atlas Peak Vineyards. While he was here, the major partner in the venture, Whitbread PLC of Great Britain, announced that it was selling its spirits division, including U.S.-based Buckingham-Wile Co. as well as the Atlas Peak joint venture with Antinori and the family that owns Bollinger Champagne of France.

Antinori said he was aware of Whitbread’s plans to pull out of the venture and said he knew little more than that. He said he was not aware of any potential buyers for the project yet.

Wine of the Week: 1987 Buehler Zinfandel ($8)--This Napa Valley winery has made a string of delightful Zinfandels over the years and this one is a superb example. The fruit is raspberry/blackberry and the flavors are up-front and fresh, with just a dash of pepper. It’s exciting when paired with pasta in marinara sauce or a steak. Aeration helps this youngster, so a rough, splashy decanting wouldn’t hurt.