The Tuscan Table : The Changing Wines of Chianti

The hills of Tuscany are a dusty-green crazy quilt of vineyards, all arced and canted toward one another in the oddest patterns you can imagine. The vineyards grow in wildly different directions, as if reflecting the many controversies that have sprung up here in the last two decades.

For Tuscany, this is a new age, an age in which the telephone and the fax have made information access in these remote hills, once an annual occurrence, into a daily routine. That is important in a rugged land where the hills are connected only by narrow two-lane roads, and the latest wine news is of interest to virtually everyone. Tuscany has some 130,000 vintners growing grapes on small plots of land; together they devote almost 200,000 acres to wine making and the related olive industry. (Compare this to California’s wine country: Napa and Sonoma combined have 65,000 acres of vines.)

There is an old Italian saying, “Where nothing will grow, plant grapes and olives.” The Tuscans did; in the rocky hills between Florence and Siena the unirrigated vines and trees sit in the searing summer sun, challenging nature to wilt them. For the last seven centuries, nothing has.

Though Tuscany includes Brunello, Montepulciano and many other smaller wine regions, it is Chianti Classico that has brought the most fame to the area. For hundreds of years, it was made pretty much the same way. The technique was codified in the mid-18th Century by Barone Bettino Ricasoli, who wrote that typical Chianti was made from two red grapes, Sangiovese and Canaiolo, and small percentages of the white grapes Trebbiano and Malvasia. This was only part of what Ricasoli wrote, but it wound up turning into Italian law.

The rest of Ricasoli’s original formula was ignored by the government--but it turned out to be critical for wine as it developed in the 20th Century. Ricasoli noted that the four-grape formula was fine for wine one wanted to consume young, but for a wine made to live longer, the white grapes were not necessary.

As wine lovers began to call for wines that live longer, wines that age in the bottle, wine makers began to see that white grapes rob red wine of its potential to age. About 20 years ago--with the advent of colder fermentation, the use of stainless-steel (instead of concrete) fermenting tanks and a better understanding of the entire fermentation process--it became clear that the law was inadequate. Thus began a debate.

Traditional wine makers liked the mandate to use white grapes because it made a more approachable wine. So did growers, who had a lot of white grapes planted and would have no one to buy them if the law changed. But young, energetic wine makers who wanted to compete with the French (America and Australia were still a way off from making great wine in the world’s eyes) wanted to dispense with all white grapes. Some even said Canaiolo was a waste of time.

Moreover, some wine makers wanted to change the law that mandated Chianti be aged a specific amount of time in the barrel. They felt that leaving wine in a barrel just because the law required it, was silly. “Wine is made by taste, not laws,” said one angry wine maker.

Soon after, untraditional grapes were added to the blend. The result was the so-called Super Tuscans--wines blended from local grapes and Cabernet Sauvignon and aged in small oak barrels. The wines first gained fame when Piero Antinori began to export Tignanello and later Sassicaia and Solaia into the United States, and they showed that Cabernet could make a truly great wine in Italy when handled in a certain way.

It was those very wines, however, that created such ferment among wine makers here. Now even Antinori himself wants to make certain his aim is not misunderstood. He likes what Cabernet can do for the traditional Sangiovese grapes, but he’s worried that too wide a use of Cabernet in Chianti will make a wine that is no longer really Chianti. He’s worried, for instance, that some wine makers are pushing for rule changes that will permit wider and wider use of Cabernet in what is legally termed Chianti, robbing the Sangiovese of its native soul.

“The laws were made to protect Chianti,” said Roberto Stucchi Prinetti, manager of his family’s property at Badia a Coltibuono. “But the law also now permits Cabernet to be used (up to 10% of the blend), which is not a typical grape.

Badia a Coltibuono is one of the houses here that likes Cabernet as an addition to some of its wines, but its top-of-the-line Sangioveto, which is an amazingly rich, potent and deeply complex wine, has no Cabernet.

However, Badia’s 1985 Sangioveto (about $22) is different from traditional Chianti in one respect: Its nuances come from aging in new French oak barrels. And it is the use of French oak casks, as opposed to aging in the traditional huge wooden vats, that adds another dimension to the controversy.

Some Chianti producers still feel aging in small oak is an abomination. They say it adds flavors unlike anything Chianti has ever seen before. But the success of wines such as the 1986 Castello di Fonterutoli “Ser Lapo” ($20) is obvious. It is a remarkable combination of Sangiovese flavors and oak elements that offers a glimpse of Old World wine making and New World technology.

“My point of view is that we should use (small) oak barrels, but very little,” said Lapo Mazzei, owner of Fonterutoli. “I don’t like to drink oak. I like to drink wine.”

Perhaps the prototype example of Chianti made in the old style but using the modern technology is at San Felice, one of the region’s largest producers of wine, housed in sparkling buildings in Berardenga, far to the south.

Wine maker Leonardo Bellaccini produces wine under a number of labels. One of the finest is his 1986 Il Grigio Chianti Classico Riserva ($9, a great buy), a lighter-styled wine reminiscent of what classic Chianti is all about. No new oak barrels here, but the flavors are of superb cherry fruit.

Sipping it, I commented on the richness of the wine, light though it was, and Bellaccini said it was made without the addition of any white grapes and no Canaiolo.

Even better was San Felice’s 1985 Poggio Rossi Chianti Classico Riserva ($13), another great value, a deeply complex and richer wine with marvelous finish.

But you don’t need new technology to make great Chianti, and no property speaks the language of the Old World better than Viticcio, the estate of the Landini family. It is a tiny property in Greve in Chianti, miles from San Felice to the north, and it is reached only over a gravel road.

The winery itself sits halfway under a half-completed shed and halfway out. When you walk to the tanks, the bricks wobble. Yet the wine is utterly sublime, spicier than many I tasted.

The top-of-the-line wine, 1986 Prunaio ($22), is a Super Tuscan blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet. It is bottled in a tall Bordeaux bottle with a crest, and the wine is magnificent: rich, deeply complex with a delicate roasted character.

As fame came for the wines, so did tourists. Following the tourists came the investors, and following them came laws to protect the existing ambience of this rugged land with its hills that twist and snake through canyons and up steep slopes.

You won’t see any high-rises here; Italy has laws to make sure the regional character of an area is retained, and Tuscany has among the most stringent building and architectural codes in the world. It usually takes three to five years to get permits to build a new structure, no matter how simple, and a new two-story building is a rarity. High rises here tend to be the castello s--ancient castles that were erected as fortifications against invaders during the conflicts between Florence and Siena.

One of the most picturesque is the Castello di Volpaia of Giovanella Stianti Mascheroni. Approaching it, one sees the bell towers of three 11th-Century churches. Inside the ancient stone wall, the buildings sit slumped against one another, the skinny passageways between them barely wide enough to fit an ox and cart but ample for the chickens, turkeys and dogs that run free.

The keys to the catacombs under the worn cobblestone street are ancient two-pounders that fit into huge locks that give off a loud thung as the tumblers turn.

Mascheroni steps out of the hot summer air down the stone stairs and into the cool cellar. There, in the dim light, you can make out stainless-steel tanks crammed into every nook of the place, acknowledging the union of old and new.

Situated 1,700 feet above sea level, this is the highest estate in the Classico region, and the wines reflect the mountainous soil: dark and rich with marvelous flavors. Volpaia’s 1987 Chianti Classico ($9) is a classic wine, deeply complex with loads of cherry and tar scents and an amazingly long finish for so light and structured a wine.

“French oak would kill this wine,” said Mascheroni. “All you will taste is the oak.”

A good measure of this region’s profit comes not from wine, but from olives; Volpaia’s highly acclaimed Extra Vergine Olive Oil sells for $40 a liter. Although Tuscany was hard hit in 1985 when a frost wiped out about 95% of the olive trees, replanting has been accomplished, and in the next year more and more supplies of top-quality olive oils will be available from Chianti.

Something else is new in Chianti too; this red wine country is starting to produce a handful of exceptional white wines. This is especially surprising when you consider that Italians drink very little white wine.

One of the best is 1989 Meriggio from Fontodi, a delightfully refreshing wine made from 70% Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon Blanc. The pear-and-spice character of the fruit is offset by a melony taste and delicate aftertaste that nonetheless lingers. At $12 it is excellent value.

Longing for a taste of Italian wine country? In the next few weeks, a number of exceptional dinners will be held showcasing the food and wine of Italy. They include:

A celebration of the Olive at Campanile on October 10, in honor of Countess Romana Bicocchi Pichi, owner of the estate Tenuta Numeruno, which produces extraordinary olive oil. The five-course dinner uses the Countess’ olive oil, Vin Santo--and her recipes. Price is $48 per person. Call 938-1447.

Special dinners at Rex Il Ristorante with chef Georges Cogny, proprietor of Locanda Cantoniera, a tiny restaurant in the mountains near Piacenza. Dates and price to be announced. Call 627-2300.

“A Taste of Italy,” special dinner menus at JW Marriott in Century City, October 12-November 11. Price varies with menu choice; call (213) 556-8225.

A dinner matching the Barolo wines of Pio Cesare with white truffles at Valentino on October 23. Price is $110 per person. Call (213) 370-3731.