“Divorce, Chianti-style”
The Chianti Classico Wine Consortium will be taking this important news to the “Chianti Classico Collection, the wine press and trade event to be held at the Stazione Leopoldo in Florence on February 16 and 17 that will be presenting previews of the 2009 and 2008 vintages and the 2007 reserves.“After 78 years a solution was finally found that effectively separates Chianti Classico from Chianti”, explains Giuseppe Liberatore, director of the Chianti Classico Consortium, “definitively cutting an umbilical cord between two distinct wines without getting into legal battles or making unilateral decisions but, instead, with a reciprocal awareness of their differences and originalities. A fact”, concludes the head of the Chianti Classico Consortium, “that can definitely be called historic”.A measure that formalizes – no ifs, ands or buts – exclusive recognition of the fact that wines coming from Chianti Classico territory are different from the other Chianti wines made in other parts of Tuscany. Yet the road to achieving this milestone was bumpy and very long. A first step was taken with the 1932 ministerial decree that identified seven distinct Chianti production zones; the wine made within the geographical boundaries of Chianti was recognized as having territoriality, origin and primogeniture long before the denomination system was introduced, granting the addition of the adjective “Classico” to the name “Chianti” in order to distinguish it from other wines. Taking force in 1967 was a decree that recognized a single Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC) for Chianti, within which the “Classico” was disciplined as a wine with particular characteristics (confirmed, of course, with the 1984 arrival of DOCG status). But it was only with the decisive ministerial decree of August 5, 1996 that Chianti Classico finally became an autonomous denomination, with zone and production regulations distinct from those of Chianti wine. Today this historic and definitive step towards Chianti Classico’s complete independence from the rest of Chianti will also be formalized by modification of Italian law 164/1992, the framework law for Italian wine. In the text about to be approved (article 6, clause 1) the new law fundamental for Italian wine adds the specification that in the Chianti Classico production territory “it is prohibited to plant or declare in grape-growing records vineyards for Chianti DOCG”. A specification that will also be cited in Chianti Classico production regulations, which will state that “in the production zone for Chianti Classico wine it is prohibited to plant and inscribe vineyards in the Chianti DOCG register or produce Chianti and Chianti Superiore wines”.