Who hasn't drunk a glass of a good Chianti red wine at least once? It is almost impossible to resist to such a delight in Tuscany! This variety of wine is one of the famous enogastronomic specialities you can find in Central Italy and it is produced in a large territory between Florence and Siena.
Maybe someone who was drinking it also noticed that on the neck of the bottle there is the figure of a black rooster in the middle of a yellow and red circle. And, who knows? Maybe he also visited the magnificent Salone dei Cinquecento inside Palazzo Vecchio on the same day and heard guide pointing out a specific detail on the wonderful ceiling that represented a black rooster inside a shield.
But then...what does this mean and where does this symbol come from?
The abovementioned fresco shows the ”Allegory of Chianti”, which is the name of a beautiful territory guarded jealously by the Florentines. The representation on the shield is the coat of arms belonging to Lega del Chianti , which was an important alliance between the cities of this region dating back to 1384.
In fact, the emblem of the Black Rooster has a mythical nature. In the Middle Ages, the Republics of Florence and Siena incessantly fought against each other and the main clash concerned the definition of the border between the two States and the control of the territory that separated them. After decades of battles, the two parties decided to cease the hostilities leaving the fateful decision to...two roosters.
They established a date and agreed that the first rooster to wake up and start singing would make its knight depart from the city he represented to race towards the rival town. The spot where the two knights would meet would establish the new definitive borderline between the two States.
Chance assigned a black rooster to Florence and a white one to Siena. Seneses began to take care of their "champion" with good manners, feeding it abundantly. On the other hand, Florentines adopted a different strategy and put the animal inside a dark cage, leaving few food to make it hungry and desperate.
As the D-Day dawn began, the black rooster exited the cage rapidly and started to sing loudly. His signal came to the Florentine knight, who began his horse race galloping for kilometers. Instead, the white cock did not want to leave the place where it had received all kinds of attentions and did not wake up before the sun had got up in the sky. When it sang, the Senese knight left his town but he couldn't fill the gap of time between him and his enemy. He ran for a bit more than 12 kilometers and met the other knight in a locality called Fonterutoli: the Florentine had arrived there after running for more than 100 kilometers! Here's the reason why the region of Chianti almost completely passed under Florence's control, a few years before even the city of Siena was conquered by the rival.
Since then, the grapes growing in this region would produce a type of wine called “Chianti”.
In 1716,the Grand Duke of Tuscany set the borders of the region of production instituting one of the first examples of "Denominazione di Origine Controllata"or DOC (registered designations of origin). In 1932, the “Consorzio Gallo Nero” was founded, but it changed its name to “Consorzio Chianti Classico” in 1992 because of the verdict of an American Court, which assigned the exclusive use of the name "Gallo" to identify a wine to the Californian Ernst Gallo Winery society.
So, here's the history hidden behind what is considered the best wine of the world!
Wouldn't you like to taste its unique flavor in one of the most charming locations ever? Then choose one of our Wine Tours in Tuscany or book a memorable holiday in Chianti with us!
© Alice Pilastri
