The End Of A Fiasco

Way back in the day (at least six pants sizes ago), when I was a well-known Casanova, my date du jour and I would often flee our hum-drum lives in Westchester County, N.Y., for the spicy meatballs of New York’s Little Italy. I favored a little joint with bench seats (the name of which I have long forgotten), just a few doors down from the more touristy Umberto’s.

The Italian food in Westchester and the northern Bronx is frankly a whole lot better, but you can’t beat Little Italy for a fun, group-singing kind of time. To lubricate our vocal chords, we’d drink wine out of glasses that resembled jelly jars. They were great wines, but in an it-doesn’t-really-matter-what-the-wine-tastes-like kind of way.

These wines came with straw baskets attached to the bottom of the bottle and the word “chianti” written on the label. Little did I know that while I was charming those lucky ladies in the mid-1980s, Chianti and the surrounding region of Tuscany were undergoing a great transformation. The beginning of the end of the fiasco (straw-bottomed) bottle was upon us.

“I’d say the turning point for these wines came in 1990,” said Guido Piccinni. Piccinni, a native Italian and director of restaurants for The Mansion on Peachtree, is an authority on Italian wines. “We really started to see some better wines around that time and 1990 was a great year in Tuscany. People started to take these wines much more seriously.”

I, too, have witnessed an escalating seriousness in Tuscan wines in general and chiantis specifically. My first chianti tasting in 2003 saw nearly 10 fiasco bottles, the remaining 20 or so wines came in standard, square-shouldered, Bordeaux-style bottles. These sangiovese-based wines were enjoyable, with several standouts, but let’s just say the quality of the straw-bottomed bottles sent me back to Mulberry St in Manhattan.

I have done a large-scale review chianti wines about once every 18 months since then. Slowly but surely, the number of fiasco bottles dwindled. Not only has the cost gone up to produce the bottles—which were originally made so wineries could use cheaper, thin, flask-like containers—but their image suggests average to awful wine. Meanwhile, across the boards, the quality and complexity of these wines increased. Winemakers became more selective on which grapes to use, the government changed its blending regulations and we even saw French oak barrels replace archaic chestnut barrels.

“[Customers] expect value, but they also expect quality—and that is at any price level,” said Cristina Mariani-May, co-CEO Banfi Vintners, which produces several chiantis and imports a number of others. Mariani-May was in Atlanta in February to promote her new wine, BelnerO, a sangiovese-based wine made south of Chianti in Montalcino. Banfi has been a leader in clonal research of the sangiovese grape for 30 years and is credited for raising its quality throughout Tuscany.

“Over the past 30 years, there has been a dedication not only to quality, but to cleanliness,” Mariani-May said. “Back then, there was a lot more sulfur added to the wine and [fewer] stainless-steel fermenting tanks. Today, the wines just taste cleaner…And, of course, we are working on sangiovese to make the grape itself better.”

Mariani-May, too, remembers a time when chianti suggested something else. “Chianti used to mean wines served in restaurants with checkered tablecloths. Today, chiantis are more synonymous with Super Tuscans….The great chiantis being made now are some of the greatest sangioveses of the world.”

I couldn’t agree with her more. I tasted 39 chiantis in February and nearly half rated Two Thumbs Up. All but two of the wines rated at least a solid One Thumb Up. You still can get a decent bottle of chianti for eight bucks, but you can also get an AMAZING wine starting at around $20.

For all you sentimentalists, there is a downside to this improved quality. I received merely one chianti in the iconic fiasco bottle (2007 Bell’Agio, $13) for this tasting. And wouldn’t you know it? It wasn’t half bad, far better than the chiantis of old. And while I should celebrate the elevation of these once-scorned, sangiovese-based wines, a part of me misses those crummy—or should I say sufficiently adequate—wines of the past.

As I get older and plumper, I grow more nostalgic for those Casanova days and nights. But don’t turn back the hands of time on the now remarkable wines of chianti.

2001 Castello di Brolio Chianti Classico, Italy

• $54

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• The most expensive wine of the tasting, it was rich, full-bodied with aromas of coffee, cola, nutmeg, all-spice and plum. It had tart fruit flavors, subtle, mineral qualities with a hint of mint.

2004 Tenimenti Angelini, Sanleonino, Chianti Classico, Italy

• $18

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Quite drinkable but at the same time interesting with its array of bright berry aromas and flavors, such as cherry, cranberry, strawberry and dried cherry with earthy, cinnamon notes.

2007 Bell’Agio Chianti, Italy

• $13

• Two Thumbs Up

• Buy it because it makes a great candle-holder, enjoy it because of its simple, quaffable red cherry flavors with touches of smoke and cinnamon. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.