1872 · Tuscany
Bettino Ricasoli sets down a Chianti formula
A recipe combining Sangiovese with other varieties defined Chianti for a century — including the white grapes later removed.
What happened
Bettino Ricasoli, twice prime minister of a newly unified Italy and owner of Castello di Brolio, set out in an 1872 letter a composition for Chianti built on Sangiovese with Canaiolo and a proportion of white Malvasia.
The white grapes were included for a specific purpose: to soften the wine for early drinking. Ricasoli was explicit that wine intended for ageing should omit them.
When Chianti was codified as a DOC in the 1960s, the formula was written into law — including a mandatory minimum of white grapes, which inverted Ricasoli’s intention and is widely blamed for a long period of thin, pale Chianti.
White grapes were made optional in 1984 and prohibited in Chianti Classico from 2006. The region’s recovery of reputation dates largely from that reversal.
Ricasoli did not invent Chianti, which predates him by centuries as a named wine. He set down a composition for it, and the later legal misuse of that composition was not his doing.
How firmly this is dated
Documented. Recorded contemporaneously. The date is not in question.
Ricasoli’s letter of 1872 setting out the composition, which survives.
People: Bettino Ricasoli
Sources
Sources consulted
- Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico — Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)
- The Oxford Companion to Wine — Oxford University Press
Along the timeline
Before · c. 1860–1900
Bordeaux refugees reshape Rioja
French winemakers driven south by phylloxera brought barrel ageing to Rioja, and it never left.
After · 1878–1885
Downy mildew arrives, and Bordeaux mixture answers it
A second American fungus arrived on phylloxera-resistant rootstock imports, and the fungicide developed against it is still used.