Tidbits from Tuscany - Insight No. 2

No trip to Italy would be complete without a good dose of wine tasting. And since our home base for the week was a cottage in the heart of Chianti, we challenged ourselves to taste a wide variety of Chianti's best. And I must say we performed pretty well against our goal.

By the end of the week, we had tried everything from a (delicious) carafe of the house wine at our local ristorante, to Il Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Barone Ricasoli's Chianti Classico.

On our last day, we even made a stop at Le Cantine di Greve, a be old wine cellar with cool stone walls, tile floors and a smorgasbord

of tasting options. We went hog wild hopping from one sample station to the next, sipping reds, whites and vin santo, then dipping tiny

cubes of bread in an array of olive oils.

Anyway, my point is that we consumed our fair share of Chianti during our time in Chianti. And I'm embarrassed to say I very nearly left the region without even knowing what it is that makes a Chianti Classico a Chianti Classico.

Fortunately, a charming Italian man saved me from my ignorance. Giuseppe Mirossi -- better known as Beppe -- is a friendly and accommodating gentleman who runs a car service in Tuscany and was kind enough to drive Granville and me from Castellina to the Pisa airport for our Saturday departure. I can truthfully say I learned just as much from Beppe during our 70-minute commute that day than I had in the previous six combined. I'll try to share all that I learned from him in future posts, but for now, it's back to the topic of Chianti.

As many people know, Beppe said, in order to qualify as Chianti Classico, a wine must be made from at least 80 percent Sangiovese grapes. But what most do not know is that the Sangiovese grape vine is indigenous to Chianti and therefore thrives in the region's soil, which is riddled with stones. These stones, said Beppe, leach minerals that provide nourishment to the grape vines through their roots. Plus, because the stones are very porous, they absorb moisture during the winter months and release it back into the soil during the hot summer months, making for a surprisingly stable environment for the roots all year round.

So, Beppe told us, Sangiovese grapes planted and grown in California, for example, will produce a wine very different from that made with Sangiovese grapes grown in Chianti. And only the latter will ever be considered Chianti Classico. The secret, he said, is in the soil.