[The Gourmand Next Door] Chianti, What a Fiasco!
You may recognize the bottles, fiaschi, as the straw-wrapped, squat bottles that often serve as candelabras. A wine that requires little thought, and even less deliberation.
![[The Gourmand Next Door] Chianti, What a Fiasco!](https://storage.ghost.io/c/50/33/50334374-93a7-4cf9-ba69-d7d51c63be2a/content/images/size/w1200/2026/09/Le-terre-del-vino-Chianti-Consorzio-Vino-Chianti.jpg)
Wes Platt
Chianti is perhaps the most ubiquitous of Italian wines in the United States, and with that prevalence comes a mundane reputation.
The type of wine that you get at an Italian restaurant that serves the classics. Perhaps paired with fava beans? No? Then you may recognize the bottles, fiaschi, as the straw-wrapped, squat bottles that often serve as candelabras. A wine that requires little thought, and even less deliberation.
The fiasco of it all is that the wines of Chianti were held in high regard from the early 1600s, and those fiaschi were made purposefully for the quality wines of Chianti, relegating the sub-standard wines to be stored in a barrel.
Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fraudulent copies were produced and sold, sullying the good name of Chianti, and the mass produced, mass exported low quality Chiantis from the 1960s-early 2000s did little to help. However, there has been a concerted effort to elevate the standard of what can be a magnificent wine.
