A GOOD YEAR FOR CHIANTI CLASSICO

A GOOD YEAR FOR CHIANTI CLASSICO

(ANSA) - Florence, October 27 - This year should be a good vintage for Chianti Classico wine, according to the consortium of producers who make the famed Italian red wine.

''We were already very optimistic before and during harvest but now we are sure 2009 will be a good year, having been able to touch the fruit which was produced with such care over the past months,'' Chianti Classico consortium chairman Marco Pallanti said on Tuesday.

''The grapes arrived at the presses in fine shape, thanks in part to a fairly balanced growing season weather-wise, especially for the month of June,'' he explained.

The weather in September, Pallanti added, ''allowed the grapes to reach, in the majority of vineyards in Chianti, optimum maturity with the right acidity and aroma''.

''Now it will be up to man to take over from nature, experts who over the years have produced great Chianti Classico wines which have been acclaimed the world over,'' Pallanti said.

''Vintage 2009 is a further encouragement for Chianti Classico and its producers can look forward with confidence to pulling out of the current economic crisis,'' he added.

The global economic downturn and drop in prices for upscale wines forced Chianti Classico producers last July to decide to bottle less wine for sale over the next two years in order to stabilise prices.

Similar initiatives were adopted by the producers of other prestigious wines including those making Champagne in France.

Also hurting the market for prestigious wines was the falling value of the American dollar to the euro.

Chianti Classico is an upmarket version of the famed Tuscan blended wine and by definition can only come from a 7,000-hectare area between Florence and Siena.

In 2005, the two leading consortiums which produce quality Chianti Classico wine, Vino Chianti Classico and Marchio Storico-Gallo Nero, merged into a single body to better produce, promote and protect their product.