THE image has cracked. Once, and not long ago, one had to pity the poor Chianti. Back then, with Italian wines languishing in French shadows, it suffered terribly by way of its own mid-seventies success.

It was cheap, cheery, and all too often basket clad.

Young couples called Kevin and Julie would gaze into each others’ eyes while munching scampi in a basket at Samantha’s Disco in Stockport or Luton.

Before them a gingham tablecloth, their half drunk Chianti...the bottle soon to be recycled as a candle holder and pink wax would flow like lava down its neck.

Chianti was the oil of romance, to be consumed under a soundtrack of Hot Chocolate, Sailor and Carl Douglas. (‘Everybody was Kung Foo Fighting...those cats were fast as lightning...’) Those were the days of kitsch and quiche.

The Chianti image was most unfair. Not least because much of the wine bearing the Chianti label was not Chianti at all.

It was table wine, more often than not from envious regions surrounding Tuscany, the true home of our wine of choice.

In terms of the high street, Chianti fell out of favour for three decades.

Its eventual return coincided with the new breed of quality Italian restaurants which swept through Britain at the turn of the millennium.

The revolution happened almost overnight, with quality Italian rustic cuisine seeping down market, mercifully replacing the appalling ‘spag bog and pizza’ parlours.

This is the twist.

The naffness of Chianti’s legacy suddenly stared to work in its favour.

Even people wearing Chinos could be seen drinking it...and why not?

Quality Chianti is on every supermarket shelf at the moment.

(Tesco, I noted, were selling a £9.49 bottle of Chianti Classico for £4.99. A brooding, smoky sexual beauty...perfect to soften the edges of decent rissotto and asparagus dish, or anything with pesto aroma).

Chianti comes from specific areas of Tuscany.

It is a triangular area of the Arno valley, between Florence and Siena. Indeed, many of the finest vineyards are situated close to the Florence-Siena highway, which rivals California’s Pacific Coast Highway in terms of sheer romance and beauty.

The beauty of the area reflects in the wine and the best wine comes from areas such as Chianti Classico regions like Castellina in Chianti, Castelnouvo, Berardenga and Greve in Chianti.

Look for these names on the bottles and you will be assured of tasting something extraordinary.

Chianti is ruby-red when young but shifts to tawny with age.

The taste remains in balance, though and its greatest asset, the bouquet of violets, also intensifies with age.

If you are fortunate enough to visit the region, then a trip along Strada Statale 222, the Chiantigiana is a must.

This is a celebrated ‘wine road’ that dates from the 16th century. I wholeheartedly approve of wine roads and wish there were more of them.

But it is more than just the beauty of the landscape that catches the eye.

The religious and military architecture is stunning and the area is also famous for olive oil, wild game and dried meats.

The irony seems obvious.

This is a wine of depth.

A taste of ancient Italy, full of lust, passion and vigour.

A wine that reflects the most romantic country in the world.

Kevin and Julie might not have realised it, but they were truly onto a good thing.


Florence
We were adrift in the Giiardino di Boboli (Boboli Garden) when the heavens opened....and how. To a thunderous soundtrack, a cloud exploded, water funnelling down and crashing into the defiant marble sculptures that proudly flanked the pathways.

One figure in particular, The Bacchino – Valerio Cioli’s satirical sculpture of a court dwarf – was rendered almost comical, as if taking an impromptu power-shower with rain fanning from broad shoulders and dripping down his ears.

It was an unexpectedly unglamorous sight, but we had to leave it be The instant downpour was proving the hinge moment of our visit to Florence and, departing the regimented though evocative gardens in an instant, we recklessly weaved through two Fiat-laden carriageways and bundled with intent into the comforting ‘trattorria.’ Once safe, and drying fast, we sought solace in two cups of thick, syrupy chocolate (a local delicacy...more a foodstuff than a drink) and swapped football banter with the huddle of cheery locals who gathered at the bar.

“United or the other one?” they asked, and we courageously declared the redness of our affiliation.

As such, we unwittingly provided ourselves a degree of celebrity status and the talk bounced between Fiorentina and Old Trafford with effortless ease.

This seemed odd to us.

Our new-found friends were immaculately attired, handsome, polite and seemed wholly of the modern world.

And yet Florence, perhaps more than any other city on Earth, is surely evocative of a lost age.

A walk through the tight streets of the city is, after all, like stepping through the pages of history.

Passion, beauty, violence, darkness, sex and imagination. In this city there really are angels in the architecture...and lots of other unearthly creatures too.

The cosmopolitan nature of the bar dwellers seemed rather ironic although, in truth, it is a city built on irony and illusion.

It was, after all, created by Julius Cesar as settlement for aging soldiers and yet, historically, it would become renown for aesthetic genius and freedom rather than military or political intent.

But what did we know?

Just another dumbstruck couple, staggering through the streets with mouths agape, gasping in awe. Florence, home of The Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli (pictured right), is a city that is comfortable with its own power.

Manchester may, when immersed in generous sunlight, seem fleetingly attractive, but Florence represents overwhelming and haunting beauty, even in the Boboli rain.

In truth, rainy afternoons are always a problem in Italy.

It always seems to hit just as the shops begin to close for siesta, driving the tourists into myriad museums and churches...oh yes, the finest on earth without a doubt.

But not, we noted, in terms of central heating (another irony, as primary school history books always informed us this was something else invented by the Romans).

And so, buffeted by draughty chills, we found ourselves on the tourist route.

Shunting through the gargantuan Uffizi Gallery proved to be, at once, enlightening and arduous.

It is unquestionably one of the world’s finest art galleries although, were we to revisit, we would take it in bite-size two hour chunks.

It does signify the centre of Florentine life, in terms of political administration as well as culture.

Uffizi, we were surprised to discover, means ‘offices’ and, situated on the corner of Piazza della Signoria, occupies the site used for government – and of the whole country, for five famous years – for centuries.

The Uffizi is more than ably supported by a dozen galleries and museums including the Academia dell’Arte Disegno, where Michelangelo’s David famously resides and, across the river Arno, the enormous Pitti Palace where the Renaissance giants like Raphael and Titian and Giorgione can be found, temptingly placed on gentle illuminated walls. Of course, most people who visit Florence do so at reasonable times of the year and, therefore, experience the full force of Italian sunshine.

Not so, in our case and the Mancunian climate followed us into the heart of Chianti, the pretty, hilly region lodged between Florence and Siena.

It is an area of outstanding though not daunting beauty.

The hills are rolling, the vineyards orderly, the ambience rural in the ancient sense and yes, you really will see wooden carts loaded with olives, with small village squares adorned with knots of teenagers astride scooters and elderly women with brooms.

This is the Tuscany of dreams and novellas and, although trendy people inhabit those plush hillside villas, it really does carry off the illusion of a life lived in a landscape and a culture that seems far removed from the stresses of our age.

Mercifully for us, the seasonal dousing subsided and we spent thee semi-somnolent days in hazy Tuscan sunshine.

It seemed of another world, if not another century, like Florence itself.