The Black Rooster is the historic symbol of Chianti, adopted as a trademark for the Chianti Classico wine by the consortium that groups its producers. The legend has it that, in the medieval period, following the struggles between Florence and Siena for the domination over this flourishing territory..
The "Black Rooster" is the historic symbol of Chianti, adopted as trademark for Chianti Classico wine by the consortium that groups its producers. .
Legend tells that, in the medieval period, following the struggles between Florence and Siena for dominate over the territory of Chianti, the two factions chose to delimit their borders by starting two knights from their respective cities to crow; the point at which the two met would become the border. Siena chose a white rooster while Florence chose a black one. The evening before the departure the rooster of the Tuscan capital was kept fasting while the other one ate in abundance; it was so that the following morning the rooster of Florence, driven by hunger, sang before dawn, encouraging an early departure of the knight and thus ensuring a wider slice of territory for the Florentines. Thuis is the legend of how the black rooster became the symbol of Chianti area. .
Passing to a more historical and less fairytale description, it is argued that in reality the relationship between black rooster and Chianti Classico originated in the early 1300s, when, with the formation of the "league of Chianti" which was a political-military institution under the control of the Republic of Florence for control over the Chianti territory, a black rooster was chosen as a symbol. This first contact between Chianti and Black rooster is found in the panel "Allegoria del Chianti", painted by Vasari in the “Salone dei Cinquecento” (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence) in 1547, where, in addition to the landscape representing Castellina, Radda and the Brolio, you can see a shield with depicted just a black rooster. In 1924 the Chianti Classico wine consortium was founded and it chose the black rooster as its symbol. On the logo there is the date 1716 as it was precisely that year that the territory of Chianti was delimited by the ban of Cosimo III de'Medici. In 2005, the Black Rooster became the official symbol of the classic Chianti wine and, consequently, each bottle produced has on the neck or back the symbol itself.
In Chianti the symbol and statues depicting the rooster are very common. This is the one you can admire in Greve in Chianti but you can find statue like this all over the Chianti Area.
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