For the 100th anniversary of the Chianti Classico Consortium, the book comes out.
On the Trail of the Black Rooster, a (hopefully compelling) account of a great wine and its history.
On May 14, the Chianti Classico Consortium and its symbol, the Black Rooster, will turn a century old. Among the planned events will be a short presentation of the book On the Trails of the Black Rooster which I produced for Giunti and for the Consortium itself with the valuable collaboration of Paolo De Cristofaro.
The presentation will take place at 11 a.m. at theGeorgofili Academy and the next day the volume will be on sale at all Giunti bookstores, as a minimum.
I would like to say that this is not the usual celebratory book. It is an attempt to turn into a story, even fictionalized in some places, a story that even begins with the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 and continues to the present day. Trying to explain why that rooster is just black, then What happened in different historical periods, before the Consortium was born in 1924.
Who were Italo De Lucchi, Gino Sarrocchi, Luigi Ricasoli Firidolfi, Bettino Ricasoli Jr, Lapo Mazzei and all the other presidents of the Consortium that have occurred over a century. What was the sharecropping, how winemakers were born, what battles and controversies faced, the birth of DOCs, Supertuscans, and so on.
Trying to turn so many meeting minutes, board minutes, so much ministerial paperwork and all the heavy bureaucracy that often lies behind such paths.
Those who read and corrected the proofs told me that it felt like reading a novel. Certainly the idea of Paolo De Cristofaro who suggested that I write everything in the present tense helped to have a fairly tight narrative rhythm. After all, having to deal with the bookstore sale, offering the volume at a audience not necessarily wine experts, advised us to write in an understandable way with a very obvious popular slant.
The protagonist remains him, the Black Rooster, who strutted and proudly faced endless problems and came out victorious in the end amidst a thousand difficulties. But always moving forward with his head held high is one of his characteristics.
