Chianti Classico UGA Book - Alessandro Masnaghetti

Chianti Classico UGA Book - Alessandro Masnaghetti

"It's not just the maps that are a joy to read. Masnaghetti writes beautifully and in a way that I found unexpectedly, charmingly intimate, and very modest. It’s almost as if he’s by your side, chatting to you as he explains how the maps works, what his thinking was behind some of his decisions. About the Pesa Right Bank of Radda UGA, for example, he writes, ‘At the center, as if to emphasise its importance, is the parish church of Santa Maria Novella, whose radius of influence once stretched from Albola to Monterinaldi, leaving me undecided for a time whether to use its name to identify the entire Pesa Right Bank.’ He takes the reader with him, to the ridges, to see the views, to walk the vineyards, using ‘we’ and ‘us’ in a way that is unusually warm and inclusive.

He has also achieved that most difficult thing as a writer whose job it is to convey a great number of pretty complex, dry facts – it’s genuinely interesting. It has a narrative. It flows. It must also be acknowledged that Burton Anderson has done a superb job of translating the book into English.

Aside from the maps, which are worth their weight in gold, there are other extremely useful features of the book, such as tables of vineyard statistics, surface data and number of wineries, explanations of labelling and UGA regulations, lists of wineries by UGA, producer location and contact details. Best of all, though, the author has created seven fabulous mapped itineraries, which can be done by car or bike, in order to best explore the UGAs.

All I can do, at this point, is reiterate Walter’s words. It is indeed a stunning work, without parallel – and if no one is buying it for you, buy it for yourself." - Reviewed by Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com