Tuscany Wine Notes
Typically the Tuscan countryside has rolling hills with cypress trees, pines, olives and vines. The climate is warm, the influences are the warmth from the coast and the coolness of the hills, which combine to give a host of micro climates. It is not quite as dry as one would imagine, there is a fair amount of rain in the winter and some in the spring and summer too. In late summer, there can be storms, and in the autumn mists too. Many of the soils are well drained. Chianti has dry stony soil. There are sandy and clay soils, and limestone hills too, specially in coastal areas such as Maremma.
The region has long been wealthy, with important cities such as Florence, Lucca and Sienna providing a good 'domestic' market. Exports have long been important, going back a long way the Etruscans exported their wines to Gaul in very large quantities. More recently Chianti, in its straw covered bottle, the 'fiasco', came to be seen as the archetypical Italian wine.