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The symbol of Chianti Classico: the legend of the Black Rooster
Like every land with centuries of history behind it, Chiantialso has its legends. The most famous, curious and fascinating one is the legend of the black rooster, a very important symbol today for all Chianti Classico producers.Discover experiences dedicated to the world famous wine.
The dispute of the Chianti region between Florence and Siena
In the 13th century, after a long and exhausting war for the control of the Chianti territory, Siena and Florence, both exhausted by the bloody battles, decided to resolve this matter with a very original method: in order to establish the new borders of the two republics, they chose as their representatives a knight and a rooster.
At the dawn of an established day, at the first cockrow, the two knights would gallop away from their respective cities and the boundary would be drawn at the meeting point. The idea was obviously to divide the territory more or less in half.
The white and the black rooster
The people from Siena chose a white rooster which they fed regularly to make him wake up cheerful and early in the morning; the Florentines, on the other hand, relied on a black rooster, which they always kept in the dark and fasting. On the fateful day, due to the hunger bites, the black rooster began to crow before dawn allowing the Florentine knight to leave well in advance and travel much further than his rival.
The advantage was so big that the meeting took place in Fonterutoli, today a hamlet of the town Castellina in Chianti (about 7 and a half miles distance from Siena) A Fonterutoli was signed the peace treaty and established the border between the two republics and was born so the legend of the Black Rooster.
