Gallo Bianco

Greve in Chianti, HD, 6min 30sec

A reversal to the story of the famous Gallo Nero, the heraldic animal of Chianti Classico, one of the best know wines of Tuscany: The origins of this symbol can be found in a legend telling about the rivalry between Florence and Siena, due to the disputing for the possession of the Chiantishire lands, in the medieval period. To put down this interminable and bloody war, the two communes decide to entrust the definition of its own borders to a trial between two knights, one with the colour of Florence and the other with the colour of Siena. The place where the two knights met, leaving their respective cities to dawn, when the cock crows, there would have been the boundary. The Sienesi grew up and stuffed with food their white cock, convinced that this would sing stronger, while the Florentines choose a black cock and left it on an empty stomach. The fatal day, the black Florentine cock was very hungry and so began to crow before the sunrise, while the white Sienese cock was full of food yet.

The Florentine knight, woken up early by his cock, began to gallop covering much more street than his rival: almost the whole land of the Chianti was annexed to the lily Republic. Legend or not, the Lega of Chianti, authentic military alliance, created by the Florentine republic to unite the populations of the Chiantishire villages to defend their lands and its first statue dated 1384, choose the Gallo Nero in a golden land as its symbol.