My intention here is not to express disagreement. I shall limit myself to observing that the boundaries of the Chianti Classico were established purely for ‘political’ reasons. It has always been this way. Each contention needs a winner and the winner wants to gain the upper hand and to impose his own rules. This simple phyolosophycal consideration wants to show that the reason why Impruneta was excluded from the prestigious itinerary of one of the most popular wines in the world was similar. Indeed, Impruneta is there, a stone’s throw from the Chianti Classico area. Yet this small center has not been included in the Chianti Classico in spite of its prestigious tradition. Through the centuries, Impruneta has succeeded in creating a famous make of cotto.
Its furnaces have been the finest in existence for quite a few centuries so that when we refer to this ancient craft we say the ‘cotto imprunetino’, as if the noun and adjective had the meaning of one single word, suggesting that cotto that is not from Impruneta, is not cotto.
But Impruneta does not live only on cotto. It also includes the production of wine which is celebrated on the last Sunday of September with one of the first fairs dedicated to it, the Feast of the Grape, during which the inhabitants of the four quarters into which the village is divided, parade with allegorical carts celebrating wine, its symbols and its subjects. A few days later, during the week including the 18th of October, the day that celebrates the patron saint of this small town, there is another feast, this time as ancient as the origins of the village, the Feast of San Luca. These are the days of jubilation, a tangible sign of an authentic joy, of a deeply felt belonging to one’s own traditions which are handed down from father to son. This is the feast of transhumance and livestock, but also the feast of wine and country life, an event which attracts large crowds and is organized as if it were something directly from the past, with games in the square and acrobats, horse races and big open-air dinners. The same feast that the brilliant artist Jacques Callot immortalized in a famous work in the first half of the 17th century. The artist had come to Florence in 1612 to perfect the difficult art of engraving and to work for the Medici family. His painting of the feast which transmits an atmosphere of light-hearted rural festivity, has always been much sought after by collectors all over the world.
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See also:

Craftsmanship in The Chianti, The Last Chianti Barrel Maker, Maniera, a Craftsman Shop in Chianti, The Search for The Beautiful in Chianti: Julia

Or go back to Trades and Crafts of Chianti