Greve in Chianti

Greve is the market town of the Florentine Chianti, and it still behaves like one. Life gathers in Piazza Matteotti, a triangular square lined with arcades, where butchers, wine shops and cafés sit under the loggias and a statue of Giovanni da Verrazzano — the navigator born nearby in 1485 who sailed into New York Bay in 1524 — stands in the middle. On Saturday mornings the stalls of the weekly market fill the square; in September the Expo del Chianti Classico takes it over entirely.

It is a practical base rather than a postcard: on the Chiantigiana between Florence and Siena, with good shops, simple restaurants and Le Cantine di Greve in Chianti, the self-service cellar where you can taste your way through the appellation by the glass before deciding which estates to visit.

The comune has four UGAs, more than any other in the zone. Above the town, Montefioralle is a ring of stone houses built into its own walls, traditionally linked to the Vespucci family; its small UGA climbs to around 450 metres, with vines on terraced slopes. To the east, Lamole is the smallest UGA of all — under a hundred hectares of vines on sandstone, roughly between 500 and 680 metres, the highest in Chianti Classico — and its Sangiovese is pale, floral and finely drawn. To the south lies Panzano, which has its own page.

Stay a night or two and the rhythm becomes clear: the market in the morning, a walk up to Montefioralle before lunch, a tasting in the hills in the afternoon, dinner just off the piazza.