Amphoras ahoy in Tuscany - Fattoria di Sammontana

Tuscany, and more specifically Chianti isn't somewhere I associate with diversity. This isn't the wine region to pick if you want the thrill of discovering unheard of grape varieties, finding weird and wonderful orange wines or small, wacky estates.

What Chianti does have is an unshakeable position in the annals of fine wine, even if the region is full of large producers and sometimes less than inspiring wines. I can still remember a holiday a few years ago, where the staff at an agriturismo in Chianti Classico confided "we're just a small estate - only a million bottles a year".

My geek antenna were therefore out on stalks when I spotted a Chianti producer at a recent tasting with an unlabelled bottle scrawled only with "Anfora". Lorenzo Dzieduszkcki from Fattoria di Sammontana explained this apparent cultural misfit: "We believe in the tradition of Chianti, but we also believe in innovation. We don't like mixing the two - so our Chianti DOC wines are always made only from indigenous g…