Chianti is an Italian wine from the region of the same name within Tuscany. And while you’ll note its high acidity and flavors of sour cherries or tobacco while downing a glass or two, what most folks associate with chianti is its distinctive fiasco bottle, which has been nearly abandoned in favor of your standard-issue wine bottle.
The fiasco is a glass bottle with a rounded bottom partially wrapped in a woven straw basket. Typically, sala, a swamp weed, would be collected, dried, and then whitened for the basket. Sometimes, a handle is incorporated into the design as well. The baskets served two primary purposes; to provide a flat base for the bottles and to prevent breakage in transit. Itâs unknown when fiaschi (plural for fiasco) was first developed, but you can find it mentioned in Giovanni Boccaccioâs 14th-century collection of short stories, The Decameron. The wicker-wrapped bottle would also make appearances in paintings like Sandro Botticelliâs The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, III, inspired by the 8th story of the third day of The Decameron.
