Chianti Classico Expo brings 64 wineries to Greve

The Chianti Classico Expo opens its 54th edition in Greve in Chianti on 10 September, filling the town's Piazza Matteotti with 64 wineries for four days of tastings that run through 13 September.

Producers from every municipality of the Chianti Classico zone set up under the square's arcades, the only event that gathers growers from the whole appellation in one place. A ticket costs €20 and includes a wine glass, a glass holder, a booklet and a set of tasting tickets.

The Municipality of Greve in Chianti organises the programme, which mixes guided tastings with exhibitions, walking tours and concerts around the town for the four days.

Sixty-four wineries, one square, and a harvest running in the hills behind it.

A square built for Sangiovese

Chianti Classico wines carry the black rooster, or Gallo Nero, on the neck of the bottle, a mark that separates them from wider Chianti and signals a minimum share of Sangiovese in the blend. Greve sits at the region's northern gateway, a market town that has served as the trading point for the surrounding estates for centuries, which is part of why the expo lands here rather than in Siena or Florence.

The date also falls close to Alba's white truffle fair further north, part of a run of Italian harvest-season events that barely pauses between one product and the next through the autumn. The square itself becomes a working map of the appellation for four days: a producer from the hills above Radda pours next to one from Castellina, with only a table between styles that a single Chianti Classico label can otherwise blur.

Harvest overlaps the tastings

The expo lands squarely inside vendemmia, the grape harvest, which in Chianti Classico typically runs from early September into October depending on the vintage. Growers are picking Sangiovese in the hills around Greve even as they pour older vintages in the square, giving visitors a split-screen view of a wine region working and celebrating in the same week.

The Expo Chianti Classico runs through 13 September, with the fuller programme of tastings, tours and concerts published on the event's own site.