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Tuscany (Toscana) is the quintessential Italian wine region and the sangiovese heartland — the birthplace of four of Italy's most important red wines: Chianti, Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, all built on the sangiovese grape (for centuries the region's single greatest variety).

The wines nonetheless taste quite different, because Tuscany is a plethora of distinct mesoclimates thrown up by an endless succession of twisting, undulating hills (the region is roughly 68 percent hills, so nearly every vineyard sits on a slope), and because sangiovese — a finicky, demanding grape, like pinot noir high in acidity and exacting to ripen — has begotten hundreds of clones that have adapted to their local sites.

Most important wine zones lie in the central belt from Florence south through Siena to the hill town of Montalcino (famous for Brunello); the climate there is warm but tempered by cool nights that preserve sangiovese's natural acidity.

DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, "controlled and guaranteed designation of origin") is the top tier of Italy's wine classification pyramid, above DOC, IGT, and Vino da Tavola.

Introduced in 1980, it adds a government tasting-panel approval requirement and a numbered state seal across the bottle neck (the fascetta) on top of the geographic, yield, and production-method rules that already apply to DOC wines — intended to guarantee both origin and a minimum quality bar.

The first four DOCGs, granted in 1980, were Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.