Fiaschetteria, osteria, ristorante, trattoria, taberna, enoteca.......Italians have a great many words for the various establishments where you can get food and drink. Especially the latter. A "Fiaschetteria" was originally meant a shop that sold wine from fiaschettiand fiaschi (diminutive fiaschetti , singular fiasco, from the Latin flascō - "flask"). Which are all names which pretty much nobody has ever heard of, but everybody has seen, as a fiaschetti is simply the old fashioned squat straw covered Chianti bottles that were a picturesque symbol of old Italy before we all became fashionable (and also their larger volume wicker covered cousins are fiasco). "Chianti" wine actually covers a much larger area then geographic Chianti itself. In practical terms this has historically meant that the term "Chiantï" covers a great volume of wine - and most of this wine was meant to be consumed when young and ideally when cheap. While great quality and age worthy chianti was produced, the wine in destined for fiaschi was for drinking, not comteplating. Often it was was produced using the governo all'usa toscano process, which was a deliberate secondary fermentation of a proportion of the wine, which has the effect of softening a very young wine up for rapid consumption. Fiaschi and fiaschetti were an ideal solution to the transport and storage of large volumes of cheap wine that neaded to be consumed quickly as they where robust and cheap to produce. All this means that there were lakes of young chianti, sitting around in flasks of various sizes ready to be drunken by exactly the sort of people that wouldn't drink a glass and comment "this governo all'usa toscano malolactic fermentation process really gives a softness to the wine, but still retains the integrity of the fruit freshness and slight prickle that you only find in a really young wine".
Fiaschetteria may have originally have only sold this cheap, high volume wine and today many of these stores only sells wine (in the bottle or by the glass). The tiny shop front of I Fratellini in Florence is still true to this tradition, but it also sells a wonderful selection of panini to go with the wine. A typical selction would be porcetta, wild boar salami or maybe truffled pecorino with rocket. Personally I always went for the porcetta and chomped it down while standing in the street and watching Florence walk by.
The shop. Notice the wooden shelves on the wall facing the street for returning wine glasses.
Porcetta and a glass of cheap wine.
Comments