Chianti question - newbie here

[stevebody]

Must weigh in with an OPINION here, which you should take with a whole salt lick:

Chianti, the one Italian wine region almost everyone knows, produces some of Italy's most pedestrian wines. Some great ones, too, but an increasingly smaller percentage. You'll get lots of opinions about this and they'll all be valuable bit I URGE YOU to sample outside of Chianti and see for yourself. The Veneto, Veronese, Umbrian, Calabrese, and even Sicilian wines are inexpensive (many of them) and quite good. DON'T, whatever you do, form an opinion of Italy based solely on Chianti. It would be like concluding that elepants are all skinny by feeling the tails.