Gaiole

“Chianti valley.” Such was the wide basin of the Massellone torrential stream called in the Middle Ages, a stream that surges from the hill of Montegrossi, bathes Gaiole, and then flows until it merges with the Arbia at the Bridge of the Granchiaie, near Tornano castle.

Fanning out from the main ridge of the Chianti mountains from which it springs, and the hills that to the north and east divide it, respectively, from the Pesa and Arbia valleys, the Massellone valley covers a large part of the present communal territory of Gaiole. Here, not by chance, a settlement developed, for which we have the earliest documentary evidence of the name “Chianti.”