Chianti Rufina, north-eastern and smallest of the seven subzones that form chianti. Rufina was first identified as an area of superior production in Cosimo III de’Medici’s grand-ducal edict of 1716, which names the zone Pomino, a village within Rufina, after the famous estate of the Albizi family. Pomino, now owned substantially by frescobaldi, has its own doc for blends of international varieties, but the delimited zone of the DOC of 1967 followed to a substantial extent the territory first delimited by Cosimo III, with an extension of the zone to the west of the confluence of the Sieve and Arno rivers. This happens to be one case where the often contentious measure of enlarging the production zone was based on sound principles. (See chianti classico.)
