Heading north from Siena you climb into veritable ‘Chiantishire’ − the Chianti hills, delight of old-time British globetrotters and the source, at one period, of the only Italian wine foreigners had heard of. A medieval fortress with swallowtail crenellations − hallmark of the Ghibelline warlords in the Middle Ages − towers over Castellina, which is not otherwise remarkable except for its views and, of course, its Chianti. Several cellars are visitable in this district, but the process is heavily automated and totally lacking in peasant joie de vivre.

Some 25 km east of the Castellina-Siena road, deep in Chianti country on ‘communal’ roads, stands Brolio Castle, a large pentagonal structure with big bastions and long ramparts. Its excellent condition is a testimony to the prosperity down the ages of the baronial Ricasoli family (they came here in 1141) as producers and marketers of the most prestigious Chianti wines. The family seat is a palace inside the castle and close at hand are the Brolio cellars, much modernized and expanded, which may be visited.

‘Chiantishire’ suggests the good life in a Tuscany of beech and chestnut, vine and pasture, romantic crags and deep dark valleys thick with the autumnal leaves that Milton wrote of in Paradise Lost ‘that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa’. Parts, however, are arid and suburban and certain little towns with evocative names are frankly ugly. West of Siena, where a thin topsoil exposes the geology, you could imagine yourself in the badlands of Dakota. But it is still an up-market holiday district, as numbers of cafés with striped blinds, discreet country-house hotels and a great range of vacation cottages testify. To northern Europeans ‘Tuscany’ still has a magic sound − especially the Chianti section.