Drunkard’s Spaghetti (Pasta alla Chiantigiana)

RECIPE: Excerpted from Winter in Tuscany, by Amber Guinness. © Thames & Hudson Australia 2025. Text © Amber Guinness 2025. Photographs © Valentina Solfrini 2025. Reprinted by permission of Thames & Hudson Inc, www.thamesandhudsonusa.com

Photo: Valentina Solfrini

January 02, 2026

A classic Tuscan pasta turns leftover red wine into edible art.

Leave it to the Tuscans to turn upcycling into an art form. Pasta alla Chiantigiana, colloquially known as spaghetti all’ubriacona, or drunkard’s spaghetti, is a classic recipe that transforms days-old Chianti, the region’s signature red wine, into an elegant 20-minute meal.

“What is particularly wonderful about this dish is that it works well with wine that is sitting around for a few days and you’re desperate to get rid of,” writes Amber Guinness in Winter in Tuscany. “That wine that is no longer any good for drinking can be turned into a tasty meal by cooking it down with onions and pancetta and tossing it with pasta.” If you only have half a bottle to pour into the pot, the recipe still works, Guinness says. “The taste will just be more subtle.”

Ingredients

Yield:4

1 white onion, finely chopped
3 1/2 oz. unsmoked pancetta, chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil, plus extra to serve
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bottle of Chianti or other full-bodied red wine
14 oz. spaghetti
Grated parmesan, to serve

Preparation

Put the onion, pancetta, and olive oil in a wide frying pan. Cook on a gentle sizzle over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent and the pancetta is opaque. Add a generous pinch of salt, black pepper, and 2 glasses of red wine. Leave to gently bubble over a medium heat.

Bring a large saucepan of water to a rolling boil. Generously salt the water and add 2 to 3 glasses of red wine. If you happen to have another glass of wine left, add it to the pan of pasta sauce.

Once the water has come to a rolling boil, add the spaghetti. After the pasta has fully wilted, stir it so that the strands don’t stick together. Halfway through the pasta cooking time (check the package instructions), add a ladleful of the wine-stained pasta water to the sauce and turn up the heat.

When the spaghetti is al dente, use tongs to transfer it to the frying pan and toss with the sauce, adding a little more reserved pasta cooking water if needed to keep the sauce liquid and coating the strands. Serve immediately, sprinkled with parmesan and lots of black pepper.