Tenuta San Leonardo Vigneti delle Dolomiti Estate Marchese Gonzaga Trentino Alto-Adige 2015 (750ml)

 

Rated 97 Points by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

 

The 2015 San Leonardo pours forth with a beautiful velvety appearance and sultry dark garnet color.  This wine shows a lot of life and dark fruit purity with black plum, blackberry, cassis and tarry prune.  There is a delightful note of black pepper that is specific to this warm and sunny vintage.  The fruit shows softer and richer concentration compared to past vintages and more pulpy density that gives this edition a bigger profile in terms of mouthfeel.  Production is 75,000 bottles.  San Leonardo is a wine made for long aging, but the nice thing about this vintage is that the bouquet remains quite accessible at this young age.  Nevertheless, I’d still suggest keeping this bottle in your cellar so that it can calmly finish its evolution.  Monica Larner, February 2021

 

Tenuta San Leonardo

 

Vigneti delle Dolomiti

 

Estate Marchese Gonzaga

 

Trentino Alto-Adige

 

San Leonardo 2015

 

The iconic wine of the estate, with its roots deep in its centuries-old history.  A classic Bordeaux blend of breed, aristocratic elegance, and extraordinary longevity.

 

Grape Varieties:  60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Carmenère, 10% Merlot

 

Tasting Notes

 

Intense ruby red color with garnet highlights. A wine of remarkable intensity on the nose, which layers bell peppers and wild berries over a background note of vanilla. The palate is full, warm and impressively rounded, with intense aromatics that linger on the palate.

 

Fermentation:  Spontaneous 15/18 day fermentation in small concrete vats with periodic pumpovers and délestage.

 

Maturation:  24 months in new, once, and twice used French oak barrels

 

Cellarability:  30 Years and more.

 

 

San Leonardo

 

1724

 

Our 300 Year Old History

 

More than 1000 years ago, it was a monastery, but for over three centuries now San Leonardo has served as the residence of the Marchesi Guerrieri Gonzaga family, its proud custodians.  Today, the San Leonardo estate is a garden of vineyards and roses, protected by the massive barrier of the Alps, which blunt the force of the cold northern winds while the valley floor benefits from, and in turn releases, warmth from nearby Lake Garda.  The tenuta remains an antique world, in which winemaking practices, still uncompromisingly artisanal, yield wines that are true gems of Italy’s wine tradition, marked by freshness, harmony, and an innate elegance.

 

The Family

 

The soul of San Leonardo is embodied in the Guerrieri Gonzaga family, winegrowers here as far back as the 18th century.  They have been intimately involved in every aspect of the estate throughout its long and fascinating history, and its traditions infuse every corner of the property.  Marchese Carlo’s father, a passionate winemaker, first reorganized the estate between the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  But Carlo was the family’s first true winemaker: his love for great wines led him to concentrate on San Leonardo almost all his efforts and time over fifty years.  That passionate love for the vine and its wine he passed on in turn to his son Anselmo, who today directs the family winery, with every decision animated by that love for an estate so beloved by so many generations of his family.

 

The Spirit of San Leonardo

 

 “We are committed to crafting uniquely distinctive wines that will eloquently express their terroir and will convey our own spirit and personality, thanks to our painstaking attention to every individual detail, our striving for uncompromising quality, our meticulous management of the vineyards, and our patient work in the cellar”  Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga 

 

The Terroir Di San Leonardo

 

The estate covers an overall area of 300 hectares, of which the vineyards, planted to red grapes beginning at an elevation of 150 metres, amount to 30 hectares.  Merlot is planted in pebble-rich soils that were once the bed of a tributary of the Adige, while Cabernet Sauvignon and the old vineyards of Carmenère are in predominantly sandy soils.  All are well-drained, low-fertility soils that yield wines with truly unusual levels of anthocyanins, and not just for the Trentino.  In 2015, San Leonardo launched a project of conversion to organic viticulture, which concluded successfully in late 2018 with the award of official certification.  In the same year, the BWA Friends of Biodiversity organization certified San Leonardo as a Friend of Biodiversity, testifying to San Leonardo ́s deep commitment to preserving the character of its growing area.

 

The Climate

 

The estate lies in the Adige river valley, between the slopes of Monte Baldo and the Lessini Mountains.  Winter snows often cover the vineyards, protecting them from severe cold, while during the vine’s growth period, a particularly felicitous climate favours cluster development and ripening of the grapes.  Day-night temperature differentials, significant even in the summer months, not only heighten grape aromatics but also extend the ripening period.  During the entire year, and particularly during the hottest months, the Ora del Garda wind blows over the vineyards, warming and drying the leaves, thus protecting them from fungal diseases - a true gift of nature.

 

The Vines & Breeding Forms

 

On the estate, the family has always grown international varieties.  Carmenère, planted initially in the mid-1800s, is the true soul of San Leonardo wines; trained both on pergolas as well as to the guyot system, it gives character and identity to San Leonardo.  Merlot, here since the early 1900s and trained to both pergola and spurred cordon, gives the wine its roundedness and smooth texture.  Cabernet Sauvignon, finally, which Marchese Carlo planted in 1978, is trained exclusively to spurred cordon, and provides structure and elegance.  Vine densities vary, depending on the training system, with guyot and spurred cordon at 6,200 vines per hectare and double pergolas at 1,800 vines.

 

The Harvest

 

The harvest, the most delicate moment of the year, takes place between mid-September and late October.  The grapes are tasted and analyzed on a daily basis to determine their optimal ripeness, on which will depend the sublime elegance of our wines.  The clusters are picked and immediately transported to the wine cellar, where they are de-stemmed, pressed, and quickly put right into the tanks to preserve their freshness and aromas.

 

The Vinification Winery

 

The venerable fermentation cellar contains just vats built of concrete.  Here, the red wines start fermentation spontaneously, without the help of technology or of cultured yeasts.  These fermentations generally last not more than 15/18 days, during which they undergo multiple pumpovers and délestage.  Once the fermentations are complete, the wine is drawn off and the remaining pomace is gently pressed under the watchful eye of San Leonardo’s cellar workers, who have passed down this art from generation to generation.

 

The Barricaia Cellar 

 

As is often the case with older wine estates, the cellars are arranged on different levels.  From the courtyard, one enters the fermentation cellar, which contains concrete vats, on several levels, built right after the First World War.  Recently, the more ancient underground cellar, in the heart of the borgo, was re-structured, along with its large vats where lots of wine are blended.  Only the underground barrel cellar, constructed in 2001, enjoys one large, dedicated space; here the wines undergo maturation, resting for at least 24 months in small oak barrels.

 

The San Leonardo Winery Library

 

Lying in the heart of the winery is the estate’s wine library, which preserves, under perfect conditions, bottles of all the vintages made by San Leonardo, starting from its opening year in 1982.  Every year, numerous bottles are stacked here, in various sizes, which will continue to refine and improve, each according to its own character.  These vintage-dated wines will be released, in small lots, but only when they are able to express in perfect harmony their individual personality and the elegance that is their hallmark.

 

The People

 

In the ancient borgo of San Leonardo live families who from generation to generation have passed down their knowledge of the earth and the art of working it.  Many of those who work with the Guerrieri Gonzaga family in the creation of the estate's wines were actually born and raised in San Leonardo.  They are the ones who determine its shape and identity, and one feels that sense of harmony and belonging as soon as one passes through the gates of the tenuta.