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More wines available from Gonzaga San Leonardo
750ml
Bottle:
$76.72
COLOR: Pronounced ruby red colour with violet highlights.
NOSE: It has remarkable aromatic intensity, with fragrances...
750ml
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$28.32
COLOR: Straw-yellow color with yellow highlights.
NOSE: It is intensely fruity on the nose with fine aromas of...
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The 2011 San Leonardo (Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère and Merlot) is another landmark edition of this celebrated...
375ml
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The 2015 San Leonardo pours forth with a beautiful velvety appearance and sultry dark garnet color. This wine shows a...
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$82.32
The Tenuta San Leonardo 2017 San Leonardo (in a heavy glass bottle) shows subtle but unmistakable generosity and...
More Details
Winery
Gonzaga San Leonardo
Vintage: 2008
2008 saw very high yields across wineries in much of the southern hemisphere, as a result of highly favorable climatic conditions. Although in many areas, these high yields brought with them something of a drop in overall quality, this could not be said for South Australia's wines, which were reportedly excellent. Indeed, the 2008 Shiraz harvest in South Australia is said to be one of the most successful in recent decades, and western Australia's Chardonnays are set to be ones to watch out for. New Zealand's Pinot Noir harvest was also very good, with wineries in Martinborough reportedly very excited about this particular grape and the characteristics it revealed this year.
Pinot Noir also grew very well in the United States, and was probably the most successful grape varietal to come out of California in 2008, with Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley delivering fantastic results from this grape. Elsewhere in United States, Washington State and Oregon had highly successful harvests in 2008 despite some early worries about frost.
However, it was France who had the best of the weather and growing conditions in 2008, and this year was one of the great vintages for Champagne, the Médoc in Bordeaux, Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence, with Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay grapes leading the way. Italy, too, shared many of these ideal conditions, with the wineries in Tuscany claiming that their Chianti Classicos of 2008 will be ones to collect, and Piedmont's Barberesco and Barolo wines will be recognized as amongst the finest of the past decade.
Varietal: Merlot
Merlot has long been a grape associated with excellent quality of character and flavor, and has spread around the globe as a result of its relative hardiness and reliability. From Chile to Bordeaux, Merlot vines grow to ripeness, and end up producing a remarkably wide variety of wines. Single variety wines made from Merlot grapes tend to be beautifully rich in color, and packed full of jammy, hedgerow flavors and notes of plum and currant, and ideal for newcomers to red wines as a result of their medium body. This medium body comes about due to the fact that the skin of Merlot grapes tends to be quite thin, meaning that the tannin content of Merlot wines is lower than those made from other blue-black grapes. The mellowness and roundedness which results is ideal for blending, also, and Merlot is used as a blending grape in some of the world's finest wineries, to produce aged wines of exceptional character.
Region: Trentino/Alto Adige
Trentino-Alto Adige in northern Italy is a beautiful and fascinating wine region, with centuries of viticultural history creating a unique identity and set of flavours and aromas associated with it. Due to its closeness to the Italian borders, there are plenty of international influences found in the wines of Trentino-Alto Adige, most notably coming from the nearby Germanic countries on the other side of the Alps. The Alps play a huge role in the wine culture of the region, as the foothills provide exquisite mountain waters, as well as plenty of interesting soil types on which to grow the vines, resulting in wines full of mountain flavors, alpine aromas and a truly unique character. Wineries in the region love to use the few native grape varietals for their wines, as these are excellent for expressing the unique terroir of Trentino-Alto Adige, however, it is now more common to find better known international varietals listed on bottles, which have helped the world wake up to the wonderful wines of this special region.
Country: Italy
There are few countries in the world with a viticultural history as long or as illustrious as that claimed by Italy. Grapes were first being grown and cultivated on Italian soil several thousand years ago by the Greeks and the Pheonicians, who named Italy 'Oenotria' – the land of wines – so impressed were they with the climate and the suitability of the soil for wine production. Of course, it was the rise of the Roman Empire which had the most lasting influence on wine production in Italy, and their influence can still be felt today, as much of the riches of the empire came about through their enthusiasm for producing wines and exporting it to neighbouring countries. Since those times, a vast amount of Italian land has remained primarily for vine cultivation, and thousands of wineries can be found throughout the entire length and breadth of this beautiful country, drenched in Mediterranean sunshine and benefiting from the excellent fertile soils found there. Italy remains very much a 'land of wines', and one could not imagine this country, its landscape and culture, without it.