Tenuta San Leonardo, San Leonardo, 2018 - Half-bottle
Tenuta San Leonardo, San Leonardo, 2018 - Half-bottle
- 37.5cl
- 13.5%
- Red Still
- Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Merlot
- Organic
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Optimal drinking window: 2026 - 2038
After banging the drum for the Guerrieri Gonzaga family’s remarkable (and remarkably consistent) Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend for the last fifteen years, we relish each new endorsement and instance of critical appreciation and Jancis’ is the just the latest in a long line of articles from major critics. As a reminder...
The wines of San Leonardo are more akin to Bordeaux than Bolgheri with their balance and purity and (said the late and greatly respected Italian specialist Nicolas Belfrage) "can have an elegance-cum-depth capable of taking on the best clarets of the world". Jancis clearly agrees, noting latterly the wine’s “astoundingly consistent quality” and how each vintage is “beautifully low-key and like the most refined red bordeaux imaginable”, determining it is "Surely the most successful Bordeaux blend of Northern Italy”.
The Wine Advocate’s Monica Larner calls it “… one of the great wines of Italy… Sassicaia and San Leonardo seem like brothers separated in childhood” after James Suckling had previously made the comparison referring to San Leonardo as “The Sassicaia of the North”. The comparison is more than skin deep as San Leonardo’s owner Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, a rare example (at the time) of a professionally-trained aristocrat-oenologist, spent time at Tenuta San Guido back in the 1960s helping create Sassicaia with legendary consultant, Giacomo Tachis, whom he subsequently employed at his own estate. The estate has received the top ‘Tre Bicchiere’ rating from Gambero Rosso for an unprecedented seventeen vintages, and has twice been voted by aggregate Italy’s top wine release of the year (jointly with Sassicaia, to continue the comparison).
Antonio Galloni weighs in saying “The Guerrieri Gonzaga’s are one of the great families of Italian wine. Over the years, the Guerrieri Gonzaga’s have produced a number of stellar Bordeaux-influenced reds at San Leonardo, many of which I have had the privilege to taste.” Meanwhile his colleague at Vinous, Eric Guido, after a 28-vintage vertical, says “If you enjoy classic Bordeaux, if you enjoy the energy and verve of Italian wine, and if you crave experiencing history in a bottle, then you should seek out Tenuta San Leonardo”. He also concludes “I frankly don’t remember the last time I found so much pleasure in tasting for hours on end”.
"One of my personal favourite Italian wines, unquestionably the top winery in the region and renowned as one of the most consistent – stylistically and qualitatively – in the whole of Italy, YET its wines remain extremely well-priced by comparison to more widely publicised names."
Tom Harrow, Honest Grapes Wine Director
What the critics say:
"From a cool vintage, the 2018 San Leonardo is incredibly fine and beautiful with a filigree of aromas that recalls wild blackberry, tobacco, pressed rosemary, cherry tartlet and orange marmalade. The wine's elegance is extraordinary, and the mouthfeel is very fine and precise. This classic vintage will certainly appeal to San Leonardo purists. I recommend giving it a long runway to age."
"In July, we finally saw a brilliant sun, whose welcome heat warmed a season that was quite wet up to that point and with below-average temperatures,’ said Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga of the 2018 vintage. The newest release of this standout northern Italian red offers complex scents of tobacco, spices, earth and rich, wood-imbued black berries. In the mouth it combines intense concentration with freshness in a vertical sensation of poise and sapidity. Dark, plummy, spicy hedgerow berries are perfectly balanced by bright, moreish acidity and ripe, grainy tannins, with spicy cedar, dried currants and a touch of balsam in depth. Still has so much to give."
The vineyards sit at around 200 metres in the Vallagarina, a valley carved by the Adige river in southern Trentino, sheltered by the Alps to the north. Soils are predominantly alluvial gravel and sand over a clay subsoil, giving excellent drainage and the kind of mineral precision you don't often find in Italian red wine country. The altitude and mountain influence bring wide diurnal temperature swings, preserving natural acidity and aromatic freshness even in warm years — which is exactly why the wine can feel more Médoc than Mediterranean.
San Leonardo falls under the Trentino DOC, a broad appellation covering a wide range of varieties grown across the Adige valley and its tributaries. The DOC permits both indigenous and international varieties, and in practice the zone's most celebrated wines — including San Leonardo itself — are red blends built around Bordeaux grapes. Unlike the better-known Alto Adige DOC immediately to the north, Trentino tends to produce wines with a slightly fuller body and more Mediterranean warmth, though the best sites retain a distinctly Alpine freshness that separates them from anything produced further south in Italy.
The 2018 growing season in Trentino delivered exactly what vintners here dream about: consistent warmth without the punishing heat that can strip mountain wines of their signature freshness. Spring arrived gently, summer stayed steady, and crucially for this altitude-sensitive region, the diurnal temperature swings between the Dolomite peaks kept acidity levels beautifully intact. Harvest stretched leisurely into October, giving winemakers the luxury of patience that separates good vintages from great ones.
What emerged was a vintage that captures Trentino at its most expressive — wines with more concentration than the region typically manages, yet none of that mountain-grown tension has been lost. The Pinot Grigio shows real personality rather than just crisp neutrality, whilst the reds, particularly Teroldego, display a richness that doesn't mask their alpine character. These wines are drinking superbly now, offering immediate pleasure whilst having the structure to reward cellaring until 2028 for the best examples.
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