Tenuta San Leonardo

The Tenuta San Leonardo has been described as a magical spot, and that aura is the fruit of a long progression of important events that have taken place within its walls, with the first being the wedding between the beautiful Principessa Teodolinda, daughter of the King of Bavaria, and Autari, King of the Lombards. That happened in 588 AD.

But to stay within the ambit of fully-documented events, the first testimony of the existence of this spot dates to 900 AD, when the Bishop of Verona granted to his colleague in Trento woods, vineyards, and meadowlands located in Campi Sarni. This modest fief then passed to the Frati Crociferi in 1215, a religious order quite widespread in Europe in the Late Middle Ages; the monks built their monastery here and launched agricultural operations that were quite successful for that time.

Remains of the monastery can still be seen: the Romanesque apse, with its exterior hanging arches and traces of a 13th-century fresco inside, and the refectory for the poor, which is a refuge today for barrels of wine. Various documents cast light on the agricultural activities and on the very diverse crops that were part of the daily existence of the borgo, above all viticulture.

In 1656, the de Gresti, a noble Trento family, took over the property, and became its owners in 1724. The monastery then became a borgo, a small hamlet, whose goal was to achieve the self-sufficiency in food products that those times required. This meant not only the basic foodstuffs and animal husbandry but also the more remunerative raising of silkworms. That world remained in force actually up to 1900 and beyond

During World War I, the villa at San Leonardo served as the headquarters of the 29th Corps of the Italian army. On 20 October 1918, Austrian Captain Kamillo Ruggera, accompanied by a trumpeter and a sergeant carrying a white flag, presented themselves at the front line; they were blindfolded and ushered into the headquarters. They carried a request for an armistice. Over the next few days, terms for the armistice were negotiated by Colonel Schneller, Frigate Captain Principe Von Liecthtenstein, and Captain Ruggera, who accepted the armistice terms, confirmed by the supreme command of the Austro-Hungarian army.

On 3 November, the signatories left San Leonardo and went to the Villa Giusti in Abano, where, the next day, they signed the armistice that for Italy meant the end of the First World War.

The ancient family name, and here we are speaking of before 1400, was Terzi, but that was changed to Guerrieri, or Warriors, after one of the family, Niccolò son of Ottobono, played a major role in 1445 in the conquering the fortress of Rocco, in Le Marche.

In merit of this achievement, and for the valour that he displayed in preceding battles, he was known as Guerriero, a name his descendants assumed and a clear reference to the family motto, Belli ac Pacis Amator, Lover of War and Peace.

In that same year, Niccolò went to the Gonzaga court in Mantua and offered his services to the noble family, as did his son Ludovico. Marchese Francesco rewarded the latter by granting him, in 1506, the right to add to his own name that of the Gonzaga, with their coat-of-arms, as well as the title of Marchese.

Only in 1894, however, did the Guerrieri Gonzaga family take up regular residence in Trento, when Marchese Tullo, grandfather of Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, married Gemma de Gresti, whose family had owned the Tenuta San Leonardo for almost two centuries. It was their son Anselmo who cast a more business-like eye on the property.

He reduced the number of different crops, and particularly that of milk, in order to focus on its viticultural production, which was already considerable, as documented by extant wine labels from the 1800s, testifying to international wines such as Burgundy, Rulander, Chablis, and Riesling, wines that supplied the Imperial Austrian court in the first half of the 19th century.

We must wait for Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, however, to meet the first technically-adept family member. His training was directed not only by what was required to personally manage the family agricultural concern, but above all by a lively curiosity for the world’s great wines, with Bordeaux in first place.

This interest led to his decision to study oenology in Lausanne, and to deepen his knowledge with research trips to France and Tuscany. In other words, Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga’s commitment to the winegrowing profession was deeply international in spirit, as is that of his entire family.

Today, Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga has spent nearly fifty years dedicating almost all of his time, energy, and attention to the Tenuta San Leonardo.

Nothing escapes his benevolent supervision, whether that involves management of the vineyard or the various steps in the winemaking process, or the harvest, or contact with the world of his wines’ loyal friends and customers.

For some years now, his son Anselmo has been fully involved as well with the winery, like his father passionately committed to the Trentino area, to its cultural and physical landscapes, to its distinctive fragrances, even though he often has to separate himself from it to introduce the family’s wines to far-off lands.

It is not difficult to fall in love with this corner of earth. The winery lies in the southern portion of the Trentino region, just a few steps from the border with the Veneto, in what was once a fief of the Church, but today is a small hamlet synonymous with one of Italy’s most historic wine producers.

Here we are in the Vallagarina, and along a provincial road that flanks the left bank of the Adige river a modest church seems to nod to a place out of the ordinary.

Next to it a gate and a low circuit wall introduce the world of San Leonardo. In this small village of times past, a spacious courtyard is embraced by large, traditional Trentino-style houses containing offices, the cellar, the ancient granary renovated into a museum, agricultural equipment storage and service area for the estate vehicles, or actually the small fleet of camouflage-covered Fiat 500s for staff use in moving about the property, a nicely-understated noble gesture.

And then there is the collection of early-20th-century historical tractors, whose star is the celebrated semi-diesel Landini tractor. Finally, the meticulously-tended, ultra-spacious truck garden, yielding its vegetables, medicinal herbs, and flowers for the house.

Looking a bit farther, the tree-lined boulevard comes into view, as well as the lake, park, the vineyards, the garden filled with rosebushes, and the Villa de Gresti--a magic-filled mosaic that is the fruit of incessant but discreet dedication, never interrupted over so many years, a complex of elegance, proportion, and fine balance, and thus in perfect syntony with the wines--everything the concrete expression of a world intensely loved and experienced personally.

Higher up, finally, the imposing masses of the Monti Lessini, whose denizens--deer, stag, and chamois--descend not at all infrequently in search of tasty leaves to satisfy their hunger. These are the mountains that protect the estate from the cold north winds, 300 hectares that every day enjoy the beneficent effects of the Ora breezes blowing up from Lake Garda and bringing with them the tempering influences that create a unique and favourable climate. 

Tenuta San Leonardo, then, is a northerly spot, where winter’s snow often blankets that small earthly paradise, vineyards and all. But when the growing season of the vines begins afresh, it provides a blessed climate, one that encourages development of the clusters and the ripening of their berries. And the substantial temperature swings between day and night, which even in summer is notable, not only gives depth to the grapes’ aromatics, but it slows the ripening process, so that the harvest begins only in late September, to last through all of October.

Then there are the vineyards, 25 hectares in all. Sited at a relatively low elevation of 150 metres, merlot is planted in gravel-rich soils that were once the bed of a branch of the Adige. Sandier, pH-neutral soils, at elevations of 150-200 metres, host cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and the venerable carmenère vineyards.

All of the vineyards are in well-drained, nutrient-poor soils that yield grapes whose wines boast levels of anthocyanins that are unusually high, and not just for the Trentino.So distinctive is this feature that this area, once called Campi Sarni, should have its own officially-recognised identity.

Grapevines have been growing in Campi Sarni since 900 AD, but everything changes, and today San Leonardo’s viticultural philosophy dictates vine-rows that follow the contours of the slopes, in order to capture as much sunlight as possible.Vine densities vary according to the period in which the vineyards were planted and to the training system.

Vineyards trained to Guyot and to spurred cordon have 6,600 vines per hectare, and yield a maximum for 60 quintals per hectare, while those trained to the Trentino double pergola are at 1,750 per hectare, which includes the carmenère. To yield really top-quality fruit, this variety needs severe pruning, which limits the crop to no more than 90 quintals per hectare.

As often happens to operations with venerable histories behind them, the cellars have come to occupy various spaces in different levels within the old borgo. The barricaia, however, enjoys a space of significant dimensions for all of the barrels needed for the maturations, as well as a rather unusual entrance-way. The latter seems almost a small divertissement that reveals an aspect of the Guerrieri Gonzaga family character: in the modest space apparently dedicated exclusively to the older vintages of San Leonardo, all laid out in racks, there is a very private passageway that leads into the barrel room. It opens into this large subterranean space, characterised by a series of low arches, where hundreds of small barrels are stacked, the repositories of the Tenuta’s wines.

Behind the seductive capabilities of the Marchese Guerrieri Gonzaga wines, however, there is no need to conjure up possible secret recipes or ultra-sophisticated, latest-generation equipment. The required level of temperature and humidity are maintained by the barricaia’s semi-subterranean location, while in the fermentation cellar, at ground level, one sees just cement vats, where the fermentations take place and the wines spend the first phases of their life. Ceaseless monitoring ensures the correct progress of the fermentations, always kept at low temperatures; of the macerations, lasting some two weeks, which help to extract only the finest tannins; and of the frequent pumpovers carried out every day. This is, then, a winemaking cellar that still displays an exquisitely artisanal character, with not a trace of cold electronics. But it is also true that not a single thing is left to chance. The fermentation temperatures are always kept low, and the wines that are quietly evolving in barrels are monitored on a daily basis.

Another historic area is that housing the large Slavonian oak botti; once the refectory of monks, today it is a maturation cellar of striking appeal, with its galleries that date back to the 1500s. Maturation of the various lots of wine is carried out separately, and the final blends, each with different proportions reflecting the varying characteristics of each growing year, are assembled only just before bottling, after rigorous tastings of each and every barrel.

The evolution of Tenuta San Leonardo wines over these last thirty years of history owes much to two outstanding figures, true stars of Italy’s wine world; both have made significant contributions to the success of a uniquely Trentino style that has gained the attention of the world.

In 1984, Marchese Guerrieri Gonzaga began to rely on the professional advice of Giacomo Tachis, a renowned Italian wine expert, at that time working as a consultant for Piero Antinori. Antinori, moved by his friendship with Marchese Carlo, was happy to offer him the valuable support that Tachis represented.

That became a long-lasted collaboration, based on exchanges of ideas and approaches regarding crucial phases in the winemaking process and in assembling blends, a relationship that bore fruit through 1999.

In that year, Giacomo Tachis decided to substantially reduce his professional workload, and he suggested that the collaboration be now entrusted to one of the rising generation’s most brilliant exponents, Carlo Ferrini, and in fact, Ferrini has been assisting the winery now in its activities since 2000.

Ferrini possesses a strong background in agronomy as well, and thus he not only follows the winemaking on a regular basis, observing the evolution of the wines, but he spends a great deal of time in the vineyards too, supervising management practices in the existing vineyards and overseeing new plantings.

The vineyards also receive the attention of consultants Marco Simonit and Pierpaolo Sirch, the famous “Preparatori d’Uva” team of pruning experts, whose innovative pruning practices help the vines handle more naturally an operation which by its very nature is a drastic operation, and in effect prolong the vines’ productive life. But every day, since far-off 1970, witnesses the presence in the winery of Luigino Tinelli, manager of the Tenuta and right hand to Marchese Carlo. He is the one who puts into actual practice the professional advice advanced by the winery’s consultants. Not only is his technical expertise crucial to success, but also represents the priceless “memory” of the production history of each of the wines that the Tenuta has made over the last 40 years.