Tenuta San Leonardo, Cabernet Franc, 2020

Part of the legend of San Leonardo is the discovery in the 1990 that vines across the estate previously believed to be Cabernet Franc were in fact Carménère – which, whilst associated more with Chilé than Trentino, is more widely planted in Northern Italy than you might imagine. As Carménère was not a permitted variety in the region at the time, San Leonardo continued the fiction that the blend was Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The last vintage that was labelled as such was 2010…

However, there does exist at San Leonardo a solitary 0.5ha vineyard, planted in 1989, using the traditional pergola system, that is in fact 100% Cabernet Franc. In the past it has been added in very small quantities to enhance the estate’s other wines, until now.

San Leonardo’s longstanding consultant winemaker Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy’s most respected oenologists, was so impressed by the quality of this Cabernet Franc from the 2020 vintage that he believed it deserved to be brought into the spotlight and vinified as a single variety. Our dear friend Anselmo, knowing Honest Grapes’ enthusiasm for special projects, has generously offered us complete exclusivity. Carlo Ferrini’s eagerness alone is good enough for us (more recently he has masterminded La Giodo in Brunello, one of the region’s most exciting addresses).

“An intense perfume leaps from the glass – tight bunches of cool red and black cherries, pot pourri, cloves, tamarind, soy, kirsch, mocha, pencil lead, wood smoke, forest floor and ivy. The palate is similarly explosive, and balances a rich but controlled centre of dark chocolate-coated liqueur cherries, black plums, and polished leather, with long savoury, sappy tannins, inflected with notes of hoi-sin and cedar, leading to a tapered, salted liquorice finish. Carlo Ferrini singled the 2020 Cabernet Franc out as being of such quality to warrant a single variety wine. This is the first ever vintage produced in over twenty years since being planted.”
Tom Harrow, Head Wine Guru