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Tenuta di San Leonardo, in Borghetto all’Adige (Trento), dates as far back as 500 A.D., when Autari, the king of the Lombards, married Theodolinda, the daughter of the king of Bavaria; furthermore, the toponym “San Leonardo” was already included in the X century maps.
The settlement of the Crociferi friars dates back to that very period. They built a small convent there and later began the cultivation of vines.

The estate was eventually sold in the XVIII century to the de Gresti family and finally became a property of Marquis Guerrieri Gonzaga in the XIX – they’re still the current owners, through the descendants Anselmo, Carlo and, again, Anselmo, who bears the name of his grandfather.

That family has always strived to achieve high levels of quality by enhancing their vineyards and the very varieties of grapes; that was possible thanks to a painstaking selection of the selection crops while respecting nature and the surrounding environment.

The vineyard area of the estate extends over 62 acres and features a peculiar and consistent “terroir”; the latter is basically a series of fluvial terraces, with sandy sediments shaped by alluvial fans. The soils are rich in pebbles and well-drained, as they happened to be the bed of a branch of the Adige River; they also feature calcareous clay and low fertility: an ideal condition for a balanced and harmonious development of the plants.

The vine rows are planted in different ways, but always follow the natural slopes to make the most of the sunlight. The planting density varies according to each different grape variety: 6.600 plants per hectare, per row, guyot and spurred cordon trained vineyards. Over the years, the vineyards have been regularly renewed and planted in rotation, in order to guarantee a certain number of plants with optimal age suitable for high-quality grapes.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)