Nose
The opening nose of this wine is textbook Sangiovese. Strawberries and strawberry preserves dominate the fruit profile backed up by some beautiful floral notes and aromatics you would expect of an old-world Brunello or Chianti such as saddle leather and earth.
Palate
The palate reveals the wine's youth as it is a big, tannic youngster on first taste. This gives way to impressive length, some chalky oak, with a fantastic cutting acidity, focus, and burst of fruit that makes this wine's profile just explode with food.
Growing Conditions
The early season rains during bloom in 2006 caused significant flower "shatter" in all varieties. Sangiovese benefit from this weather condition. Its normal clusters end by being lost (because many of the flowers don't set), resulting in better color, concentration, and complexity.
Winemaking
We are very proud to have this wine in the Leonetti stable, as it is so entirely different from our Bordeaux variety wines and yet so entirely attractive in those differences. We are also tremendously happy with our decision to add an extra 6 months of bottle age, further improving our Sangiovese program, already critically noted as the finest in the US, if not the New World.
Aging
My father Gary and I discussed the need to extend the barrel aging time on our Sangiovese as our vines have aged. We decided that 2006 was the perfect vintage to begin this transition.
