Telmo Rodriguez, Yjar 2019 vs Tenuta San Leonardo, San Leonardo 2008

Compare current tracked prices, stockists and core specifications. Telmo Rodriguez, Yjar 2019 currently starts £0.50 lower.

AvailabilityIn stockIn stock
Best current price£116.00£116.50
Current stockists1 merchant1 merchant
ProducerTelmo RodriguezTenuta San Leonardo
StyleRedRed
GrapeGrenache, Garnacha, TempranilloMerlot, Cabernet Sauvignon
Size750ml750ml
Where to buy

Telmo Rodriguez, Yjar 2019

Yjar is very much continuing the trailblazing trajectory set by its inaugural release in 2017, which was the first Spanish wine ever offered via La Place. Telmo Rodriguez is in our opinion Rioja's most exciting winemaker. We've worked with Telmo for a few years now, and it's been an honour to represent some of the incredible wines from his Remelluri and Lanzaga vineyards. Telmo's style of Rioja is almost unique in the region, using minimal oak and preferring to let the purity of fruit do the talking. His chief ambition, he has told us, was to craft wines that are just as profound as the great crus of Bordeaux. We say was, as with the Yjar, clearly he has achieved that.

Tenuta San Leonardo, San Leonardo 2008

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 collea

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