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Buy Wine from Jean Leon
Jean Leon was born as the benchmark of great wines for aging in the Penedés. From the hand of the intrepid, adventurous and enterprising Santander-born Angel Ceferino Carrión Madrazo; born in 1928, he moved to Barcelona with his family at the early age of 12 due to the great fire that his hometown suffered; at 18 he traveled to France in search of fortune working as a waiter and finally embarked as a stowaway in the early 60's in search of the American Dorado: New York in the first instance and later and to avoid being posted to the Korean War, to the Hollywood of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Liz Taylor and so many other glamorousactors. He was a visionary and clever man who decided to create "La Scala", the restaurant where celebrities could always find a table and a dish to eat no matter what time of day it was.
Jean Leon had the restaurant but he lacked his wine, the wine for his customers, the perfect complement that he devised taking advantage as always of the best of each place: the great wines that he had drunk from Bordeaux but made in Spain...in lands easily adapted for those vines and above all with a climate and type of soil with a certain similarity, as the University of Davis confirmed. It was then when he decided to settle in Torrelavit in the Penedés, in a complex of 150 hectares of which only a little more than sixty are cultivated, in the purest style of Bordeaux Château ; with full conviction, the adventure did not have an easy start given that in the first purchase of grafts of vines he was deceived but true to his spirit and with his lifelong winemaker and the person who knows more about the winery and its history, Jaume Rovira, they returned to France to "get" the material he wanted: without revealing names, we will say that they were vines from the best and most renowned Bordeaux Châteaux packed in the trunk of a Seat 124 and crossing the border in a very similar way to the way he arrived in America. In 1963 they decided to uproot the existing vines on the purchased land and plant new Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Chardonnay; from the very first moment the concept of a French-style estate with four clearly differentiated Cru'swas born: The "La Scala" vineyard with very poor and calcareous clay soils where only Cabernet Sauvignon is found and from which the Gran Reserva will be produced; "Le Havre" with a very similar composition to the previous one but where in addition to Cabernet Sauvignon there is also planted Cabernet Franc and which is dedicated to the production of the Reserva; "Gigi" is a vineyard dedicated exclusively to Chardonnay and with soils combined between sand and silt; finally "Viña Santander" is planted exclusively with Merlot. It should be noted that the work in the vineyard is carried out manually and there is a clear ecological conscience, not using pesticides or herbicides in the vineyards.
Jean Leon has a modern winery and has stainless steel tanks for the fermentation of its wines as well as a subway cellar where the most emblematic wines are aged in barrels.
The first vintage marketed was 1969, quite tannic and hard to drink, followed by wonderful 70's like 71, 75, 78 and 79 but it was not until 1975 when the wine began to be marketed in Spain, the rest of the production being destined entirely to the American market. In 1979 and in agreement with a prestigious professor from the University of Davis, the idea was to produce a Gran Reserva made with stems and not to be consumed before 20 years after its production: a milestone that made very clear the winery's vocation for true aged wines. The 80's followed and with it a Jean Leon wine for the celebration of Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration in 1981. The period of Jean Leon' s own decline began in the 90's, when he finally died in 1997, although it was in 1995 when the winery was acquired by the Torres groupdue to the refusal of his sons to continue with the winery.
Jean Leon' s great wines were and still are the Reserva and Gran Reserva: authentic aged wines that in blind tastings can be confused with some of the best historic Bordeaux wines (do not hesitate to get hold of a bottle from the 70's or 80's if you can and relive the authentic spirit of their creator!) As a result of the damned fashions there was an incursion, only in two vintages, very Parkerized called Zemis that had neither fortune nor continuity although it aimed at very high prices and sacrificed both in 2000 and 2003 the grapes that were destined for the Gran Reserva. The new line of young wines aimed at markets with lower purchasing power is Terrasola.
Jean Leon: the first and only Château Bordelais in the Penedès!
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Buy Wine from Jean Leon
Jean Leon was born as the benchmark of great wines for aging in the Penedés. From the hand of the intrepid, adventurous and enterprising Santander-born Angel Ceferino Carrión Madrazo; born in 1928, he moved to Barcelona with his family at the early age of 12 due to the great fire that his hometown suffered; at 18 he traveled to France in search of fortune working as a waiter and finally embarked as a stowaway in the early 60's in search of the American Dorado: New York in the first instance and later and to avoid being posted to the Korean War, to the Hollywood of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Liz Taylor and so many other glamorousactors. He was a visionary and clever man who decided to create "La Scala", the restaurant where celebrities could always find a table and a dish to eat no matter what time of day it was.
Jean Leon had the restaurant but he lacked his wine, the wine for his customers, the perfect complement that he devised taking advantage as always of the best of each place: the great wines that he had drunk from Bordeaux but made in Spain...in lands easily adapted for those vines and above all with a climate and type of soil with a certain similarity, as the University of Davis confirmed. It was then when he decided to settle in Torrelavit in the Penedés, in a complex of 150 hectares of which only a little more than sixty are cultivated, in the purest style of Bordeaux Château ; with full conviction, the adventure did not have an easy start given that in the first purchase of grafts of vines he was deceived but true to his spirit and with his lifelong winemaker and the person who knows more about the winery and its history, Jaume Rovira, they returned to France to "get" the material he wanted: without revealing names, we will say that they were vines from the best and most renowned Bordeaux Châteaux packed in the trunk of a Seat 124 and crossing the border in a very similar way to the way he arrived in America. In 1963 they decided to uproot the existing vines on the purchased land and plant new Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Chardonnay; from the very first moment the concept of a French-style estate with four clearly differentiated Cru'swas born: The "La Scala" vineyard with very poor and calcareous clay soils where only Cabernet Sauvignon is found and from which the Gran Reserva will be produced; "Le Havre" with a very similar composition to the previous one but where in addition to Cabernet Sauvignon there is also planted Cabernet Franc and which is dedicated to the production of the Reserva; "Gigi" is a vineyard dedicated exclusively to Chardonnay and with soils combined between sand and silt; finally "Viña Santander" is planted exclusively with Merlot. It should be noted that the work in the vineyard is carried out manually and there is a clear ecological conscience, not using pesticides or herbicides in the vineyards.
Jean Leon has a modern winery and has stainless steel tanks for the fermentation of its wines as well as a subway cellar where the most emblematic wines are aged in barrels.
The first vintage marketed was 1969, quite tannic and hard to drink, followed by wonderful 70's like 71, 75, 78 and 79 but it was not until 1975 when the wine began to be marketed in Spain, the rest of the production being destined entirely to the American market. In 1979 and in agreement with a prestigious professor from the University of Davis, the idea was to produce a Gran Reserva made with stems and not to be consumed before 20 years after its production: a milestone that made very clear the winery's vocation for true aged wines. The 80's followed and with it a Jean Leon wine for the celebration of Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration in 1981. The period of Jean Leon' s own decline began in the 90's, when he finally died in 1997, although it was in 1995 when the winery was acquired by the Torres groupdue to the refusal of his sons to continue with the winery.
Jean Leon' s great wines were and still are the Reserva and Gran Reserva: authentic aged wines that in blind tastings can be confused with some of the best historic Bordeaux wines (do not hesitate to get hold of a bottle from the 70's or 80's if you can and relive the authentic spirit of their creator!) As a result of the damned fashions there was an incursion, only in two vintages, very Parkerized called Zemis that had neither fortune nor continuity although it aimed at very high prices and sacrificed both in 2000 and 2003 the grapes that were destined for the Gran Reserva. The new line of young wines aimed at markets with lower purchasing power is Terrasola.
Jean Leon: the first and only Château Bordelais in the Penedès!