Jean Leon 3055 Chardonnay, Penedes (Organic)

Description

Jean Leon 3055 Chardonnay is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes. It is part of a range of Jean Leon wines named 3055 after the number of the taxi cab he drove when he first arrived in New York.

Spanish wine legend Jean Leon was born in Santander, moved with his family to Barcelona, and eventually manage to stow away on a ship bound from Le Havre in France to New York. After driving a cab and working as a busboy and waiter he eventually ended up in Hollywood working at the Villa Capri, a tinseltown restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio. Soon he was rubbing shoulders with the good, the bad, politicians and movie stars and on April 1st 1956 he opened La Scala, a very famous Hollywood restaurant, which he co-owned with James Dean. Jean Leon became very interested in wine, indeed La Scala had an underground cellar with some 25,000 bottles in, and soon ended up in his home country of Spain looking to make a signature Jean Leon wine.

Jean Leon bought vineyards in 1962 and completed building a winery in 1963. Leon was a real pioneer in the Spanish wine industry, he immediately grubbed up all the local vines and replanted with single vineyards of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay – in fact, he is credited with being the first to release a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and 100% Chardonnay in Spain. The Torres family (world famous for wines such as Mas La Plana, Milmanda and Fransola) took control of Jean Leon wines in 1994 but the estate continues to be run as a separate entity from rest of their wines and remains true to Leon’s vision.

Today the Jean Leon estate consists of some 63 hectares of vineyards in Penedes at an elevation of 600m. The grapes for Jean Leon 3055 Chardonnay come solely from the estate’s 11 hectare Jean Leon Pago vineyard, from vines planted in 1991. A portion of the wine is fermented in small French barriques and then aged on its lees for 6 months.

Wines produced at the Jean Leon estate are certified organic beginning with the 2012 vintage and viticulture has been organic since 2008.