TENUTA LUCE | La Vite Lucente | Toscana | 2017
merlot | sangiovese

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When Vittorio Frescobaldi met Robert Mondavi in the early Nineties, he gave life to a new chapter in the history of great Tuscan wines. 25 years later a wine was born inspired by the desire to make a dream come true. This ambitious project was later named Luce della Vite – a name that evoked the light of Montalcino wine region, the light of the sun itself, that is a source of life and nourishment, and marks the passage of the seasons, giving rhythm to each agricultural activity.

Tonight we are going to review a wine that we were eager to try for quite some time – a genuine Super Tuscan wine – La Vite Lucente Toscana 2017 by Tenuta Luce. Placed on the gentle hills south-west of the village of Montalcino, the vineyards of Tenuta Luce are in an area rich in biodiversity, with an exceptional vocation for vine growing. Lucente is Luce’s second wine, the result of a careful selection of sangiovese and merlot grapes that capable to deliver the local expression of terroir in a contemporary style. The grapes are sourced from the estate’s famous clayey soils and in order to make the wine more appealing, sangiovese grapes were blended with merlot – a grape variety that is gaining popularity in Toscana region. The wine was aged for 12 months in partially new and partially used oak barriques, with additional ageing in the bottle. That said, without further ado, let’s take a look at the wine tasting results.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

//Visual
colour: deep ruby
clarity: hazy ruby

//Olfactory
intensity: powerful & clean
fruit profile: red fruits | black fruits
__red fruits: sour cherry | red plum | cranberry | red currant
__black fruits: black cherry | blackcurrant | black plum | blackberry
fruit character: overripe

//Flavor
non fruit: spice | oak | earth | other
__spice: red pepper | paprika | nutmeg | bell pepper
__oak: roasted oakwood
__earth: clay
__other: leather
__wood: old & new / medium roasted

//Palate
sweetness: dry
acidity: high
alcohol: med(+)
tannin: med(+)
__grip: fine & green
balance: good
__dominant: alcohol & acidity
body: round | medium

//Taste
fruit profile: red fruits
fruit character: ripe
non fruit: spice
finish: med(+)
aftertaste: velvety & seedy

//Scoring
TENUTA LUCE | La Vite Lucente | Toscana | 2017
variety: merlot | sangiovese
country: Italy | Toscana
region: Montalcino
rating: 92.8

//Conclusion
maturity: on the rise | developing
verdict: great | a must try
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This is definitely a great wine of Italy and, with a total of 92.8 points scored, this wine is right there, among the best wines we’ve rated so far. Check our complete database on the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines that we have tasted and reviewed or go to the about us page and find out more about our exquisite rating system.

Verdict: this is a classic Super Tuscan wine: fruity-seedy, round and plump – a wine that is still on the rise, as it has yet to reach the summit of its prime form, thus one that requires another 3 to 5 years of bottle ageing. With fine and slightly green tannins, mouth-watering acidity and some pronounced alcoholic warmth on the mouthfeel, this wine is a fine example of how tradition and technology can be mixed together. The wine feels supple, lean and noble, with a medium body (slightly opulent in fact) and a crisp finale. All in all, the wine lacks maybe just a bit of structure on tha plate, still it does deliver a plethora of primary fruit flavours that are amazingly well complemented by those terrior-driven, earthy notes and subtle hints of noble wood in the background, which makes it a blueprint Super Tuscan wine that has both, distinctive personality and the footprint of the Montalcino’s terroir. Salute!
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