Wine Advocate
byMonica Larnerthe2/22/2022
A blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Sangiovese, the Tenuta Luce 2019 Lucente reveals a very pretty dark ruby color over medium concentration. The wine boasts a very lively bouquet with plump cherry fruit, blackberry, sweet spice and toast. At its core, Lucente is a contemporary and international wine with elegant Italian styling and evergreen appeal in both domestic and foreign markets. This softly layered Italian red would pair with your favorite dishes at your neighborhood Italian restaurant. It ages in new and neutral oak for 12 months. An ambitious 400,000 bottles were released at an attractive price point.
Owned by the Frescobaldi family, this estate has weathered a billion mind-bending name changes over the years, all linked to the concept of light, or "luce" in Italian. My editors and I sat down to try to clean up the database and merge wines from a brand that existed as Luce, Luce delle Vita and Tenuta Luce at various points (with common and understandable misspellings such as Luce della Vita or Luce delle Vite). The word "viti" is "vines" in Italian, and "vita" is life. The top-shelf Tuscan red blend they make has been named Luce or Luce delle Vita at various times. To make things even more confusing, the estate introduced a new wine (with, you guessed it, another "light versus vines" inspired moniker) called Lux Vitis. You'll find that reviewed here. Dealing with the name/branding overlaps has been a game of three-dimensional chess, but we hope we've been able to make sense of it. Big exhale.