Where Napa and Montalcino met: the birth of Luce
At the beginning of the 1990s, Vittorio Frescobaldi and Robert Mondavi met — a Tuscan Marchese with eight hundred years of winemaking tradition behind him and an American wine pioneer from the Napa Valley. Their first joint project: Tenuta Luce della Vite, founded in Montalcino. The first vintage was released in 1993. The idea was bold: not just another Brunello, but a wine that combined the depth of Montalcino with the lush fruit of a Burgundian grape variety — Sangiovese and Merlot, Old and New World in one glass. The name Luce, Italian for light, stood for the sunlight over the hills of the Val d'Orcia, which determines the rhythm and character of the vineyards.
After the death of Robert Mondavi and the dissolution of the original partnership in the early 2000s, the Frescobaldi family took full control of the Tenuta. Lamberto Frescobaldi, son of the founder and current president of the Frescobaldi Group, officially took over management in 2005. Since then, he has been responsible for all production decisions — from the vineyard to the final assemblage. In 2016, Tenuta Luce acquired a centrally located property in the heart of the estate and built a modern underground cellar there, which also houses the Luce Collection: a library of all the Tenuta's vintages.
Biodynamic thinking, precise manual work and an underground cellar
Tenuta Luce has been farming organically since 2013, and the estate has been officially organic-certified since 2015. Behind this decision is not a marketing strategy, but a clear stance: anyone who wants to bring Montalcino into the bottle in its purest form must protect the soil on which they work. The vineyards are located at an altitude of 350 to 420 meters in the southwest of Montalcino, with a southern exposure, long, warm summers and cool nights — a constellation that promotes slow ripening and aromatic complexity. The Galestro soil in the higher altitudes favors Sangiovese, while deeper, clay- and sand-rich sections are reserved for Merlot, whose cuttings the Frescobaldis introduced from Bordeaux in the 1970s.
In the vineyard, chief oenologist Stefano Ruini relies on consistent thinning and manual harvesting with multiple selections. In the new underground cellar, the wines are aged in French oak barrels — for around 24 months in the case of the flagship Luce. The underground architecture is no coincidence: constant temperature, natural humidity, minimal technical intervention. On some Sangiovese plots in the Brunello area, pruning is now completely dispensed with — the vine regulates its own growth.
Three wines, one address: the range of Luce della Vite
Tenuta Luce produces three wines with a clearly defined character. The flagship Luce Toscana IGT was the first Merlot-Sangiovese blend ever created in Montalcino — a Super Tuscan with the structure and cool salinity of the location and the dark-fruited fullness of Merlot: black cherry, blackberry, violet, fine spice. The Brunello di Montalcino comes from the Madonnino vineyard and is a classic, one hundred percent Sangiovese — tighter acidity, denser tannins, the typical iron character of this DOCG zone. Lucente, the third in the group, is more accessible in its youth, also a cuvée of Sangiovese and Merlot, but with less aging time — an entry into the world of the Tenuta without compromising on the connection to its origin. All three show what Luce's intention was from the beginning: not to copy Montalcino, but to rethink it.
