Tenuta Luce Brunello is produced from 11 hectares of Sangiovese grapes in the Madonnino Vineyard, a blessed site in Montalcino. The 2017 vintage exhibits superb quality and extraordinary authenticity.
Montalcino, Italy, April 5, 2022 – Tenuta Luce, located in the heart of Val d’Orcia in Tuscany with 11 hectares of vines (27 ac) officially listed in the Brunello di Montalcino Registry, is proud to release the 2017 vintage of Luce Brunello. Created as an homage to Montalcino and its world-renowned winemaking traditions, Luce Brunello is the quintessence of the denomination’s famous wine.
Luce Brunello is the result of a selection of the finest Sangiovese grapes from the Madonnino Vineyard, a blessed site in Montalcino, which benefits from perfect aspect and galestro soil (rocky, schistous clay). The 2017 vintage powerfully expresses the concentration and richness of the growing season’s fruit. Overall, 2017 was hot, dry, and early-phased; Madonnino’s privileged position and its unique climate protected it from excessive weather conditions and ensured an early harvest that brought in perfectly sound and healthy clusters.
Painstaking work in the vineyard and even more attentive wine making efforts resulted in a noble, firmly structured wine, with an elegant garnet-flecked ruby red color, and great ageing potential. Luce Brunello 2017 boasts a vibrant acidity, a smooth, spice-edged texture, and fine-grained, silky tannins that evolve with the wine’s progression, revealing an innate elegance and multi-layered complexity that drive a lengthy and dynamic finish.
“Central to Tenuta Luce’s winemaking philosophy is our continuous, detailed observation of our vineyards aimed at determining the exact moment for harvest,” explained Tenuta Luce winemaker Alessandro Marini. “Thus, we had no hesitation in bringing the start of harvest forward by ten days compared to previous seasons. In the cellar, we devoted great attention to selecting only the best berries, even separating the dry ones from the others, and we then shortened the maceration period to extract just the most noble components from the grapes.”
Tenuta Luce operates with a philosophy of minimal human intervention, using sustainable, non-invasive practices across the entire process of production, from grape growing to winemaking. “Each season deepens our understanding of our environment and our commitment to protecting our delicate ecosystem, to heighten every aspect of this unique territory, starting from the essence of it, the blessed fruit of nature,” added Marini.
“The land is our raw material, that gives shape to everything,” stated Marchese Lamberto Frescobaldi, President of Tenuta Luce and the Frescobaldi group, “We also are the fruit of this unique land in Montalcino, when the Tenuta Luce project started in the 1990s, and it has become our own home. It embodies the idea that wine should be the most natural expression of the territory that raises it, as its own child. Luce Brunello 2017 is the perfect fruit of this vision.”
2017 GROWING SEASON AND VINTAGE PROFILE
The 2017 growing season began with a mild, relatively dry winter, which brought early budbreak. An abrupt drop in temperatures in late April, widespread across Tuscany, caused no damage in the estate vineyards, thanks to their high hillslope elevations. From May through August, little rainfall and an intense heat slowed down vine growth and reduced cluster sizes. Beneficial rains in early September gave some relief to the vines in the later phases of ripening. The harvest, which started approximately ten days earlier than the norm, delivered slightly small but healthy clusters, whose favorable skin-to-juice ratios exhibited significant concentrations of polyphenols and tannins.
Tasting notes
Luce Brunello 2017 shows a shimmering, deep ruby red color. The bouquet on the nose conveys intense aromas of wild red berries, Morello cherry, ripe blood orange, and smooth spices. The palate is immediately rich and enfolding, progressing into superbly integrated tannins. A persistent finish offers an intriguing array of tangy fruit. Overall, Luce Brunello 2017 is a wine of impressive concentration and depth, with great potential for ageing.
Technical background
The Sangiovese grapes were harvested in mid-September. After a 12-day fermentation at 28oC (82.4oF), the wine macerated on the skins for four weeks, followed by maturation in large Slavonian oak barrels for 24 months. 30,000 bottles were produced.
About Tenuta Luce:
Tenuta Luce della Vite lies southwest of the town of Montalcino, in the heart of the Val d’Orcia Natural Park, a rural landscape sensitively re-designed by man in the pre-Renaissance era and declared by UNESCO in 2004 a World Heritage Site. This extraordinary corner of earth, historically renowned for its world-class wines, hosts the 249 hectares of the Luce wine estate, set among woods and olive groves, with 88 hectares of vineyards: a lightly inhabited, near-pristine environment rich in biodiversity. Its beneficial sunlight and well-ventilated conditions, gift of its unique exposure, and its diversity of soils at different elevations all combine to make Tenuta Luce a truly privileged place, where the harmony of all these components is jealousy respected and protected. That respect is reflected in the winemaking as well, where each process of production is performed with meticulous care, in order to preserve the harmony achieved in the vineyard. The fruits of this enlightened philosophy and unique terroir are Tenuta Luce wines Luce, Lucente, Luce Brunello, and Lux Vitis, the culmination of an ambitious project begun in the early 1990s aimed at obtaining the fullest expression of the Montalcino territory yet with an utterly distinctive individual style. www.lucedellavite.com
