2015 Luce della Vite 'Luce' Toscana IGT 750 ml

The 2015 Luce della Vite Luce Toscana IGT is a 97-point Super Tuscan that stands tall among the biggest name competition in Tuscany, like Sassicaia (97 points, $257) and Fontodi’s Flaccianello della Pieve (96-97 points, $138), at a fraction of the price. 

We absolutely adore the Merlot-Sangiovese blend: It’s a deep-pigmented ruby color, with charming plum and Bing cherry flavors buoyed by an undercurrent of exotic spices, chocolate, clove, and a hint of fresh herbs. Silky and supple on the palate, it’s precisely balanced by a refreshing core of acidity, and rich black cherry, vanilla, and mulling spices. This is a first-class, age-worthy Super Tuscan that belongs in your cellar, alongside the very best. 

Luce is the dream-made-real for two titans of the wine world, Robert Mondavi and Vittorio Frescobaldi. It’s an under-the-radar red blending Merlot with Sangiovese from Montalcino—home of some of Italy’s most exquisite expressions of Sangiovese—to produce a unique, rich, lush red. 

This is an Italian wine for lovers of rich Napa Cabernet, made with a combination of American ingenuity and eight centuries of Tuscan winemaking expertise. With 97 points from James Suckling, who found it “rich and layered with beautiful fruit and intensity,” we’ve got it direct from the estate. 

After helping launch Napa into the stratosphere of world-class wine regions, then partnering with Philippe de Rothschild to create Opus One, Robert Mondavi turned his attention toward his long-time goal of a project in his family’s native Italy. Just as Baron Philippe had found California’s quintessential producer in Mondavi, Mondavi found the perfect partner for his Italian project in the Frescobaldi family, whose Tuscan roots go back to the 1300s. When Frescobaldi family patriarch Vittorio saw a kindred spirit in the iconoclastic Mondavi—whose parents had moved from the Marche to America in the early part of the 20th century—Tenuta Luce was born. 

The estate is located in the hills of Montalcino, and Luce is the top wine from their vineyards. They closely guard the exact ratio of grapes, but it’s (fittingly, given its Napa-Tuscan heritage) a blend of Merlot and Sangiovese. While they do make great Brunello at the estate, Luce is a Super Tuscan par excellence—made in the fashion of Fontodi’s Flaccianello della Pieve or Antinori’s Tignanello. And although it continues to fly under the radar, it has long been one of our absolute favorites among the second-wave super Tuscans.

We’ve finally managed to secure a small allocation of this wine, and in a spectacular vintage that Vinous commends as producing “gorgeous, radiant” wines. You could spend hundreds more for other top-flight Super Tuscans, and we welcome you to. But don’t let this one slip by, because the dream of Robert Mondavi and Vittorio Frescobaldi has produced one of Tuscany’s most unsung gems. Get a few bottles in your cellar—for now or later.