On the Road with the Grape Guy
Report from - Luce Dinner “The 10 Year Vertical” … October 23, 2012
16 Feb 2013- Details
- Category: On the Road with the Grape Guy
It’s hard to imagine 30 generations of anything – but the Frescobaldi family can count that many in their native Italy. Tonight we enjoyed 10 years of Luce wines with the 30th generation of the Frescobaldi family: Marchese Lamberto Frescobaldi.
Lamberto has a Toronto connection, which is why he always enjoys coming back – it dates back to 1974 when he was just 11 … 23 years later Luce made its first appearance in the province.
The history of Luce dates back to 1993 when California winemaking icon Robert Mondavi wanted to return to his Italian roots … the idea was to blend an Italian grape (Sangiovese) with something that signified the wines of the west coast (Merlot) – grown in Montalcino, Italy – the name “Luce” came later … as told by Lamberto, just before the first bottling.
The blend of Luce is usually a 50/50 mix of the two grapes, or at most a 55/45 break down; there has only been one vintage (2002) when the Merlot far outweighed the Sangiovese to the tune of 75/25 … Merlot is the earlier ripening grape and is picked 20 days before Sangiovese.
In 2004 Constellation bought Mondavi and Frescobaldi decided to take over the Luce line they had developed, instead of running it like a partnership with Constellation – the reasoning seems to be that it was no longer two proud families running the operation, therefore it was up to the one remaining to carry on the name.
Tonight’s tasting spanned the vintages of 1999 thru to 2009 (Luce first vintage was 1993) with commentary by Lamberto himself – I highlight my favourite 5 below along with some of the more interesting comments: ... (see the pics and read the reviews here)
