Tenuta Licinia

Belgian (Flemish) by origin, born in 1993, James Marshall-Lockyer’s maternal grandfather Jacques de Liedekerke bought the 61ha Tenuta Licinia estate in the 1970s having been lured to Tuscany by Italian bureaucrats based in the newly established European Commission in Brussels. Being close to his grandfather, James grew up between Belgium, Switzerland, & UK, but it was at the estate he found solace & inspiration, eventually taking over from his grandfather. Given the opportunity to pursue a career in academia or viticulture, he chose the latter, taking up the trowel in 2020 & becoming the winemaker, increasing the vineyard size to 6.5ha, alongside the 60ha of forest.

James’s first vintage was 2021, & compared to his grandfather’s approach: no chemical fertiliser, no topping (except Petit Verdot in wetter years); harvesting at the perfect moment according to taste not analysis; less extraction; the use of less & marginally bigger oak, tonneaux vs barriques; work biodynamically since 2021, notably in the use of 500, 501, Valerian, Equisetum, Camomile (& applying his background in meta-physics to decision-making). The estate has been certified organic since 2012, helped no doubt by its remote location down a long track off the main road to Lucignano.

The estate lies in the Val di Chiana, an ancient Etruscan area, near the delightful village of Lucignano, known as ‘Licinia’ in Roman times, adjacent to the Castello di Calcione, located halfway between Siena & Arezzo, on a fault-line where, as he explained, “slopes seem to fold into each other”, creating a wave effect that lent its name to their top single vineyard Cabernet Franc, Onda, of which they make c.1k bts/anno, vintage allowing.

Italian writer & film Director, Mario Soldati, referred to the Calcione estate on which Tenuta Licinia is located, in his 1969 libro ‘Vino al Vino – Viaggo alla ricerca dei vini genuini’ (Mondadori): ‘Alla tenuta del Calcione, presso Lucignano, sempre in Val di Chiana, facciamo la conocenza del vero vino di queste parte: cosi vero, ma cosi vero che non si trova in commercio: il quantitativo prodotto nella tenuta non sarebbe sufficiente. Vino privato, riservato a quelli chi lo fanno e ai loro amici. Ma proprio per questo, assolutamente incorrotto, antico, eccelso.’ (At the Tenuta di Calcione, near Lucignano, in the Val di Chiana, we come across a real wine of this region: so real indeed that you don’t find on the market: the quantity produced would not be enough (to meet demand). A reserved wine for those who produce it, & their friends. And it’s for this very reason (the wine remains) uncorrupted, ancient, excellent.’)

The soils lying round the cantina, whose vines lie in a natural anfiteatro at circa 350m asl, are predominantly weathered old grey friable galestro/slate, clay & calcareous little stones; James is also farming one plot nearby with outcrops of volcanic, Etna-like lava in one vyd, & another that is more clay, schist & calcareo. Being close to Arezzo & the Apennines, Tenuta Licinia enjoys a more continental climate than Montalcino (that’s influenced by Maremma), bringing with cleaner mountain air, fresh & crisp, & lots of light; October vintage nights can be below 10 degrees while warming up to 25 by day (as per the Langhe); winters are much colder than further west towards the coast, freezing most nights between late December & mid February. Summers can peak at 40 degrees.

The estate stands alone, without any DOCGs or famous points of reference nearby; a fact not lost on their budding single vyd Sangiovese, L’Isolato (2k bts/anno) Their core vineyard is called Sasso di Fata, a reference to a rock hidden in a nearby forest; from this vyd, strewn with galestro, alberese, arenaria & calcareous clay, James micro selects & fillets the plot to create a blend of twenty-year old Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, & Merlot (6k bts) There’s an estate label, Montepolli, so named after the Etruscan settlement nearby, which brings together a broader palette of fruit from across the domaine: Cabernet Sauvignon, Franc, Merlot, & a dash of Petit Verdot.

Stainless-steel conical fermenters for Montepolli, cement for Sasso di Fata, & tonneaux for Onda. Affinamento is in 500L tonneaux for the Bordeaux varieties, & Taransaud 20HL botte for the Sangiovese L’Isolato, followed a spell in vertical tulip cement tanks prior to bottling c. 18 mths after the harvest; 2023 vintage (13.5%) to be bottled with the new luna in April 2025.