Envínate "Benje" Tinto Tenerife Canary Islands 2024

Envínate's Benje Tinto is mostly Listán Prieto (a.k.a. País) from the Santiago del Teide zone of Tenerife, with some 9% Listán Blanco and maybe 1% Tintilla. It has a textbook nose of wet basalt, dry rose petals, black pepper and gunpowder. It has a medium-bodied and fine palate, with more freshness and hyper fine tannins. This has to be one of the best values from the whole of Spain, and this is one of the finest vintages.

From several parcels of 70–120-year-old vines at 900-1200m elevation farmed by Envínate and 15 local families. Viticulture here is highly traditional: vines grown untrained, the soils worked by hand and no chemicals were used. Harvested by hand, whole clusters foot-trodden and fermented by parcel with native yeasts in a mixture of concrete vats and plastic tanks. All parcels completed spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Aged exclusively in neutral 225-liter neutral French oak barrels (65%) and concrete tank (35%) without racking. 14,500 bottles and 150 magnums produced. Bottled without fining or filtering and with only a tiny addition of sulfur in July 2025.

Envínate (translates as "wine yourself") is the brainchild of four friends, winemakers Roberto Santana, Alfonso Torrente, Laura Ramos, and José Martínez. This gang of four formed back in 2005 while studying enology at the University of Miguel Hernandez in Alicante. Upon graduation, they formed a winemaking consultancy, which evolved into Envínate, a project that focuses on exploring distinctive parcels mainly in the Atlantic-inflected regions of Ribeira Sacra and the Canary Islands. Their collective aim is to make profoundly pure and authentic wines that express the terruño of each parcel in a clear and concise manner. To this end, no chemicals are used in any of the Envínate vineyards, all parcels are picked by hand, the grapes are foot-trodden, and the wines are fermented exclusively with wild yeasts, with a varying proportion of whole grape clusters included. For aging, the wines are raised in old barrels and concrete, and sulfur is only added at bottling, if needed. The results are some of the most exciting and honest wines being produced in Spain today.