The wines of this brand are part of a unique project by four oenologists from different places throughout Spain who entered a joint undertaking they called Envínate. Roberto Santana (from the Canary Islands), Laura Ramos (from Murcia), José Martínez (from La Mancha) and Alfonso Torrente (from Galicia) met at the Universidad Miguel Hernández (Elche) where they were studying Oenology and share much more than just a passion for their job.

“We started out by buying a plot in Ribera Sacra, in Galicia, which we still use, and we also assess wineries. I, for example work for Suertes del Marqués,” explains Roberto. “The philosophy of Envínate is to discover small vineyards with great potential and work them the way we think wine should be done: as honestly as possible and transmitting personality in a way that takes you to the area where they come from when you drink them.”

“We aren’t looking for commercial wines,” he adds. “The trends come and go and we keep making the wines we like, just the way it happened in Burgundy or Italy where wines have been produced the same way for generations, and, needless to say, they still exist.” Envínate, where this type of “plot wines” is produced, owns a few plots in a vineyard in Taganana. It is a village wine that represents this town and Anaga, one of the oldest areas with a winegrowing tradition of Portuguese origin in Tenerife. They went from one viticulturist in 2014 to seventeen in 2012 for a vineyard that had been abandoned and is now on the way to recovery.

Roberto Santana, oenologist:
“Taganana is the only place in which red and white vines are mixed, the way it used to be, in microplots where infinite varieties coexist, some of which we can’t even identify

“We saw that Taganana is like a Jurassic park, because it is the only place in which red and white vines are mixed, the way it used to be, in microplots where infinite varieties coexist, some of which we can’t even identify. It is a cultivation system of free pruning and the vines are held up by pitchforks.” It is located at between 75 and 159 meters above sea level and “the wine has a more saline Atlantic touch than in other areas of the island that have the same influence,” he remarks. These plots can almost not be accessed with vehicles and therefore they harvest using mules to move the grapes.

It is located at between 75 and 159 meters above sea level and “the wine has a more saline Atlantic touch than in other areas of the island that have the same influence,” he remarks

Roberto who, as he told us, is also oenologist at the winery Suertes del Marqués, points out that these and the Táganan wines “have a complexity that makes them drinkable from the beginning to the end of a meal, while they also evolve and change. The whites especially have a tannicity that is unusual in white commercial wines and a minerality that makes it even possible to drink them with lamb.”

■ Envínate SL Cell phone: (34) 682 204 123 Email: asesoria@envinate.es ● Average production under the Táganan brand: 9,000 bottles/year. ● Exportation: Spanish Peninsula, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, United States, Canada, Japan and Australia.