- White Wine
- Listán Blanco
- Sustainable, Vegan-Friendly, Volcanic Vines
- Dry
- Medium Bodied
- 750ml
- 13% alc./vol
Viñátigo Vino de Parcela Lomo de La Era 2023
6 bottles per case
Mineral & Vibrant
Juan Jesús, who is a 4th generation winemaker, founded Viñátigo in 1990 and has worked tirelessly since then identifying, recuperating the native grapes of the Canary Islands. Today, his son Jorge is slowly taking over the viticulture and winemaking of Viñátigo, and is focusing on crafting wines from exceptional micro-vineyards in the north-face of Tenerife. Before settling down in his home-island, Jorge worked alongside great international winemakers in Chile, Argentina and Burgundy.
Lomo de la Era comes from a remarkable parcel in La Orotava Valley, where Listán Blanco vines grow at 500 metres above sea level. Trained using the traditional cordón trenzado method, the vines stretch into long, braided forms across volcanic, stony soils, exposed to cool Atlantic trade winds.
After pre-fermentative oxidation, the wine ferments and ages for nine months in amphora, without racking. No unnecessary intervention, just time and a chance for the vineyard to speak.
Textured with dusty salinity, vibrant fruits, with a honeyed character, and a little aromatic blast of its volcanic origins. Think salted quince, ripe citrus, honeycomb and white flowers, with intriguing hints of tahini, fennel and flint. Bone-dry and beautifully textured, it finishes with a dusty, almost ocean-like salinity that makes every sip a little different.
Try it with grilled octopus with smoked paprika and lemon, scallops with brown butter and fennel, or roasted cauliflower with tahini, capers and toasted almonds. It also has a natural affinity for aged Manchego and salty, briny bites.
About the Winery
Viñátigo
Juan Jesús is a proud native of Tenerife and the fourth generation of growers. During the thirty years that he's overseen Bodegas Viñátigo, he has considerably increased its holdings, planting varieties that he and his team recuperated from near extinction.
Driven by passion and love for his homeland, Juan decided to revive and work to save the native grape varieties that were brought to the Canary Islands by the conquers back in the 15th century and that had survived on the islands for centuries. He is a hero of contemporary Canarian viticulture. The wealth of knowledge that his work has created has helped underpin the significant expansion of wine styles that are now available throughout the archipelago, and his wines have achieved a calibre of class that many doubted the Canaries would ever produce again. (The Epic Wines of the Canary Islands, written by Santo Bains).
Press Reviews
Robert Parker
93 points
The 2022 Lomo de la Era, another of the new single-vineyard certified wines from the DOP Islas Canarias, Tenerife appellation, was produced with Listán Blanco grapes, in this case from a cordón trenzado plot of vines in the western part of the Orotava Valley on sandy, silty and basalt soils. The juice from the pressing with part of the stems was let to settle and fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete, where the wine matured with static lees (not stirred) for nine months. It has moderate ripeness and alcohol (12%) with a mixture of floral, fruit and soil notes and an austere palate with dusty minerality, vibrant and pungent flavors and a clean finish. 2,320 bottles were filled in July 2023.
Viñátigo, the project from Juan Jesús Méndez, was one of the pioneers of the local varieties in the Canary Islands, where he's been recovering forgotten varieties since 1990. He's now joined by his son Jorge, who is giving a more modern profile to the wines. In 2017, there was a new range of single-vineyard and lieu-dit wines that go one step beyond in 2022, with three new whites from the north of Tenerife. They are all produced with Listán Blanco from different zones and altitudes, climates and soils. They have 12 hectares of vines in the north and northeast of Tenerife, and their production averages 150,000 bottles per year.
Published: Nov 30, 2023