Envinate - Benje Tinto Canary Islands 2021 (750ml)

Listán Prieto with a bit of Tintilla sourced frommultiple, old-vine, piè franco parcels at over1,000m. Each parcel vinified separately, somein concrete and some in small open tubs.Roughly 10 days maceration with one daily punch-down; natural malolactic fermentation in neutral barrels and concrete, then raised 8months in the same vessels

The red 2022 Benje is floral expressive clean and elegant reflecting a very good year in the region with notes of rose petals and talcum powder a fine texture and very elegant tannins. This has to be the most elegant Benje to date. 28000 bottles. It was bottled in July 2023. Envínate has increased a little the vineyard surface in Taganana and from 2023 onward could produce a little bit more of their wines from the zone in the northeast of Tenerife. They work there and also in the regions of Orotava Tacoronte and Santiago del Teide. All the wines will be moved to the Tenerife appellation within the generic Islas Canarias appellation in 2023. In 2022 the wines from Santiago del Teide are still Ycode-Da and the others are Islas Canarias - Tenerife. In Santiago del Teide 2022 was a very good vintage with good vegetation growth that protected the grapes from the sun good ripeness and more delicate and elegant wines. 2021 was extremely warm and dry with heat strokes that blocked the vines and the grapes got a hurried ripeness with some herbal notes. In the region of Tacoronte they produce one red and one special cuvée for a Canary restaurant in Madrid called Gofio. Here 2021 was a better less hurried vintage with more elegant wines than the warmer and more concentrated 2022 but the 2022s also showed very well. In the Orotava Valley they have two new whites from 2022 where the vintages are similar to the part of Tacoronte where they work so the 2021s showed fresher and the 2022s more concentrated and a little riper. In Taganana in the northeast of Tenerife the vintages are similar to the wines from Tacoronte and Orotava. There were good rains in 2022 that allowed the plants to close the cycle and the wines are fresher and have very good balance. 2022 feels similar to 2020 a drier year warmer and with riper wines but in Taganana it never gets too warm. In fact it never got warmer than 30 degrees Celsius that summer. Published: Nov 30 2023