Envinate Taganan Blanco 2022

The 2016 vintages marks a huge change for the Envinate project in the Canary Islands. It’s the same band of friends and the same philosophy as the Envinate projects covered here but from 2016 on the Canary Islands project has grown from focusing only on the village of Taganana in the North Eastern corner of the island to include two other distinct landscapes of Tenerife: Valle de la Orotava and Ycoden Daute Isora. As such it seemed easier to have a separate page for the Canary Island project but it must be stressed that everything that’s said about the Envinate group in reference to their work on the mainland is true here too – the same passion, the same detailed viticultural work, the same communal nature of their project and of course the same four faces are responsible for the bottles produced in Tenerife.

The wines bearing the name ‘Taganan’ refer to the wild, steep slopes on the north eastern corner of the island. Where a dizzying array of varietals are grown on a loose trellising system on extremely steep terraces overlooking the ocean. The vines here are constantly exposed to the cooling northerly winds that whip across the Atlantic and are grounded in a variety of volcanic soil and rocks. The resulting wines are slightly wild and definitively volcanic. The whites are full of sea salt, roasted nuts and savoury, unami characters carried across a medium bodied, glyeric mouthfeel. The reds are surprisingly light and fresh, sitting around Pinot or Nebbiolo in weight but full of sappy dark fruit and anchored by secondary flavours that seem to combine soy and balsam with a distinct graphite mineral kick.