Borja Perez - Artifice, Listán Blanco, Ycoden Daute Isora, Tenerife, Spain (2020)

TASTING NOTES

A powerful, textured palate with notes of lemon curd, bitter lemon, quinine and green apple skin with amazing vibrancy and freshness. Look for notes of peanut butter on the back-end with persistent saltiness throughout. 

This is true volcanic Tenerifan wine at its best! Following a short period on the skins the wine is aged in a combination of used foudre and concrete. Listan Blanco in the Canary Islands takes on a unique Atlantic intensity, fusing power and extract with dazzling acidity and waves of sea spray.

Focusing on local varieties like Listan Blanco, Listan Negro, Marmajuelo, and Baboso Negro, Borja restored old ungrafted vines back to full health, setting up new plots in the process. Reviving the grapes, farming them organically and working them with skill in the cellar, Borja developed a reputation as one of the best viticulturists in the Canary Islands. 

The volcanic, maritime vineyards are in the rich and biodiverse DO appellation Ycoden-Daute-Isora in Tenerife’s north west. The vineyards here range from low coastal elevations to around 800m on average, with the most extreme sites climbing as high as 1,400m!  The vines' proximity to the cooling winds of the Atlantic and its natural humidity produce an amazing yet challenging climate for wine production. 

In the cellar, Borja takes a low-intervention approach, with nothing added to the wines except for a touch of sulphur at bottling. He tends to favour little bit of skin contact on his whites, in order to balance the intense salinity and add more texture.