Wines

Named after the family’s original parcel from which the whole operation began, “Locartas” is a highly expressive ambassador for the Güímar valley’s distinctive volcanic sands. The blend comprises eight individual parcels throughout the valley, planted nearly entirely to Listán Blanco (with 2-3% Albillo Criollo) and generally situated at lower altitudes than the single-vineyard bottlings. Vinified in stainless steel and aged for six months in 90% steel and 10% French oak, “Locartas” leads with sumptuous aromas of apricots and fresh almonds, and delivers mouth-watering, grippy salinity on its taut, kinetic palate.

While Listán Blanco comprises most of the winery’s holdings, they also own small parcels of the hyper-local and little-seen Marmajuelo variety, which thrives in Tenerife’s volcanic sands—particularly in the lower-altitude sectors of the Güímar valley, around 400 meters above sea level. Vinified and aged entirely in stainless steel for six months, this is leaner and brighter than “Los Pelados,” with a breezier overall personality befitting its modest 12.5% alcohol, yet it still possesses admirable grip and a firm undercurrent of smoky, salty minerality.

“Pelados” means “bare”—a reference to the Valle de Güímar’s dramatic, poor-soiled, rocky landscape—and this bottling comes from two parcels of 70-to-80-year-old Listán Blanco totaling 1.2 hectares, planted at a staggering 1300 meters above sea level and exposed southwestward. Vinified and aged for nine months in two-thirds used 500-liter French oak barrels and one-third stainless steel, “Los Pelados” offers a salinity more intense and visceral than “Locartas”, with fruit simultaneously exotic and crunchy. Though mouth-filling, it possesses a tautness that keeps it brisk, and in keeping with the best examples of Listán Blanco it is a tautness articulated through mineral clench rather than through overt acidity.

This stunning wine (whose name translates to “the goatherd’s hut”) comes from a 0.6-hectare plot of 60-to-70-year-old Listán Blanco planted at 1300 meters altitude in a clearing in the natural preserve La Corona Forestal—a glen on Mount Teide densely thicketed with pine trees. A slightly higher proportion of clay in the soil here lends the wine more richness, but it displays a similarly visceral grip of salinity to the “Los Pelados” with an even greater sense of concentration. This spends nine months in a combination of three-quarters 500-liter French oak and one-quarter stainless steel, and is bottled without clarification or filtration. Furthermore, the steel-vinified portion undergoes maceration on its stems and skins—a tactic which enhances the wine’s texture and structure.

The winery’s fascinating skin-contact wine “Oracan” comes from a site within the Los Pelados zone called La Degollada, situated at 1300 meters altitude and planted to 70-year-old Listán Blanco. Bunches are de-stemmed, and the whole berries are sealed in clay jars and fermented on their skins for two months; afterward, the skins are removed, and the wine continues aging in the same vessel on its lees for six more months. Showing impressive elegance for a skin-contact white, “Oracan” offers a gentle handshake of tannins underneath a layer of cleanly articulated pit fruits and spices. A honeyed floral element augments the wine’s sense of gracefulness.