95/100 for the best and freshest red wine
of this summer!
We are talking about Benje Tinto 2024 from the Envínate boys and girl.
Clearly one of our favourite estates: both in Ribeira Sacra (Lousas!) and in Tenerife, they make seriously good stuff!
Almost two weeks ago, I had the misfortune of having to celebrate my 56th birthday (😅🥳), but also the good fortune of doing so with a fantastic wine list made up entirely of La Buena Vida wines (Resto Fleur). The wine of the evening for me, on what was a warm and sultry night, was unmistakably this Benje Tinto.
Deliciously fresh, elegant and refined, with above all that striking volcanic mineral character. And the bottle we tasted was still the 2023, from a warm vintage. But we now have the 2024, which is, in our view, the best ever: even more refined, with beautiful acidity, plenty of freshness and very fine tannins. A brilliant glass for a warm summer!
The four oenologists behind Envínate are of enormous importance to the new generation of Spanish winemakers. They are always looking for old, hard-to-reach vineyards with great potential, and then convert them to biodynamic viticulture.
It often takes years, but the results are spectacular: finesse at its finest. This does not taste like what most Belgian wine lovers think Spanish wine tastes like: no extraction, no power, but ultra-fine elegance.
Always with fantastic minerality and complexity too. Here, with the added volcanic influence.
And the price is always a pleasant surprise: you really have to try this!
See what Gutiérrez says about it for R. Parker:
95/100
"The southern red 2024 Benje is mostly Listán Prieto (a.k.a. País) from the Santiago del Teide zone of Tenerife, with some 9% Listán Blanco and maybe 1% Tintilla. It has a textbook nose of wet basalt, dry rose petals, black pepper and gunpowder. It has a medium-bodied and fine palate, with more freshness and hyper fine tannins. This has to be one of the best values from the whole of Spain, and this is one of the finest vintages. It comes in at 12.5% alcohol, with a pH of 3.36 and 6.2 grams of acidity. They have reduced the whole clusters and aged exclusively in neutral 225-liter barrels.