R. Parker (95/100)
There is a new red from the north of Tenerife, the 2020 La Santa de Úrsula, a field blend of Negramoll and Listán Negro trained in a parral bajo way (similar to a gobelet). It's produced with grapes from the village of Santa Úrsula in the zone known as Tacoronte-Acentejo, but it's sold without appellation of origin. They had the chance to start working with three centenary plots from La Corujera, one at 350 meters above sea level and the other two at 600 meters. The area is something like Taganana but further away from the sea and with more rain, more like La Orotava. So, the wines are something in between, perhaps closer to the ones from Taganana, a little wild, herbal and floral, but Tacoronte-Acentejo has red soils. 2020 was very dry (half of the normal rain), and they started harvesting extremely early, the 11th of August. The wine is approximately 50% Listán Negro, 48% Negramoll and 2% white Listán Blanco fermented differently by plot with some full clusters (50% to 75%) in plastic bins and concrete vats, with 20% of the wine in carbonic maceration, which was the tradition in Tacoronte-Acentejo. This is a zone with high potential and with enough vineyards, unlike in Taganana. The wine matured in neutral 228-liter oak barrels for eight months. This is a superb debut. 5,500 bottles and 100 magnums produced. It was bottled in July 2021.
I tasted the 2019s and 2020s from Envínate in the Canary Islands, where they produced wines from different zones in Tenerife, in the north in Taganana, La Orotava and now also in Tacoronte-Acentejo, and in the south in Santiago del Teide. Both vintages were warm and dry, but 2020 is clearly superior for the white wines. Envínate is planning to build a brand-new winery from scratch, but the project will take a couple of years, so the objective is to vinify the 2023 vintage there. In Tenerife, they produce 100,000 bottles (in 2021), but some vintages are shorter, like 2020 when they produced 85,000 bottles. Their idea is to produce a grand total of 200,000 bottles between Canary Islands, Galicia and the Mediterranean.
In Santiago del Teide in the south, they had half the rain they used to get before 2017, so very low yields. 2020 was a hurried ripeness, and all the zones ripened at the same time and very early. 2019 was a more balanced year. At La Orotava, both vintages were very good, without the issue with fog. But 2020 was also warmer, with a sunstroke during the summer that could easily produce some over-ripeness. They harvested some plots earlier and avoided that.
The wine from Tacoronte-Acentejo is closer to the character of the wines from Taganana. They started there with a wine in 2020 that could be within the appellation of origin, but as the winery is outside the limits of the appellation, they cannot sell the wine with the appellation of origin. In Taganana, they did a great interpretation of the 2020 vintage, even if both were very dry.