Envínate

Envínate - "wine yourself" - was founded by four winemakers who met at the oenology programme of the Universidad Miguel Hernández in Alicante around 2005, ran a winemaking consultancy together after graduating, and turned it into a production project around 2008. They deliberately stayed outside the classical Spanish geography - Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat - and instead planted themselves in three regions that the modern Spanish wine establishment had largely ignored.

The partners split the work geographically:

• Roberto Santana leads the Tenerife projects - Anaga peninsula on one side of the island, Santiago del Teide and La Orotava on the other.
• Alfonso Torrente leads the Ribeira Sacra (Galicia) work - slate terraces in the Sil canyon.
• Laura Ramos and José Martínez co-lead Almansa, in Castilla-La Mancha - the light, fresh-Garnacha-Tintorera counterpoint to the volcanic and Atlantic ends of the project.

The philosophy is hands-off and parcel-focused. Organic farming, hand harvest, foot-treading, native yeasts only, whole-cluster portions adjusted by vintage, aging in concrete and used French oak (from 228-litre barrique up to 2,500-litre Friulian foudre on Palo Blanco) - no new oak. Minimal sulphur, added at bottling only. The stated aim is to let each terruño (their preferred Spanish word for terroir) speak clearly, which in practice means single-parcel bottlings wherever they can manage them.

The wines, by region:

• Tenerife - Táganan: Táganan Blanco (a field blend including Gual, Malvasía, Verdello, Marmajuelo, Forastero Gomera, Listán Blanco) and Táganan Tinto (Listán Negro, Negramoll, Malvasía Negra, Listán Gaucho, and others) from the Anaga peninsula. Plus Parcela Margalagua as a single-vineyard bottling.
• Tenerife - Benje: Blanco and Tinto from the higher-altitude Santiago del Teide area (Listán Blanco and Listán Negro respectively).
• Tenerife - La Orotava: Palo Blanco (Listán Blanco), Migan (Listán Negro).
• Ribeira Sacra - Lousas (literally "slate"): Viñas de Aldea (village-level), and single-parcel bottlings - Parcela Camiño Novo, Parcela Seoane, Parcela do Bibei, Parcela Rosende. Mostly Mencía with splashes of Galician co-plantings.
• Almansa - Albahra: Garnacha Tintorera and Moravia Agria, a Castilla-La Mancha counterpoint that refuses to be heavy.

Envínate is widely regarded as central to what people now call the Spanish natural-wine revival - alongside Raúl Pérez, Daniel Gómez Jiménez-Landi, Fedellos do Couto, and a small cluster of others who decided that the interesting work in Spanish wine was at the country's edges, not at its centre.