Envinate, loosely 'wine yourself,' is the shared project of four friends who met studying oenology and decided that Spain's most singular old vineyards deserved to be heard rather than corrected. What began as a consultancy became one of the reference points of the new Spanish wine.
Backstory
Roberto Santana, Alfonso Torrente, Laura Ramos and Jose Martinez met around 2005 while studying enology at the University Miguel Hernandez in Alicante. After graduating they launched a winemaking consultancy that grew into Envinate, a collaborative venture exploring distinctive, often forgotten parcels across the country.
The Region
Envinate focuses on ancient, Atlantic-influenced terruños. The work is split among them: Roberto Santana oversees Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Alfonso Torrente works Ribeira Sacra in Galicia, and Laura Ramos and Jose Martinez tend the Albahra project in Almansa, Castilla-La Mancha. Each site brings volcanic, granitic or schistose soils and cool maritime influence.
Vineyards & Farming
Many of the Envinate vines are ungrafted and frequently more than a century old, clinging to steep, high-altitude slopes of volcanic sand and red basalt on Tenerife, several still trained in the island's ancient cordon trenzado braiding method. The growers work old indigenous varieties including Listan Prieto, Listan Blanco, Gual, Forastera, Mencia, Moravia Agria and Verdejo.
Winemaking
In the Envinate cellar the approach is deliberately hands-off. Grapes are foot-trodden, reds often fermented whole-cluster in open-top vats while whites are typically direct-pressed and fermented in neutral vessels. Fermentations run on native yeasts, sulfur additions are minimal, and the wines age in neutral oak barrels and concrete tanks, generally for eight to eleven months.
The Wines
The Envinate umbrella covers several lines: Taganan and Benje from Tenerife, Lousas from Ribeira Sacra, and Albahra from Almansa. Together they offer a vivid map of Atlantic Spain, from saline volcanic reds and whites to perfumed mountain Mencia.
