Listan Blanco, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

The wines of the Canary Island are some of the world’s best, full stop. Honestly, you should try many more, but for today, a deep, luxurious and complex white wine from potent volcanic soils is hard to beat. This wine is like a great, gilled creature who rose in a storm of damp, volcanic ash, windswept brush and salt crystals. The wine’s maker, a former race car mechanic (!), Borja Perez is a rising star of the Canary Island’s natural wine scene. He has implemented sustainable and biodynamic farming techniques since 2011 and aims to bring long-forgotten local vines like this one back to life. ‘Artifice’ was grown on sandy, stony basalt soils, lending that uniquely salt-soaked volcanic minerality. Made from 100% listan blanco that is fermented with skins for 25 days to pull great aromatic and textural complexity. Bronze in colour, with persistent honeysuckle, sleek clove, bitter lemon, tidal pool, kadota fig & a luxuriously fine mineral fishing net to catch hold of everything. Drink alongside the deepest, darkest storm of the year, spring will come again…but if that’s too far away, a sunny archipelago does await you, as does this bottle.