Bodegas Arautava 'Finca La Habanera' Valle de la Orotava Listán Blanco 2021

 While their experience of grape-growing and home-winemaking stretches into the distant past, the García family of the Orotava Valley in Tenerife in the Canary Islands counts three generations of commercial wine production on the northern flanks of Teide, an active volcano and talismanic landmark whose summit is the highest point in Spain. 

First was Don Casiano García, who in the 1940s established a small commercial bodega in Aguamansa, a tiny village at 1000 meters of altitude where grapes are barely grown nowadays. In 1973 his son, Don Américo García Núñez, acquired a five-hectare property outside the village of La Perdoma called La Habanera. Don Américo continued with a busy career of managing the local co-op, helping establish the island’s five Denominations of Origin through the 1990s, and founding Bodegas Arautava in 1998. Since 2020, his son Carlos García is at the helm and he’s taking the estate to new heights of quality.

• 100% Listán Blanco (Palomino)
• Sourced from ungrafted centenary vines in the prized Finca la Habanera
• 600-700m altitude and up to 40% grade
• Volcanic mother rock with thin clay topsoil
• Fruit is direct-pressed and the must is vigorously oxidized (“black chard” style)
• Fermented with indigenous yeasts in tank
• Elevage of 3-4 months in tank with lees stirring