Highlights : Borja Pérez Artífice Vidueños 2020, Ycoden Daute Isora, Tenerife, Spain
Borja Pérez is an ex-race car driver-turned winemaker based in the northern part of Tenerife. After his previous high octane career, he decided to take over his family business, creating the critically well-received wine project Ignios. Pérez, however, wanted to make a range of accessible wines under a new label, Artífice, working with local island varieties, and restoring old ungrafted vines back to health, organically. These vineyards in Ycoden-Daute-Isora are rooted in ashy / rocky volcanic soils, averaging 800m and climbing to 1400m. Vidueños Blanco blends Albillo, Gual, Marmajuelo, and Listán Blanco from various vineyards, and was native fermented in 500L French oak barrels before ageing in 20hL foudres for 8 months, on lees. Ample flake salts infiltrate this brisk, deeper-hued white, tightly woven with reduction, and shaped by lashes of marine salinity. The lees and large wood lend this an expansive shape, deftly countering the wild oceanic / volcanic character, and guide this through a lingering amply saline end. There’s a density here that belies its 12.5%, just adding to the allure. Seek this out. 93/100
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