2017 Palo Blanco Orotava

The 2017 Palo Blanco is produced with Listán Blanco grapes from the village of Los Realejos in the Valle de la Orotava. Now in its second vintage, this year they added one more plot, and in 2018 they will add one more. The warm vintage was a blessing in the cooler and wetter zones of the Tenerife Island like the Orotava Valley, as the year compensated for the place, and the wine has a tad more volume and body. They were able to harvest the grapes earlier than 2016, before the weather turned more complicated, and the grapes were very healthy, which is not always the case in the northern zones. 2017 was a great viticulture year in the Orotava Valley, and they also felt the removal of herbicides when they started working the vineyard is really showing, and it should get even better. The wine is serious and balanced, and it has a dry, chalky finish with a somewhat Burgundian feel to it. Superb. Their Listán Blanco from La Orotava is always paler than the ones from Santiago del Teide, as the skins are thicker and it's harder to press. It was bottled in December 2018 after one year in two 2,500-liter oak foudres and three 228-liter barrels. 7,500 bottles produced.