Seeing the potential of these beautiful vineyards, Claudio Miguel and his family became their most recent custodians in 2017, aiming to preserve the island’s long line of tradition in pursuit of wines of purity that speak of the volcanic soils, Atlantic winds and long summers that define the unique terroir of this special place.

Much like the vines themselves, the philosophy in the cellar is resolutely old-school. Grapes are handled in small baskets to perfectly preserve the tiny yields of each vine, de-stemmed by hand and then after fermentation the wine is aged in either oak or chestnut barrels before bottling. Claudio firmly believes in the energy and phenomenal old vine complexity of these grapes and respectfully refrains from adding anything to the wine at any point in the process.

The resulting wines, all produced in tiny quantities, are hard to draw comparison to. At once beautifully perfumed, impossibly elegant and engagingly detailed, they crackle with electricity and are true living wines in the way that they unfurl and evolve from the moment the cork is pulled to the last drop being drained from the glass. Fantastically evocative of the charcoal, smoke and brooding energy of the volcano, they are a laudable example of sense of place being described in a wine.