Higa is all salt on the Atlantic sea breeze and scorched charcoal minerality, making for a more savoury, saline expression. The delicate tannins stand like a sort of intricate, skeletal framework around the wine, where earthy elements meld with secondary notes from the time in barrel, the fruit feeling less to the fore.
Mainly Listan Negro, with 10% Tintilla Castellana from one of the relatively young plantings of vines at some 30 years of age, growing at 800 metres of altitude. The grapes were de-stemmed and macerated in steel for 8 days before 9 months ageing in old chestnut barrels. No additions were used at any stage in the process.
Marzagana Elementales are one of the most far-flung growers we have worked with, hailing from Tenerife, that sun-kissed isle of the Canaries sitting off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Up in Orotava in the north of the island sit some truly remarkable vineyards, home to ancient, ungrafted vines, some up to a mind-blowing 350 years old.
Like meticulously preserved artifacts from the past, the other striking thing about these gnarly old vines, other than the multiple generations they have lived through, is the unusual way they are trained, the shoots coming from long cordons that have been formed over the years by braiding the plants branches together. Coming from its original base rootstock, these cordons are in turn suspended above the ground with wooden crutches and allowed to grow out along the length of the vineyard – it is like nothing we have seen before, like something from another era altogether. Vineyard work is biodynamic and strictly by hand, following the rhythm of the moon and the stars to bring the most from these fertile soils.
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.
