Palo Blanco, Envinate 2021

Envínate’s Palo Blanco bottling is crafted from braided, one hundred year-old Listán Blanco vines that are planted at six hundred meters elevation. The grapes are destemmed, crushed and racked off of the skins briskly prior to fermentation; the wine does not undergo malolactic. It is raised in older foudres made from oak from Friuli in Italy. The 2021 version is quite reductive when first poured and takes a bit of coaxing to blossom, but once it does, the wine delivers a superb aromatic constellation of tart orange, breadfruit, white flowers, a touch of iodine, beeswax, raw almond and a superbly complex base of soil. On the palate the wine is pure, young, full-bodied and focused, with a superb core of fruit, fine soil inflection and grip, zesty acids and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This could do with a year or two in the cellar to allow its secondary layers of complexity to start to emerge on the palate. Fine, fine juice. 2024-2040+.