Envínate

The Free Bacchus Story

Four friends met studying oenology at university in Alicante: Roberto Santana, Alfonso Torrente, Laura Ramos and José Martínez. They started out as a winemaking consultancy, and in 2008 bought a tiny plot of old Mencía in Ribeira Sacra, where Torrente is from. Envínate, which translates roughly as ‘wine yourself’, now makes wine in three places, each with its own cellar: Tenerife, Santana’s home, Ribeira Sacra in Galicia, and Almansa, Martínez’s home.

Tenerife is a volcanic island in the Atlantic, and phylloxera, the louse that wrecked Europe’s vineyards in the nineteenth century, stayed out of the Canaries until 2025, so old vines there typically still grow on their own roots, many of them sprawling untrained along the ground. It was found on Tenerife that July, and by January 2026 the Canary government called it controlled but not eliminated. The reds are made from local grapes such as Listán Negro, and Envínate’s come out light and high in acid, a long way from the ripe, heavily oaked style that came to define Spanish wine. Santana has said the point is wine that tastes of Tenerife, not an imitation of Priorat or Burgundy.

Táganan is the old local name for a stretch of the island’s northeast corner, where the vines grow wild on volcanic rock on cliffs above the sea, between 75 and 300 metres. All the farming is done by hand, and animals usually help carry the grapes out at harvest. Envínate works the parcels with fifteen local families, the grapes are trodden by foot and fermented with wild yeasts, and the 2024 red spent nine months on its lees in 228-litre French oak barrels.

One thing to be exact about. On the EU organic register Envínate holds a single certificate, from ICCA, the Canary Islands control body, and it covers growing crops and nothing else. The winemaking is not on it, and neither are the vineyards in Galicia and Almansa, so the grapes Envínate grows on Tenerife are certified organic and the wine itself is not.