Iñaki Garrido is a fascinating new voice in Canary Island wine. Originally from the Basque country, Iñaki studied fine art and industrial design in college before formally training and working as a sommelier. Over time, it became increasingly clear that he needed to be in the vines, so he went back to school in Rioja for an advanced degree in viticulture and enology and started his first small wine project there. His search for a vineyard of his own to farm and vinify drew him to the Canary Islands and the oldest, highest zone of Tenerife’s Valle de Güímar called Las Dehesas. On this rugged, remote mountainside, Iñaki says he found everything he had ever wanted: 0.5ha of own-rooted, dry-farmed Listán Blanco vines, aged 150-200 years old, growing at 1,400m above sea level on poor, rocky, volcanic soils over sandy clay. Las Dehesas is very steep and difficult to access, requiring a hair-raising drive through lava flow and forests, then a hike uphill that opens into a spectacular expanse of Listán Blanco vines, perched above the cloud line with the Atlantic Ocean twinkling below. This wild place is the source for Iñaki’s incredibly elegant first Canary Island wine, “Las Toscas”. Hot, sunny, and high, Las Dehesas is a place where grapes achieve brilliant ripeness, balanced by the extreme altitude and poor soils that Iñaki credits with his Listán Blanco’s ability to retain acidity and express itself fully. Iñaki farms organically and by hand (no mechanical work is possible, given the steep and challenging access) and vinifies “Las Toscas” naturally. The Listán Blanco is destemmed, pressed gently, fermented with native yeasts in barrel, then raised on the fine lees with no bâtonnage. This is a brand new expression of Listán Blanco from Tenerife, with complexity and volume, length and tension, and a bold, crystalline acidity.