2022 Puro Rofe Rofe Blanco

WINEMAKER: Carmelo Pena
REGION: Canary Islands, SP
VARIETY: Listán Blanco, Malvasía Volcánica, Vijariego Blanco
VITICULTURE: Organic

"The 2022 Rofe Blanco reflects a warmer year in Lanzarote in the blend of places and varieties. It partly aged in oak, a slightly bigger percentage here. They want to avoid the aromatics and flavors of oak, but it contributes to a rounder wine, amplifying the character of the year. It's clean and precise, with a faint ashy character." - Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate

Lanzarote lies less than 100 kilometres from Western Sahara and, of all the Islands in the Canaries, it feels and looks the most like an extension of the African continent. Unlike Tenerife or La Palma where a single volcano dominates the landscape, Lanzarote is composed of literally hundreds of smaller volcanoes, which have tended to erupt simultaneously in the past, creating a moonscape littered with volcanoes and craters.

The last major eruption here in the 1730s blanketed the entire island with small, black, aerated pebbles, like jet black pumice, which the locals call ‘rofe.’ It’s these pebbles that give the island its unique appearance and altered the terroir of Lanzarote so dramatically that viticulture only became possible after the 1730s eruptions. The rofe fittingly provides the name for our producer here, Puro Rofe, winemakers attempting the expression of pure volcanic stone.