2022 Puro Rofe Uga Tinto

WINEMAKER: Carmelo Pena
REGION: Canary Islands, SP
VARIETY: Listán Negro
VITICULTURE: Organic

EXTREMELY LIMITED. "Lanzarote’s southern-most town, with old vines on Rofe soils that tend to make darker, riper fruited, spicier and more graphitic cored wines." - 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.