Subscribe in a reader
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Fancy a Little Tenerife Wine?
Regular readers will be aware that I am located in wine country. There are vines all around me here in the El Palmar valley, including a few right here in the backyard, which yield a reasonable harvest each year. Indeed, most areas of Tenerife produce wine, with the Viña Norte from the Tacoronte-Acentejo region being the one which seems to get most international acclaim.
Whilst I agree with the experts that Viña Norte manages to produce consistently acceptable wines, I have to say that I find them to be rather "average".
Local wine from the El Palmar valley Viña El Palmar, (under region, Denominación de Origen Ycoden-Daute-Isora), can be surprising: absolute nectar and full of flavour. You can generally buy this from the pasteleria (cake shop) El Aderno in Buenavista del Norte (the company also owns a bodega) and I have just discovered that Bodega Canaria have Viña El Palmar (albeit a white variety: I would recommend their red) for sale in their online shop.
Bodega Canaria also have a wine for sale from the Bodegas de Miranda from the Valle de la Orotava. This is a tinto (red wine) and something I do recommend. I'm no great wine expert, but you get used to what you like. What I liked about the Miranda that we picked up to have with last Christmas lunch (pictured - we liked it so much, I kept the bottle to remind me what to look for again), was that this purple-toned wine had plenty of flavour, but was light and not too dry.
It's the sun that does it and which is what - in my estimation - makes Tenerife wines so drinkable, apart from the fact that they are still laughingly cheap!
