Sabotage runs a small wine club, and this was the second gathering. The first one happened while I was in the wrong city - the usual story of being constantly torn between Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk. This time the timing worked, and Ivan Omelchenko had assembled ten bottles around a simple idea: the Atlantic edge of Iberian winemaking.

The lineup orbited two producers. Envínate - four winemakers, two regions, one obsession with terroir at its most extreme - brought three wines spanning Tenerife's volcanic coast and Ribeira Sacra's slate gorges. Fazenda Agricola Augalevada, a tiny Galician estate recovering heroic terraced vineyards along the Sil, contributed four bottles from Ollos Branco to Ollos Tinto. Between them, a Borja Perez from Tenerife added volcanic depth, while a No Control from Auvergne and a Keltchewsky Pineau d'Aunis from the Loire provided French counterpoints - different soils, similar spirit.

What held the evening together wasn't geography but attitude: small production, old vines, volcanic or slate soils, minimal intervention, and wines that taste like somewhere rather than something. The kind of bottles that Sabotage was built to import.

Envínate Palo Blanco 2023

Envínate's flagship white from Santiago del Teide, Tenerife. 100% Listán Blanco from volcanic soils. The 2023 was harvested earlier than ever yet feels cool-climate: 11.5% alcohol, effervescent acidity (7.1 g/L, pH 3.05), and a dry chalkiness that borders on saline. Less reductive than previous vintages - fine-boned and sharp. Luis Gutiérrez gave it 98+ points, calling it volcanic and intoxicating. 13,000 bottles produced, bottled July 2024.

Envínate Táganan Blanco 2024

Coastal field blend from Taganana, northeast Tenerife - vineyards close enough to the sea to taste the salt. Marmajuelo, Malvasia, Listán Blanco, Albillo, Gual, and Forastera. Matured in 350- and 600-litre barrels. Luis Gutiérrez (96 points) describes a serious, stony nose and a dry, chalky, mineral palate with a sapid character reminiscent of Jerez. 12% alcohol, 5,000 bottles, bottled July 2025.

Fazenda Agricola Augalevada Ollos Branco 2023

Augalevada farms old vines on the dramatic terraced slopes of Ribeira Sacra, where the Sil River has carved deep gorges through slate and granite. "Ollos" means "eyes" in Galician - the name for these wines that peer into the terroir from different angles. The Branco is their white entry point: Godello-based, fermented and aged with minimal intervention, carrying the producer's signature maritime tension and a flor-like character that nods to Jerez without belonging there.

Fazenda Agricola Augalevada Ollos de Roque 2022

The step up from Ollos Branco - a single-parcel white with more concentration and ambition. Aged partly in amphora and barrels, developing lees richness alongside deep minerality. A wine built for patience.

Fazenda Agricola Augalevada Parcela Eiravedra 2023

Another single-parcel bottling from Augalevada's terraced slate slopes. Each parcel has its own voice, and Eiravedra is the most tension-driven of the range - all aromatic lift, no softness.

Borja Perez Artífice Llanito Perera 2017

Borja Perez is part of the new generation reviving Tenerife's pre-phylloxera vineyards. Artífice is his project in the Valle de la Orotava, farming Listán Blanco on volcanic pumice at 400-700m altitude. "Llanito Perera" is a single parcel - "llanito" meaning a small flat area amid the island's slopes. Native yeast, minimal intervention, barrel-aged. The style is austere and volcanic: tensile acidity, saline minerality, smoke.

No Control Les Crosses 2022

The French outlier. Vincent Marie farms volcanic soils (basalt, pumice, granite) in the Côtes d'Auvergne - not Loire, though the spirit is similar. Les Crosses is 100% Gamay, vinified with semi-carbonic maceration, native yeasts, no added sulfur. Quintessential vin de soif: meant to be drunk slightly chilled and without overthinking.

Gabriel Keltchewsky aunis 2024

Another French outlier - this time from the Loire. Pineau d'Aunis is one of the region's most ancient and distinctive red grapes, producing wines that hover between dark rosé and light red. The grape is famous for its peppery character - white pepper, black pepper, red currant - and near-impossible to guess blind, since nothing else tastes quite like it. Keltchewsky farms organically, vinifies with minimal intervention.

Envínate Lousas Viñas de Aldea 2023

Back to Envínate, now in Ribeira Sacra. The Lousas range comes from steep slate-terraced vineyards along the Sil and Miño rivers. Viñas de Aldea is the village-level blend: 80% Mencía with Brancellao, Merenzao, Alicante, Grao Negro, Mouratón, and Godello, sourced across Amandi, Quiroga, and Ribeiras del Sil. Fermented with 70-100% full clusters, matured 11 months in used barrels on lees. Luis Gutiérrez (95 points) calls the 2023 "perfumed, intoxicating and showy." 31,150 bottles, bottled November 2024. Sadly sold as Vino de Mesa - the 2023s have no appellation of origin.

Fazenda Agricola Augalevada Ollos Tinto 2023

Augalevada's red - Mencía from those same terraced slate slopes above the Sil. The entry-level Ollos, but "entry-level" in Ribeira Sacra still means heroic viticulture on near-vertical gradients.

Raw scores