Sabotage Wine Club Vol. 2

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.

Oh, beautiful. Slightly reductive at first, but it blew off quickly. Very salty and chalky. Super sharp. Beautiful nose with an interesting fruit profile - almost unripe white fruits, peach, flowers. Structured, multilayered, and just a genuinely great wine.

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.

Goodness - it greets you immediately with flowering orchards, ripe apples. The volcanic and maritime notes weave in beautifully. Lusher than the Palo Blanco, but on the palate that salty-mineral axis takes over. Very clean yet sharp, a touch of sherry character with lovely chalkiness. A hint of smoke underneath.

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.

Same joy as before - bright, lifted, quietly layered. Interestingly, this vintage is less Jerez-driven and more fruit-forward, almost candy-like. The flor and saline character that defined earlier bottles takes a back seat to pure fruit this time.

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.

More expressive and more typical than my previous encounter, where it was frustratingly tight and closed. Still Champagne in spirit - that lees richness, that structure. Beautiful. Freaking delicious.

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.

Stunning acidity. Green plums and apricots, all kinds of green herbs, bai hao yin zhen. Underripe tropics, lime, honeysuckle. A white wine that's all about tension and aromatic lift - no softness, no compromise.

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.

Guessed Tenerife blind - that volcanic salinity is unmistakable by now. Super reductive at first - sardines, iodine - but yellow fruit pushes through, and floral and honey notes emerge slowly, painfully. Chamomile. Charming how this wine evolves over the years: from the smoky, tight bottle of 2023 through the stretched-thin salinity of late 2025, and now into something more settled, more honeyed. Still reductive, still demanding, but increasingly rewarding for those who wait.

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.

Pineapple juice, apple juice - quite simple and not particularly interesting. Maybe too chilled, which flattened things. A touch of VA, but not much, so it drinks well enough - fine for a chilly summer pour. With time in the glass it picks up some floral notes, which is neat. Pleasant, just not memorable.

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.

Guessed the grape - mostly luck, since Pineau d'Aunis is near-impossible to call blind. Very green, light in colour - somewhere between dark rosé and light red. Cloves, red berries, pepper. But the tannin is dry, green, stemmy. Good, though quite easy. A touch of blood and pomegranate running through. Interesting variety, modest execution.

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.

Beautiful on the nose - perfumed, with a mix of red fruits, graphite, and fried sunflower seeds. But on the palate, painfully green. Almost hurts to drink today. The potential is clearly there, though. Just needs years. Put it away.

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.

Nice. A bit too much of everything at once - apple, strawberry, red apple, earth, pepper, olives, a touch of nori, dried red flowers. The palate is more focused: neat graphite, good acidity. Needs a bit of aeration to settle. More layered and complex than last time, but still the same easy-drinking character with that green-tannin funk. Delicious.

Raw scores