Crazy Good Cult Wines from the Canary Islands. 7 Fuentes and La Solana, 92 and 93 Points, "Best Buy. Marques Suertes Wines Are Crazy Good.

These wines tend to show up once a year and go really fast when they do.

7 FUENTES BY SUERTES DE MARQUES 2014

92+ points – Luis Gutierrez, Wine Advocate, June 2016

Bottle Price : $27.95

Case Price : $335.40

Winery : Suertes del Marqués

Wine Region : Spain (Spain), Tenerife (Spain)

Bottle Per Case : 12 x 750 ml

Food Pairing : Breads, Cured Meat, Hard Cheese, Red Meat, Roasted Vegetables

“The regular 2014 7 Fuentes is a village blend of some 35 separate plots, situated from 300 to 700 meters altitude on a diversity of volcanic soils and expositions; the wine wants to represent the Orotava. 2014 was an easy, healthy harvest without rains or excessive mist (panza de burro). This is mostly Listán Negro with some 10% Tintilla fermented in cement or small 700-liter open vats, some destemmed, some with full clusters, but always with the indigenous yeasts. Forty percent of the volume matured in well-seasoned, 500-liter French oak barrels and the rest was kept in concrete, and blended before bottling. They have managed to avoid the reductive profile of some of the previous vintages (mainly 2013). The nose is dominated by spicy aromas and notions of wet pumice, very mineral/volcanic, with hints of flowers and some wild berries. I think Listán Negro is a grape that transmits with great transparency the character of the volcanic soils. The palate is fresh and with good acidity. It’s a very fresh and balanced vintage of 7 Fuentes. This is always a great value and perfect as an introduction to the wines of Tenerife and Suertes del Marqués. This is one to buy by the case.”

It takes dedication to make wine this good. I would say this is wine geek wine, but the wine is so approachable and delicious that it has gone from wine geek wine to cult wine. 35 vineyard sites, volcanic soils, rare grape varietals. This is not your everyday wine. The great thing is, the wine is spectacular and only getting better. When my brother comes to visit me from Spain, he often brings me a bottle of this wine. Yes, even the Spanish go crazy for this wine.

For those that want the single vineyard La Solana, also from Marques Suertes, don’t worry, it is in stock. Scroll down to the bottom for the feature.

The Canary Islands are off of Africa’s West Coast. If you had to design perfect grape growing conditions and terroir, the climate on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands might just be the spot. The islands are volcanic which always makes for great minerality in the wines, the temperature reaches the upper 20’s in the day and gets very cool in the evenings which tends to make for very balanced wines.

As i mentioned above, if these wines were not so darn easy delicious, they would be wine geek wines as there is just so much interesting lore around the wines and the producer. Just have a look at the vines in the picture above. As someone that sees a lot of vines, i have never seen any that look like this.

We know plenty of you are away on March break with the kids. We did want to wait until next week to feature the Marques Suertes wines, but at the rate people are buying them, there was not going to be anything left. I suggest you buy them now should you want a case or 2. If you have the means, owning a case of each would be the right approach as stylistically, they are quite different, but both are flat our amazing.

We are down to our last couple of palates of the 2010 Lopez de Haro Rioja Crianza. It is hard to believe we started with 72,000 bottles. Yeah, that’s a lot and it is almost all gone. There was quite an appetite for this wine. Don’t worry, the next vintage, though much younger, is also delicious, but this 2010 was nearly too good to be true. Anyways, this is your last shot at the 2010, so get it while you can.

Looks like there is some more snowy and cold weather in store for today. Stay warm, let WineOnline.ca deliver your wines to you.

Have a great day!