Wine Of The Week: Envinate Lousas
A dazzling Spanish red from one of the wildest places in the world to grow wine.
There are a lot of lovely wines in this world, but every year around this time, I find myself incredibly excited for the new releases from Envinate. Winemakers Roberto Santana, Alfonso Torrente, Laura Ramos, and José Martínez met while studying winemaking. They graduated and founded Envinate (it translates to ‘wine yourself’), with the mission to express the unique winegrowing region of coastal Spain.
It ain’t easy to grow grapes in these regions. It’s ridiculously steep and blindingly sunny during the day – not a winemaking region for the faint of heart. But the four of them manage to make brilliantly expressive, utterly unique wines.
Their Lousas is made with mainly Mencia — a silky, aromatic grape grown in Portugal and Spain — with a little bit of Souson and Trousseau. It’s full, stemmy, and peppery, with plush aromas of violet, pomegranate, and blueberries. This dazzling and vibrant wine also possesses a nice hit of minerality. It’s rich enough to stand up to a big-flavored meal, or just enjoy it chilled on a hot summer night. $46
Kate Dingwall is a WSET-trained sommelier and seasoned spirits writer. Her work has appeared in Wine Enthusiast, Eater, Forbes.com, and others, and she pours wine at one of Canada’s top restaurants.
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