Bien de Altura

Raised by his mother and grandmother, Carmelo inherited from them a big heart, warmth and charm, along with the inner-city energy and hustle of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, an industrial port scrunched between the sleeping volcano and Atlantic crammed with half a million locals and four million tourists each year. He returned home in 2017 to begin Bien de Altura after traveling the world working in cellars and vineyards. Listán Negro is the dominant grape in Carmelo’s range, and results in more elegant wines with a fresher fruit profile. In this arid climate with an average annual rainfall of only 134 cm (5.3 inches) and at some of the wine world’s highest altitudes, from 1,100-1,460 meters (3,600-4,800 feet), on mostly east-facing sites on extremely steep orange volcanic sand, silt, clay, and rocky topsoil, he crafts a series of wines with a global cult following. The cellar practices are intendedly low tech and made with minimal sulfites, whole bunch fermentations, extended macerations and neutral aging vessels.