Suertes del Marqués 7 Fuentes El Lance Red 2018

Suertes del Marqués is a family winery producing wines since 2006. However, their tradition as winegrowers dates back to the late 1980s, growing and selling their grapes to other wineries in the Appellation Valle de La Orotava.

Geographically they are in the north of the island of Tenerife, in Valle de La Orotava, a valley within the town of the same name.

Without losing sight of the respect for tradition, the cornerstone of their winery philosophy, in Suertes del Marqués, they artificially interfere as little as possible in their wines, so they work with indigenous yeasts, avoiding racking and use only minimal amounts of sulfur in their wines.

All processes in the cellar are carried out by hand, from works in the vineyard to harvest. They avoid any systemic treatments in the vineyard, using only natural products when vine diseases eventually arise.

Environment and varieties
Suertes del Marqués vineyards are in Valle de La Orotava, a valley on the northern side of the island of Tenerife. The property has 11 hectares of vineyards, ranging from 300 to 750 metres above sea level, with different orientations and soil compositions. Moreover, Suertes del Marqués works another 15 hectares with vine growers of the area with vineyards with altitudes between 250-800 meters.

Centenary ungrafted vine stocks of black and white listen grapes compose most of their vineyards. Grown in “cordon multiple”, listen grapes coexist with other native varieties: from young and old vines like Vijariego Negro, Baboso Negro, Castellana Negra, Malvasia Rosada or Volcanic Torrontés, growned in Cordon Royat, Trenzado or Bush system.

Philosophy
Since 2006, this small family winery has used native varieties and traditional vineyard management methods. To preserve viticulture and wine-making heritage that dates back five centuries old, they only work with growers from Valle de La Orotava.

Cellar
The cellar has different volumes of uncoated concrete tanks in which they carry out the fermentation of their wines and the refinement for some plots. The ageing of their wines takes place in small french oak foudres of 500 litres volume. They also use bigger sizes, from 2000 to 4500 litres. They conceive their use only as a tool for the refinement process, not to provide any nuances to them.

Moreover, they have stainless steel tanks of different volumes that allow them to perform the blending of various plots for their Village Wines, and of the different casks for their single vineyard wines, before the bottling step.

The wines
They divided the wines into three categories:

- Village wines from various vineyard plots and the property are vinified separately and assembled before bottling. Within this line they have their wines 7 Fuentes, El Lance, Medianías and Trenzado;

- The Single Vineyard wines come only from specific parcels known as Finca El Esquilón, which are vinified and bottled separately, giving names to wines such as La Solana, Candio, El Esquilón, El Chibirique, Los Pasitos and Vidonia;

- finally, two special vinifications called Suertes del Marqués Blanco Dulce and Tinto Dulce.