Étienne Courtois shares the Quartz vineyard with his father Claude. Their vines are mostly older, own-rooted, protected from phyloxera by the area’s ultra-sandy soils. This is an exuberant, elegant drink. Transparent, an exquisite exercise in delicate edge. Put this together in a tasting with your Ambiz and you’ll learn that place and technique is often more important than a grape.

My TFLWS is going to love me and hate me for this polarizing wine. First, a sauvignon blanc from the hot hills outside of Madrid? How non-traditional! Well, the vines are thirty years old, grown by the folk that own Vega Sicilia and sell off for mostly plonk. But our guy Fabio gets some, gives it ten days of skin contact in a mix of stainless and tinaja (the clay vessel of Spain) and presto chango; the wine gets melony and tannic and changes every second it’s in your glass.