Traditional vineyard of Tenerife © PROEXCA

phylloxera rootstock vines that grow in its vineyards is truly remarkable. González produces a superb range of wines, including a brilliant Malvasía Seco, a fresh Tinta Conejera (“rabbit red”) Rosado, a couple of good commercial young red wines, an amontillado seco-like solera Vino Naturalmente Dulce, and a superb Moscatel Vino de Licor solera wine made from Moscatel de Alejandría grapes.

the Land of Wind”) and a delicious Tajinaste red from Tenerife’s Valle de la Orotava.

cAnARY IsLAnDs ILLUstRIoUs HIstoRY

Among the better wines I tried on Gran Canaria were Las Tirinajas Blanco (Listán Blanco, Malvasía and Moscatel), Las Tirinajas Tinto (Listán Negro, Castellana) and the lemony, off-dry Mondalón Malvasía Dulce. But we tasted the most impressive Gran Canaria wines during a visit to the spectacular Los Berrazales in Agaete, a self-sustaining farm that also produces avocados, mangos, oranges, orange blossom honey and exceptional coffee. Everything on this marvelous farm— including a huge rock that fell onto the property during a earthquake years ago and was incorporated into the winery—has a “sense of place,” (terruño), including the wines. From pre-phylloxera vines, Inocencio Lugo, the owner and his son, Victor Lugo, produce Los Berrozales Semi-seco (Moscatel, Malvasía; great with foie-gras and goat cheese), a delicious young red Tinto (Tintilla, Castellana) and a subtle, honeysuckle-and-jasmine laced Moscatel Dulce that was a perfect match to the orange honey and goat cheese.

Using camels during the grape harvest © Patronato de Turismo de Lanzarote

From the 16 to 19 th th

La Palma, called La Isla Bonita (beautiful island), the island with the second highest altitude in the Canaries after Tenerife, is entirely a biospheric reserve. Because of the altitude changes on this small island, the climate differences can be dramatic. A visit might begin in a fine mist with clouds covering one side of the island, while a hail storm is hitting the north and a heat wave rules in the south. Although most of the volcanoes are extinct on La Palma, there was a major eruption near the Teneguía winery in southernmost La Palma in 1971.

Centuries, when Sherries, Madeira wines and Ports were in vogue in England, wines of the Canary Islands figured prominently among the giants of classical wine. Shakespeare’s characters talk about drinking "Canary" ( malvasia-based wines) and references to these wines are found in the works of Sir Walter Scott, Ben Jonson, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Theophile Gautier, John Keats, Immanuel Kant, John Locke and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

GRAPe VARIetIes

It is striking to see Malvasía and Sabro vines, from which some of the island's best sweet wines are made, clinging to volcanic slopes with the vines snaking low across the landscape, providing a dramatic contrast between the bright green of the leaves and the stark grey, lava-strewn ground. Vega Norte is producing some ever-better red table wines from Negramoll and Prieto Picudo grapes, but the stars here are Tamanca, Teneguía, Vid Sur and Carballo, all of which produce truly exceptional Malvasías Dulces dessert wines. And Tamanca and Teneguía produce some spectacular dulces (sweet wines) from the Sabro grape.

On Gran Canaria, the warmest of the islands due to the influence of African trade winds, are some of the most impressive restaurants. The wines, with a few notable exceptions, need to do some catch up with the food but are clearly on an upward trend. My friends from Devour.tv and I were fortunate to sample some of the better Gran Canaria wines during wonderful meals at such restaurants as Salsete in San Fernando, the Hecansa Hotel Escuela in Santa Brígida, the charming Casa de los Camellos in Agüimes, and Mariano García’s first-rate traditional cuisine La Cuadra in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Canary Island vineyards
boast a wide variety of
grapes, many of which dis-
appeared from the Iberian
Peninsula mainland when
it was hit by the phyllox-
era plague that devastated
European vineyards in the
late 19 Century. Most of
th
the best dry white wines
and sweet white wines–
among the greatest dessert
wines of Spain–are made
from Malvasía grapes, but
a number are made with
Moscatel, Pedro Ximénez,
Torrontés, Listán Blanca,
Verdello and Albillo, as
well as such little-known
Canary Islands varieties as
Sabro, Bastardo Blanco,
Güal and Forastera
Blanca.

At the superb modern cuisine restaurant La Terraza in the luxurious Hotel Santa Catalina in Las Palmas, chef José Rojano served us some stellar dishes. We enjoyed gazpacho de mango with trout caviar, diced apple and prawns; vieja (parrot fish) with papas negritas arruga-das (Canary Islands black potatoes “wrinkled” by cooking in salt water) served with two of the Islands’ famous, deliciously addictive mojo sauces (verde, made with cilantro, and rojo, made with garlic, Spanish olive oil and hot peppers), and albondigas de cerdo negro de Canarias con trufa (Canaries black pig meatballs with truffles). With this exceptional meal we drank a superb Stratus Malvasía Blanco Seco (“El Vino del Fuego de la Tierra del Viento,” a Lanzarote “Volcanic Fire Wine from

Tenerife, with more than 2,000 square kilometers, is the largest of the Canary Islands and with nearly 900,000 inhabitants, the most populated. It is also the most important island for tourists, many of whom come for the beaches. Tenerife is the island most attuned to marketing its wines outside the Islands. At the Casa del Vino La Baranda in the Tacoronte-Acentejo D.O. near La Laguna and the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz, I was able to taste some the best wines of the five Tenerife denominaciones de origen: Abona, Tacoronte-Acentejo, Valle de Güimar, Valle de la Orotava and Ycoden-Daute-Isora. Among the most interesting were the Domínguez Especial Blanco (Tacoronte-Acentejo), an improbable but charming, rosé-tinged wine made from 90% Negramoll (a red grape) and 10% Malvasía; Viñátigo’s superb (Ycoden-Daute-Isora D.O.) dry wines as well as their stunning sweet Malvasías (the latter among Spain’s greatest dessert wines); wines from Viña Norte/Humboldt (Tacoronte-Acentejo); Bodegas Buten’s aptly-named Magma de Crater ( Tacoronte-Acentejo); and the delicious, tart Tajinaste (Valle de la Orotava) made from 100% Listán Negro.

Abona’s vines on Tenerife are on the lower slopes of the mighty volcanic mountain, Teide, the highest peak in all of Spain. Abona grows a variety of native grapes and foreign varietals in vineyards that are often strewn with a fine, white volcanic sand that helps retain moisture, known as “Jable” soil. At Bodegas Frontos in Granadilla de Abona, I tasted the clean, fresh, minerally Blanco Seco Ecológico (100% Listán Blanco) and a rich, spicy Baboso Negro.

Predominant red varieties include Listán Negro, Negramoll, Bastardo Negro, Malvasía Rosada, Mosacatel Negro, Tintilla, Baboso Negro (related to the Bastardo of Galicia’s Monterrei region) and the more familiar varieties, Tempranillo and the recently planted foreign varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Pinot Noir.

I came away from the Canary Islands vowing not to let another forty months—let alone years—pass before I return to see what other wine treasures are to be found in these remarkable islands.

Grapevine of CRDO El Hierro

PROEXCA