62 OCTOBER 2020
TRAVELHEN CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS SAILED,
supposedly for Asia, in 1492, he paused to
restock in the Canary Islands, where the
Spanish had just about finished wresting
control from the native Guanche people
(the islands were fully conquered four years
later). He might have been tempted to linger in this beautiful
archipelago at the edge of what was then the known world, but
the islands’ location has always meant that most people move
on. Captain James Cook stopped during his third and final voy-
age; Captain Horatio Nelson lost his arm here in battle, years
before he fought the Battle of Trafalgar. The trade winds blew
everyone in, and then they blew them out again. What did take
root in this porous volcanic soil, along with a few hardy settlers,
were grapevines.
Volcanic eruptions are terrible for vineyards, but only briefly.
Once the lava cools, the volcanic soil left behind creates deli-
cious wine that is lean, racy, and mineral: Santorini’s Assyrtiko,
Nerello Mascalese from the slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna, North-
ern Californian Cabernet Sauvignon. Vines planted by Spanish
and Portuguese settlers made the Canaries famous: In Twelfth
Night, Shakespeare’s Sir Toby Belch speaks of “a cup of canary.”
Then their popularity waned, and for 200 years, the trade winds
brought no trade.
“And a good thing, too,” says Jonatan García Lima of Suertes
del Marqués on Tenerife, the Canaries’ largest island. No trade
meant vines could grow and adapt in peace, and the result is a
remarkable range of varieties that, if not precisely indigenous
(Listán Blanco is also Palomino, the grape of sherry, while Listán
Prieto is better known as Mission, the earliest European variety
planted in the Americas), are so different from their other
incarnations as to be almost unrecognizable.
The great eruption on the island of Lanzarote occurred in
1730, lasting nearly six years and transforming its terroir. The
national park is a jumble of black rocks; although the volcano
is now considered dormant, the ground is still warm. And
not just the ground: We visited in January, the coolest month,
on an island hop from Lanzarote to Tenerife, and still the sun
shone. Inland, we shucked off light sweaters only to hurriedly
pull them back on when the cool sea winds blew across the
vineyards.
Those vineyards are starkly beautiful but surpassingly strange:
covered in black volcanic ash, each vine planted in an individual
depression, shielded from that chill wind by its own semi-
circular wall of ink-dark rock. Driving through La Geria, the
island’s principal wine region, is like crossing a giant muffin
tray with vines where the muffins should be. “We can’t compete
on quantity,” remarked Ana de León of Los Bermejos, one of
the region’s best-known wineries, “but we can on quality.” She
offered me a floral Malvasía Volcánica and an earthy, berryish
Listán Negro that proved her point.
At Lanzarote’s oldest winery, El Grifo, founded in 1775,
we toured the on-site museum (including a 100-liter 1930s
wineskin made from a single goat), admired the sculptural
cactus garden, and tasted a tropical, textured Malvasía de Lías
as well as Canari, a glorious, sweet blend that’s their interpreta-
tion of Sir Toby’s suggested tipple. Hours later, we walked intoW