Far away from the white beaches of Lanzarote is a scene more reminiscent of a science fiction film.
Inland, the jet-black terrain is broken up only by a series of indents as if a giant had pressed their thumb into the soil.
Among the volcanic ash which covers much of the island, are Lanzarote’s wineries. Their very existence is a story of how the islanders turned disaster into success.
Lying 125 kilometres (80 miles) off the coast of Africa, Lanzarote is the easternmost of the Canary Islands. It bears the nickname “Volcano Island” for good reason – the 300 lava spewers dotted around the stretch of land that’s better known for all-year-round holidays than its wines.
A series of eruptions, which started in 1730, changed life on the island for ever. They wrought chaos, covering almost a quarter of the island in lava. Nearly three hundred years later, a black blanket of picón (volcanic ash) remains.
With its warm climate and sunshine, the Canary Islands have produced wine since the 15th century when the Spanish conquistadors arrived. But volcanic activity gave a huge boost to the industry on Lanzarote.
After the island’s devastating eruptions, the last of which happened in 1824, its inhabitants were forced to improvise or starve. Arable crops were no longer viable, but islanders discovered that grapevines could not only survive, but thrive, thanks to the black ash which had decimated everything else.
Lanzarote only receives 150mm of rainfall every year, compared to the average of 300mm which is the minimum needed to grow wine. Worse still for vintners, the island is regularly buffeted by strong winds and dust storms – called calimas – lasting days. Sand and soil from the Sahara desert turn the island into a haze for days at a time.
Faced with such adverse conditions, farmers had to act quickly to save their livelihoods.
“After the eruptions, the wine growers had to change the way they worked,” Elisa Ludeña, the technical director of the El Grifo, tells i. Established in 1775, El Grifo is the oldest winery in the Canary Islands and also one of the 10 oldest in Spain.
“This tragedy became an advantage,” she says. “There is only 150mm of rainfall every year. Normally you need 300mm. But from this adversity came good fortune. The winemakers looked for the fertile soil (underneath the ash) and put the plants there.”
The solution was to dig. They made hoyos or conical hollows, three metres wide by three or four metres deep. After planting the grapevines, they covered them with the volcanic ash. Next, they built small walls at the top of the hoyos, usually from lava stones. These were designed to protect the vines from the wind.
The ash draws the moisture from the air and keeps it in the soil. This helps to regulate the vines’ temperature. The cone collects what little rain there is and pushes it down towards the plant’s roots.
“The picón preserves the water well and it is also a heat regulator,” says Ms Ludeña. “There is humidity, thanks to the picón. We have very big changes in temperature from 26°C during the day and 16°C to 17°C during the night. Anything under 20°C is cold for us!
“The people here were so ingenious that there is not just one kind of wine growing.”
A top-of-the-range wine, El Grifo sells for up to £32.99 per bottle in the UK. The winery produces red and whites, called Volcanic Malvasia, Listán Negro, Listán Blanco, Vijariego and Moscatel. Most of its bottles are sold in Spain but it is expanding to Europe and the US.
However, most wine from Lanzarote is sold locally or is transported to the Spanish mainland as the cost of exporting it further would make its cost prohibitive. “Because of our (geographical) position it is not very practical to export the wine or it becomes too expensive for the customer,” says Nereida Pérez, the technical coordinator of the Lanzarote wines’ regulatory council. “In the Spanish mainland, it sells for between €13 and €15 per bottle.”
Last year, the 33 wineries on the island produced 1.8 million bottles, lower than the record year in 2021 when a bumper harvest led to 2.7 million bottles.
Harvesting the wine is backbreaking work as it is hard to get heavy machinery to the vineyards. Hoyos are separated by narrow paths. So grapes are packed into boxes and moved to lorries or tractors, which necessitates between 30 and 40 journeys per day for workers.
“It is very complicated for a tractor to get in. It is not mechanised because it is impossible for any tractors to get into the vineyards. We pick up boxes of up to 20kg,” Ms Ludeña says.
She says there were up to 900 vines in each hectare, a fraction of the number in a bodega in mainland Spain or France, where there are normally 3,000 vines in the same area.
“We are talking about one of the lowest productions in Spain, if not in Europe,” she added. “We produce a maximum 350 bottles per year. We have a lot of capacity but our philosophy is quality not quantity. In the end, the basic tools to make wine here are very good. Our winery is very old.”
But Ms Pérez sees the volcanic eruptions which tore the island apart as a godsend for its vineyards: “Without the picón we would not be able to produce wine.”