Malmsey –Lanzarote’s Malvasia Wine
Exploring the Unusual Vineyards of La Geria in the Canary Islands
Malmsey is a robust sweet wine, a favorite after-dinner drink in England, and a perfect drink with chocolate desserts. The very best comes from Spain's Canary Islands.
In most of the world’s great wine-growing regions, long rows of parallel vines are an expected part of the landscape. But on the island of Lanzarote, a part of Spain that lies just off the coast of North Africa, the Malvasia grape vines grow in widely spaced depressions in the black earth, each vine enclosed by a semi-circle of stone wall.
Malpais to Malvaisia
La Geria, in central Lanzarote between the towns of Mozaga and Yaiza, is the source of Malmsey, known locally by the name of its grape, Malvaisia. In the early 1700s, the valley was farmland, but beginning in September of 1730 a six-year period of volcanic eruptions covered southern Lanzarote with thick layers of ash and lava.
When farmers returned to their blackened fields, they quickly discovered a use for the tiny black cinders. Their rough shape and porous texture capture the dew each night, carrying it directly into the soil around the roots of the vine. Scooping out widely spaced depressions in the ash, farmers planted a single vine in the center of each, then surrounded each vine with the black ash. From the coarse volcanic rock (malpais) left by cooling lava, they built low walls to protect the vines from dry winds, blowing sand and searing sunlight.
La Geria Today
The La Geria valley is today covered in a pattern of these round depressions and semi-circles of stone walls that form a regular honeycomb design across the rolling landscape. In places the walled depressions and vines reach almost to the top of the volcanic cones that form the valley walls. Punctuating these unique patterns are bodegas where visitors can sample and buy the wines, and learn about their unusual history at a wine museum
El Grifo Museo
The wine museum is much larger than it looks, and housed in the old bodega, where visitors can explore inside the old tile-lined storage ‘tanks’ that now house exhibits. These include camel saddles (camels are the traditional beast of burden here), equipment used in wine making and a complete barrel-making shop. Wines are sold by the half-glass in the bodega, a good way to sample both Malmsey and the table wines produced here. El Grifo is the oldest operating bodega in the Canary Islands, and the striking griffin on the sign was designed by artist Cesar Manrique, who also adapted the old bodega to a museum.
Although Malmsey is the most familiar wine produced here, the region also makes creditable red and white table wines.
Tapas and Wine
Another wine finca, El Chupadero, has taken a more upscale approach, in its tapas bar-café, with rustic wooden tables and a terrace with sunset views across the vine-patterned hills. Two smart, modern apartments in the finca offer lodging for tourists by the week.
La Geria region is close to Mount Timanfaya and the national park, north of Yaiza. See the landscape and visit wineries (bodegas) by following highway LZ-30, which runs from Mozaga to Uga, on the outskirts of Yaiza.
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