Lanzarote is a volcanic island, one of the larger of the Canaries. It is stark, just black volcanic ash covering the entire island. There are 300+ volcanoes on the island, though none of them are active. They were last active in the 1700s – at that time Lanzarote was a garden island and agriculture was the largest industry, along with fishing. A rip in the Earth’s crust changed all that by burying rich soil under meters of volcanic ash. Lives and livelihoods were lost.

Somehow one of the persistent post-eruption farmers found that by digging into and under the ash, plants could survive by their roots reaching the fertile soil. They also found that grapes did very well in these conditions. The ash traps atmospheric moisture (humidity) and the vines can survive on that. It basically doesn’t rain on Lanzarote, with less than five inches precipitation per year.

So they began a tradition of digging pits in the ash and planting vines. They then learned to surround the vines with a small rock wall to protect them from the strong east-to-west wind coming from north Africa. Over time a small wine industry formed, and today Lanzarote’s economy is based on tourism, wine, and fishing. But mostly the first two. Here are some examples of Lanzarote vineyards, completely unique to the region.

In this first photo we see an old vine (100+ years old) with branches so large that they need propping up over the hole dug in ash.

In the next couple of photos we have a vineyard on hillsides. There are tens of thousands of these rock cairns built in the area, all by hand. This particular style of grape growing uses no machinery – it’s all human labor.

We tried some of the Lanzarote wines and they weren’t bad. One Syrah in particular was nice. Their signature grape is Malvasia, a sweet dry white. They only grow a few varietals.

Lanzarote and these stark, dramatic volcanic vineyards were the main reason we took a trip to the Canaries. We’ll see if the other islands are as interesting.