Canary Islands: Snapshots

From my first taste of Canary wines, I’d been hooked (see basalt piece). So when my little brother-like friend, importer José Pastor offered to guide me, I reserved my flights. We hooked up in Madrid, lunched, picked up a bottle of La Bota (just in case) and flew the two hours southwest. If I hadn’t actually gone to visit, I’d have believed that the seven (major) Canary Islands were all as hot as Hades, plagued by strong African winds and all the vines were protected by stone walls called zocos, nested into black volcanic ash. Wrong. The much photographed lunar-like landscape exists mainly on Lanzarote. The islands are individuals; climatically nuanced, joined by different expressions of basalts that birth spectacular potatoes, avocados, mangoes and yes, grapes. If the wines don’t go new world (a danger we were to find on Lanzarote), José will go down in history as having discovered treasure hiding in plain sight.