Volcanic Island Wine pt 1
It is amazing that wine grows in places like this in the world. Far from the manicured rows of grape vines found in files of inspiration on Pinterest, this is true island winemaking. And the terroir here we are talking about is…well, broken down volcanic rock, as seen above, from my last trip to Lanzarote.
Interest in “Island Wine” has virtually erupted lately. Corsica, Canary Islands, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, Santorini, Mallorca - you name it. What makes wines so special or sought after from these places? Well, for starters it’s a remote location for grapes to grow on a site of once INTENSE volcanic activity. Also the soil is predominantly decomposed magma rock; ash often times called Basalt. This is why there are black sand beaches in Hawaii. This is also the source of a lot of minerality in grapes grown on these types of conditions, making refreshing and super drinkable bottles to enjoy.
Chemically speaking, you can geek out on the high levels of magnesium, silica, sodium, and iron in these ashy soils that create this flavor profile. But let’s talk more about the wine…
Unless you were a wild little kid licking rocks outside your house in the rain, most of us have no idea what that minerality tastes like. Honestly it is a very tough adjective for people to describe, much less identify, in wine. So when I tell my guests a wine has “flinty/salty/minerality” what does that actually mean?
The photo above is where grapes are grown at Los Bermejos, a winery founded in 2001 in the Canary Islands closest to the African coast. While still being part of Spain, it is very far from the mainland. A maritime mix of Atlantic influence, Sahara desert winds, and a microclimate I can only describe as “the moon.” Virtually no vegetation exists here at all. Just a sea of black and brown soils, with white-washed houses and the occasional grape vine or papaya plant. Because of the intensity of said winds these crater-like holes are dug to protect the vines essentially from whiplash.
Vines are grown organically and there is a myth that they harvest grapes with basket-clad camels trotting through the vineyards. Even if that isn’t true, it’s very amusing to envision. Also of note, with sandy-ashy soils like this that pesky vine destroyer, Phylloxera, never had a chance. So you get a lot of very old vines, sometimes 100+ years old aka “Pie Franco.” Just another reason why island wine can be so complex and interesting.
In the case of Los Bermejos, they make a lot of different wines and the majority of their wine is saved on the island and consumed there. That wine tends to be sweet (why is there such a culture of drinking sweet wine on islands? More on this later) so don’t be confused if you are there visiting. In NYC we get more of their dry, mineral-driven, crisp and refreshing styles usually between $20-$25/btl. The bottles are also strikingly handsome, made by an Italian glass-maker, they look almost like old oil bottles with no labels.
Worth searching for would be their Rosé of Listan Negro (indigenous grape with thin skin making very salty, pale pink, tantalizingly quaffable wine) or their white made of a grape called Diego (also quite delightful, light and semi-floral without being too harsh in acidity). Both are the epitome of Island Wine and great as aperitif with friends, with vegetables and chilled pasta salads, or snuck into a (reusable) water bottle and sipped in the sunshine at the beach…semi responsibly.
