Wine of Volcano and Sea

contributor Monica Goya. Monica has a special connection to the Canary Islands as her mother grew up on the island of Tannerief. Yeah. So my mom grew up in on Tenerife, and that's where half of my family still lives because she's the only one who left. And so when I was when I was growing up, I would go there every summer and also sometimes other school holidays like Christmas.

And my mom has a very special relations with vineyards because when growing up, my granddad work, he had a job, so my mom always talked with very with with you know, love about the vineyards and and that life of tending the land. And then when she moved to mainland Spain after she married, there were no vineyards here, so whenever we went, she would be very excited to visit my uncles bien yards and to see what he was doing.

And I feel that if my mom had been born later on, maybe something that he might have pursued as a profession. But of course there were no opportunities back then. She grew up during the Franco dictatorship, so women were not as free as we are today to do what

we please. I started to become interested in in wine somehow, in wine from there, because all my life I had this my mom had been telling me about how the things they did when they work in A massive volcano erupted on my palmer, and the remnants of the ash parted in the soil gave the smaller Canary Island a unique quality. The Canary Islands are seven main volcanic islands, plus a few smaller ones, located in the Atlantic Ocean

off the coast of Morocco. They are a tropical holiday spot for many Northern Europeans, notorious Librets, Germans and Nordics as well. Um The temperatures are mild year round, rarely going above thirty degrees celsius, which is I think near

ninety fahrenheit in the summer or below seventeen in winter. However, it's a land of contrasts, not only because of the changing landscape from arid plains to deep, narrow ballets, black volcanic sandwiches, green forests, or jagged mountain, but also because of the weather. There are dozens of microclimates within the same island, and this is due to the rugged nature

of the islands and their greater elevations. For example, La Palma, which is one of the smaller islands, so this last volcano erupted in it was the last one um to erupt in the archipelago. It's called the ten Idea volcano and is located in the south of the island, so it's not far from where Victoria has her winery and

some of her vineyards. La Palma that in terms of soil is actually like two different islands because the north is geologically much older than the south, so in the North that the soil is dritts in organic matter you can find clay, for example, whereas in the South, because it is much younger, the soil is ritter in minerals,

but it's poorer in organic matter. Trade winds soften the hardness of the nearby Sahara desert climate, so the weather and conclusion is very nice, with almost three thousand hours of sunshine per year. And one of the most famous crops from these islands are bananas um, which are grown it seeks out of the Seven Islands, mostly in Tenerife

and La Palma. And if you ask a person from mainland Spain for a characteristic food from the islands, they would very likely say platinus, which means bananas in Spanish. But they are different to the ones imported from South America that we get here in Europe. They are smaller and sweeter, and they have also black dots on their skin. Let's talk about another important product of the Canary Islands. Wine.

Wine is actually very important there for the people who lived there, but I don't know if it's as well

known outside the islands. Um. So the culture of wine, I mean wine has been produced in the Canaries for over five hundred years, and it's even mentioned in some of Shakespeare's places, But until very recently it was not something that maybe people were necessarily proud of um And now I think that's changing because there is a new generation of wine makers who who are doing amazing things with the great varieties that are indigenous to the islands,

and they have vines that are over two hundred years old in some cases. Um so I think, I mean, it's a sweet moment because things are improving massively. One of those new winemakers Monica refers to is Victoria Torres Paces on the island of La Palma. Victoria tends to vines that are over one hundred and thirty years old. The Tortres Bodega is at Queen Calli In, which is at the very southern tip of La Palma, on that

pure black volcanic ash. But the vine she cares for can be found all over the island, all ungrafted and consequently very old. So I met her when I and I went to La Palma. I had had her wines before, and last year when I visited La Palma, I contacted her and I asked her if I could visit. And I had read a bit about her and what she was doing, and it fascinated me that she embarked. She embarked herself on this mission too, to rescue old vineyards.

And when you are a woman, maybe it's harder so many many of these wineries are still led by men and they take the decisions. So having a woman approaching you when you are, you know, a man, maybe in your seventies or eighties, and she tells you that she wants to look after your vineyards if you can no longer work, you need to be very brave to do that in a place where as I said, this is still there are women, of course, but it's very men dominated.

Is still. So she went to to complete her studies in a different island, and when she went back in two thousand and eight, she started working with her dad and she learned the tricks of the trade from him. Of course, as a child, I'm sure she spent a lot of time in the vineyards because that's how you grow up when you are there with a family that

works the land. Um And also is remarkable about Victoria that she only had one day off when she was working with her dad, and she used that one day off to go and work with German couple who had organic vineyards in the north of the island, and the island is La Parma, is very abrupt, so there is no motor way, and she used that one day off instead of to rest to go and keep working even more in different vinyards. So that's that shows a lot of determination and how willing she was to learn as

much as you could. Victoria Torres is a fifth generation winemaker, taking over from her father, one Mattias Torres in two thousand fourteen, who she had been working closely underneath to learn how to successfully operate the family business. This new generation of winemakers started to do things differently. They are not trying to compete with industrial wine from other parts of the country that is cheap because they don't have

the means to do that. Tip wine. In other parts the terrain is flat and it's easy to use machines to produce the wine, whereas here, I mean on the islands, because of the nature of the of the islands is most of the work is done by hand. So unless you do an artisan product, it's hard to sustain because you can't ask people. You can't ask for I don't know, twenty euros for a bottle of wine which is which

is not good quality. But you can't either make tip wine there because because as I said, many of the of the works in the vineyards have to be made by hands. So these people started to appreciate that the quality of the grapes, native grapes that they have in the Canaries, and they started to to be proud of

this of these grapes that not many people knew. And they started to work the vineyards using maybe like a sort of um minimal intervention approach, if you like, so that it would show the soil, it would show different things that maybe not many people did in the previous years.

And Monica, I'm interested in the relationship between the return to indigenous grape varieties and the sort of conservation mindset as it relates to the soil um In other words, do you think that there is a relationship between the movement to conserve indigenous grape variety and a movement to, let's say, conserve the health of the soil as we see in natural wine. Do you think those are similarly aligned.

I think they go together, at least in the cases of the of the winemakers I have met during these years. They have a great interest in keeping traditional alive. They are rescuing some vineyards that because the average of the of the average eight of wine growers is very high. It's over sixty years old, so some of them can no longer work the land, and these people are appearing and just trying to to preserve that tradition and that heritage.

And in some cases they have found vineyards that had been abandoned basically, and they are trying to recover them. So it's also a matter of patients, because maybe for three or four years they are working in these vineyards and not getting anything in return. In the fifteenth century, the Canary Islands already had a well established wine industry

and a moniker of sorts to go with it. Canary sack sac is an antiquated wine term referring to white fortified wine and possibly derivative of the Spanish saka, meaning to draw out a method similar to the solary system used in cherry production. The Islands are part of Spain since the fifteenth century UM, and it was different. Portuguese and Spanish were the main invaders, so some some of them of the of the ways in which the grapes

are grown. They have different influences, and some people say it was the Portuguese who brought grapes, it was the Spanish. Is probably a mix of of the people who who first lived there. After the conquest, so sometimes and the century the French slash Portuguese. UM most likely planted vines in the Canary Islands is that I guess it was probably first in the sixteenth century, because the conquest ended in fourteen nine Tennarifa was the last island to fall

Tenerifa La Palma. Actually the first ones were the most eastern islands. And then also it is said that some of the vines planted in America we're coming from the Canary Islands because the islands became the first stop on the way to the New World. UM. What makes her wine most notable is the farming. And we've talked a little bit about natural wine on the podcast about low intervention in viticulture. So can you tell us about what the different grape varieties are that she's growing, um, and

also what the characteristics of of the wines are. She grows white and red grapes that probably the most famous one in the in the wise is the Malbasa aromatica, which means aromatic malbaca and is is like the start. But she grows other wide varieties as well, like list Toan Blanco Diego and Alvido Griolo and she has red grapes like Negramle list and Negro or List tampriato. The white grapes and use at the tours Bases domain are both familiar from the Canary Islands as a whole and

also from southern Spain. These are at least Don Blanco and Malvasia, and the main red variety is Negamon. There's also least Don Brieto, perhaps better known as a variety which has recently been revived in South America, where it is called Pais in Chile or Grioa in Argentina. As someone who has had some of these grapes but not all of them, I think the Canary Island wines specifically have a very beautiful but kind of subtle aromatic quality. And I don't mean subtle um in terms of what

you can smell, but it's more like elegant. It's not like a lot of heavy fruit um or it's not like super funky. It's more like you know, c notes, earth notes, mineral notes, metal notes, sailing are these Is this just like in terms of the way that you would describe um some of these grapes, because these are this isn't like you know obviously chardonet or or lower

cabernet that many folks in the West are used to drinking. Um, So can you speak like on the I don't know, just like the feeling of drinking some of these different wines or the taste, the impression that was left. I completely agree with what you said. But for example, one of of my favorite wines from Victoria is one called Lass and this I was lucky enough to visit the plot with her. It was the first one we visited

when I went. And it's a is a vineyard that has been in her family for five generations, so she's one that she loves. And I believe her dad made white wines with all the wide grape varieties that they had, but she started making a single vineyard white wine from this Machukeras place and it's a hundred percent list on blanco grape and half of the vines are over a

hundred years old. So I don't know. Maybe it's my imagination, but I I think you can feel that persistent in the in the wine, if that makes sense, and it's it's elegant, and it has the minerality that volcanic wines often have and it's fresh and it's complex at the same time. So he said, you could have that wine for a special occasion, but you could also have it on a normal day. It's just, you know, a wine that you can drink and and and it has that because this is complex at the at the same time

that is fresh. I think it's a keen observation because least On Blanco and least On Negro where my first introductions into wines from the Canary Islands, and the least On Blanco in particular. What you say about the ability to enjoy it for a special occasion or on a normal day is so very true. I hadn't quite. I mean, I really love that about so many wines right like that that feel that it could be dressed up, or that feel really casual to our guests clothes or anything

for that matter. That's such a good quality, that kind of utility. Is there anything else? Um that my sports mentiondn't autromatic which is naturally sweet. Auromatic Malva uh is a spectacular wine, but it's not for every day because it's a sweet wine, so you are meant to have it small doses. Um, And I tasted it last last time I tasted it was during a wine fair in

London earlier this year, and Big Key was there. And it's difficult to put into words the amount of layers of significance that the existence of this wine represents, because you know the care, the patients, the tradition. So she visits the vineyards for weeks waiting for the exact moment when these Malvasia aromatica grapes are ready to be harvested. Harvest that she does together with only one person, and she only makes this wine in exceptional vintities, so it's

not a wine that she produces every year. And I remember the honyed taste and even if it was a sweet wine, it had a very surprising or balance between switness and acidity. I'm not used to drink sweet wines, but that's what surprised me. And it's a funny anecdote. After this fair, I was outside talking to some other wine professionals, and I mean they didn't know that I

had met Biggie before or anything like that. They were talking about their favorite wines for the day after a whole day tasting wines from Spain, and four out of five had said that the wine that they were more surprised than amazed. Why was this malvasia aromatica that she makes? And I thought, I really like that. Yeah, I think it's so much harder to make an excellent sweet wine as opposed to making excellent dry wine, because it's so

much harder to find that that balance. You know, well, I I know that I'm ready to visit the Canary Island. It's a place that I've always wanted to go. Victoria Torres's wines are they widely available? Are they widely exported? They are widely exported, so they are widely available elsewhere, but not so widely available on the island. Do you

hate that? So? I wasn't very happy about that when I was there, because I mean, also for her, because it's nice that people where you live appreciate or have access to what you're doing, especially when it's remarkably different to others. To the wine is that other people are making um there, But I mean, you can't find it, but if you if you don't look for it, it's hard to come across it on the island at whet Stone, our love of wine has been exhaustively chronicled and continues

to be but in our reporting. For sure, one of the most exciting trends we've seen on a global level is precisely this aforementioned intertwining relationship between the preservation of native grapes and natural wine production, which summons a hands off viticultural and seller management technique without much consideration. Either could be viewed as a trend catering towards a growing

consumer base of conscientious wine drinkers. But there is a real story under lying this about a revolution that is happening in the vineyards, a revolution that matches the native grapes and its natural soil habitat that refuses the pesticides or additions that serve at the whims of the winemaker

instead of let's say, the land or its traditions. If we are to have a future in agriculture on this planet, we would certainly benefit from more relationships between what grows natively above the ground and what is well suited for the vital life force below it. We'd like to thank our guest today, Monica Goya and Victoria Tortrees Passes. You can read Monica's full story and Whetstone Volume six, or also on Instagram at Whetstone magazine. We'd also like to

thank our incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best. To our editor and Whetstone part partner and director of Video David Alexander in London, appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last but not least, my business partner Mel she who makes all things at Whetstone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also like to thank our partners in production at I Heeart Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and

executive producer Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with more from the world of food worldwide Point of Origin listeners. As you know, rating and reviewing our podcast is the very best way for more people to find out about our very important work at Whetstone, so please, if you're able, we would really appreciate a positive review in rating on Apple podcast that will help others like yourself find out about the Point of Origin