Malvasía Aromática
The historic Canary malvasía, the one half of Europe drank in the 1500s. Honey, apricot and citrus.
Malvasía Aromática is malvasía in its original sense, the one scattered across half the Mediterranean (in Sicily they call it Malvasia di Lipari) and the one that made Canary wine famous back when the islands exported to the whole of Europe. It’s the grape behind the malmsey Shakespeare kept putting in his plays. It gives honey, apricot, citrus and blossom, with a tug between ripe fruit sweetness and acidity that is its signature. It turns up in dry wines, off-dry ones and sweet late-harvest bottlings.
Don’t mix it up with Malvasía Volcánica, which is its offspring: a natural Canary crossing between this and marmajuelo, and the grape that rules Lanzarote. Aromática hangs on in Tenerife, La Palma and Gran Canaria, nearly always in blends and nearly always in small amounts. When it shows up in a blend you know about it: it’s the one supplying the perfume.