Malvasía Volcánica
The queen of Lanzarote. Saline, floral, with an acidity that keeps it on its feet.
Malvasía Volcánica is Lanzarote’s flagship grape, close to 70% of everything planted on the island (and it also turns up on Tenerife and Gran Canaria). It isn’t the same Malvasía you find all over the Mediterranean: it’s a natural Canary cross, between Malvasía Aromática and Marmajuelo, and the “Volcánica” tag is not for show. It tastes of the volcanic grit it grows in: salt, wet stone, white flowers and an acidity that holds it all up even when the wine is bone dry and the August sun is hammering down.
It makes dry whites that are among our favourites anywhere, but also off-dry ones, sweet late-harvest bottles and even traditional-method sparklers. The magic is the effortless elegance, like it isn’t even trying: fresh, saline, long, no need for oak or fireworks. If you want to understand what volcanic wine is about, you start here.
Guides
Canary Islands wine: where to start without getting lost
Volcanic soil, grapes that exist nowhere else and a ladder that starts in a guachinche. How to get into Canary Islands wine without drowning in eleven appellations.
Volcanic Malvasía: what it is and how it tastes
A Canary-born cross of Malvasía Aromática and Marmajuelo, found nowhere else on earth. What Volcanic Malvasía is, how it tastes, and how it went from Shakespeare's wine to dry.
Lanzarote wine: why La Geria tastes like nowhere else
Vines in pits on volcanic ash, saline Malvasía and a streak of acidity you never see coming. An honest guide to why Lanzarote wine, and La Geria, tastes different.