Vijariego Blanco
Green apple, pear and citrus, with an acidity that won't quit even in the heat. You won't find it outside the Canaries.
Vijariego Blanco is one of those grapes that only makes sense here. It came over from southern Spain (there’s still a little left up in the Alpujarra hills) and stayed in the Canaries, where every island gave it a different name: Diego on Lanzarote, Bujariego or Verijadiego elsewhere. Big bunches, fat yellowish berries, so eatable that for a long stretch it was grown as a table grape.
What makes it worth having for wine is sheer stubbornness: it holds on to acid and sugar even where it’s hot and humid, which in the islands is the default setting. The result is dry whites of green apple, pear, citrus and a herbal undertow, with enough backbone to age in bottle and to make sparkling wine. On Gran Canaria it’s the second most planted white, right behind Muscat of Alexandria, and it’s usually the one holding a blend up from underneath.