Lanzarote

Lanzarote is viticulture done backwards. After Timanfaya erupted between 1730 and 1736 and buried half the island under ash, someone worked out that the disaster could be turned into a trick: dig a pit down to the good soil, plant the vine at the bottom, and let the volcanic grit act as a sponge, soaking up the overnight dew and holding it for the roots. That is how La Geria came about, a landscape of craters with a single vine sitting inside each one, shielded from the wind by a low half-moon wall of dry stone.

The Lanzarote DO was recognised in 1993 and the undisputed queen is Malvasía Volcánica, which makes dry whites that taste of salt, of stone, of that place and nowhere else. It barely rains here, nothing is irrigated, and the vines never met phylloxera: old ungrafted stock in black earth. It’s one of the most exciting corners of Spanish wine right now.