A glossary of Lanzarote's volcanic wine

The island's official grape is called Vijariego or Diego, and it is a single grape: here are the words of Lanzarote's wine, from what the Regulatory Council fixes to what each winery adds on its own.

In La Geria you do not see the vines from the road. What you see is a black field full of holes, every vine sunk into its own hollow and sheltered by a low wall, and that landscape comes with a vocabulary of its own. Lanzarote's wine is explained in its own words: picón, enarenado, poda en rastra, sobremadurada. These are the words you need to read a wine list on the island, and they come in three lots: the landscape words, the words of the official label and the ones you only meet on the wineries' websites.

The definitions come from the Regulatory Council of the Designation of Origin (D.O.) Lanzarote, the body that sets the rules of the label, and from the standards that name each term. The ones the Council does not define appear just as the wineries use them, with the winery's name in front.

The words of the landscape

The soil is the first word, and in Lanzarote the soil is ash.

Picón or lapilli

The layer of volcanic grains that covers the vineyards is called picón, and lapilli when it goes by its geological surname. It does three jobs at once: it lets the rain drain away fast, it keeps the water below from evaporating and it holds the soil temperature steady. In La Geria, according to the D.O., the layer can reach 3 metres.

Ceniza negra

The layer that covers most of the vineyards is not there for looks: it stops any other vegetation from growing and it holds the dew, which is where the vine drinks from. At El Grifo they sum it up like this: the ash captures moisture and protects the roots from the wind.

Enarenado

This is the name of the whole system: growing on top of that layer, with the vine set in a hollow or a trench cut into the picón, not in bare soil. The idea is for the plant to drink from the dew and from the rain the ash stores, not from a soil that cannot keep water.

Hoyo

The hole dug into the picón layer where the vine is planted, up to 3 metres deep. It is the system of La Geria, and it works by the logic of metres: the thicker the lapilli layer, the lower the hollow goes and the fewer vines fit in. What looks like a field of craters is exactly this.

Zanja

Where the picón layer is thinner, as in Tinajo and Haría, the vine goes not into a hole but into a zanja: a trench that runs around the plot or crosses it from end to end. Same idea, different depth.

Soco

The semicircular wall of volcanic stone that shelters the vine from the wind. The Council calls it soco, and it is what draws the circles you see across the La Geria landscape.

Poda en rastra, the harvest and the age of the vines

The shape of the vine is not free either. Pruning across the whole island is set by the D.O.'s regulations and is called poda en rastra: the vine is left low and sprawling instead of standing up, and the name comes from arrastrar, to drag. The Council does not explain on its website why that shape and no other, so the word travels without its reason.

The whole vineyard sits at altitudes between 200 and 500 metres, on an island that never gets past 670. The harvest is manual, with no machinery, and the grapes are picked as each winery can handle them, so the fruit does not spoil. The D.O. allows at most 7,000 kilos per hectare, and the vines run from 30 to 50 years old, with new plantings aged 5 or 6 years standing beside vines much older.

The grapes of the D.O.

The D.O.'s regulations divide the varieties into four groups, two of whites and two of reds, according to whether they are declared recommended or authorised. The official list reads:

Malvasía Volcánica heads the list of recommended whites. And the list carries two notices written inside it. The D.O. names Vijariego o Diego as a single variety, so if one website talks about Diego and another about Vijariego, both are talking about the same grape. The same happens with Listán Negra o Almuñeco: two names, the same red. They are not different varieties, and it pays to have that clear before comparing bottles.

The wine types and their minimum strength

The D.O. sets six types of wine and attaches a minimum strength to each one. The table is the easy part. What the Council tells you about each type is what helps when you order at the table.

This is how the Regulatory Council describes them. The white goes from straw yellow to greenish, clean, fruity and floral, fresh in the mouth with a persistent finish. The rosé runs from onion skin to raspberry pink with violet edges, balanced and with a fruity finish. The red goes from purple to ruby, soft and light with a mineral undertone, and if it passes through barrel, wood notes appear, which in the aged wines become vanilla, spices and toast. And the sparkling is described by its fine bubbles and its steady crown, with fresh fruit, white flowers and bakery notes.

The sweet wines stand apart. The one from overripe grapes, deep gold or purple, comes out aromatic and intense, unctuous and fruity in the mouth. The liqueur wine, from straw to amber, carries ripe and raisined fruit, dense and complex.

The words only the wineries use

There is a second vocabulary that the D.O.'s regulations never define. On the island's websites these words do not come explained, they come in use. Here usage is what governs: where another standard brings the definition, in goes the definition, and where there is none, the house decides.

Sobre lías

The definition comes with the standard: the wine evolves on the lees of its fermentation, or of the second one if there is one, in wood, in tank or in bottle. Olivina's Malvasía Volcánica is aged on lees to gain depth and texture, according to the house, and Roca Negra leaves its own 4 months on lees in steel tanks, with malolactic fermentation.

"It also shows aromas of pastry, bread dough and puff pastry, typical of ageing on lees." Bodega Vulcano de Lanzarote, on its website

Vino en rama

At Bodegas Rubicón they use it for the tasting straight from the tank, the one they pour during the visit with the machinery right there. On the page for El Grifo's brut the expression comes tied to a minimum of 9 months, although the page does not define it. A word from the house, not from the dictionary.

Crianza

Spain's Ley 24/2003 defines it together with reserva and gran reserva, but on the island every house measures it with its own yardstick. For Jable de Tao it means 500-litre barrels. La Verea splits it up: 10 months in a concrete egg for half the wine, 40 % in oak barrels and the rest, stainless steel.

Brut

The cava regulations are the ones that define the term. El Grifo takes pride in its Brut Nature 2022, which Josep Ventura singled out in Dear Magazine among the exceptional wines of Spain. Finca Testeina makes its own with Diego grapes, by the traditional method, with 30 months of ageing and disgorgement in March 2022, according to its website.

Seco, semidulce y dulce

These are the sugar words on the island's labels. Bodega La Geria sells the same malvasía volcánica as a dry white and as a semi-sweet. Olivina presents the Maremoto as sweetness with its energy held back. And at Los Bermejos they tell you the way: let the bunches overripen on the vine or dry them in the sun until the grape gathers enough sugar to make naturally sweet wines.

And one for free: at El Grifo they describe their vineyard as heroic viticulture, the combination of a tropical latitude, volcanic ground and the island's ancestral technique. It is not a category of any standard, it is the tone of the house.

To read a wine list

If the guided visit is your first stop, the landscape words are enough to follow the guide without missing a sentence. If the moment comes to choose a bottle on a winery's website, the grape and type tables do half the work in advance, and the other half you ask when you book, because the words the D.O. does not define, each house uses in its own way.

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