Which Bottle to Take Home, and for How Much

Malvasía volcánica and Listán negro carry almost every bottle on the island, and the price rarely appears in writing: you choose by tasting and you pay at the shop.

Choosing a bottle in Lanzarote comes down to four or five questions, not to an hour in front of a wall of labels. About twenty houses work with a handful of grapes, and the short catalogue works in your favour. A white of Malvasía volcánica, a red of Listán negro, a sweet for after dinner, a sparkling for the terrace. If you are used to the wine shops back home, the shelf of a Lanzarote winery unsettles you at first: there are no hundreds of labels on it.

The missing figure is the price. Almost no house publishes what the bottle costs on its website, so the surprise arrives when you pay, and the odd house does show it in its online shop. What you can know in advance is the price of choosing: the tasting experiences run from 15 € to 95 € per person.

Malvasía volcánica, the island's white

Twenty wineries advertise it on their websites and no other grape comes close. It is the white that grows in the ash hoyos of La Geria, the one behind most of the island's dry whites, and eleven houses bottle a semi-sweet. For the bubbles, six websites list sparkling wines, and two of those add a semi-dry.

The red is Listán negro

From white to red, the map narrows. Eighteen wineries put Listán negro on their websites and sort it by time in barrel: eight young reds, twelve crianzas and thirteen reservas. The three words run from less wood to more, and none of the three is rare on the list. Rosé goes its own way: seventeen houses bottle it, many of them the same ones that make the red.

The sweet wines and the grapes that remain

Thirteen houses offer sweet wines, and Moscatel, the grape usually behind them, appears on ten websites. It is the dessert bottle, easy to understand and easy to give as a present.

The Diego grape is the other white with weight. Twelve wineries show it, almost always next to the Malvasía. It goes into the brut nature from Vega de Yuco, the Princesa Fayna, which spends more than forty months in crianza according to the house. Vijariego, which only four websites include, is the island's rare white, the one that usually arrives in limited editions. And the list closes with the occasional ones. Albillo and Negramoll only surface on a couple of websites, Tintilla on one, and Los Bermejos is the house that gathers the most names, the only one with all three on its list. The short selection is also a decision: Bodegas Rubicón, the house of the historic Cortijo de La Geria, mentions only five types of wine on its website, from dry to sweet by way of rosé, Moscatel and Diego.

Taste before you pay

The shortcut to getting it right is to taste first. At Bodegas El Grifo, the Cata de Vinos Seleccionados gathers five wines in 35 minutes for 30 €, with no winery visit and adults only. The audio guide finishes lighter: two glasses at the wine bar, where you can taste without touring the winery. The Wine Lovers is the house's long plan: two hours, six wines with Canarian cheeses and 50 € per person. With a menu at the winery restaurant, the same visit reaches 95 €.

David Fernández tastes five of his wines glass by glass for 25 €, in sessions that never go past ten people. His hour-and-a-half visit adds the walk through the vineyard and the winery dug into the volcanic rock, and rises to 35 €. The Rubicón visit lasts 45 minutes, costs 22 € and ends, according to the house, with two or three wines and artisan cheeses from the island. At Finca Testeina, on the La Geria road, the plan is set for sunset: 26 € for an hour-and-a-half visit with two wines from Vega de Yuco and chocolate from the workshop. The languages split the days: English on Wednesdays, Spanish on Thursdays.

One more way to get close to the Malvasía is on the same finca. The Testeina workshop, devoted to the grape, runs on Tuesdays from 17:30 to 19:00, in English, with four Malvasía volcánica wines from Vega de Yuco in the glass.

Prices from October 2026.

Where to buy it and how it gets home

The natural purchase is at the winery, after the tasting, and several houses make it easy with a shop of their own. Rubicón lets you walk the grounds on your own and buy at its wine shop, and El Grifo, Stratvs, Vulcano and Vega de Yuco sell at the winery itself. If you sleep in Puerto del Carmen, the area's two wineries are within reach: Vulcano, with shop and shipping, and Timanfaya, which announces a sweet and a reserva and little more.

For anyone who would rather not argue with the airport scales, shipping exists: El Grifo, Vulcano and Olivina send to your door, and El Grifo, with an online shop, promises delivery to any corner of Europe. The third way is the island's wine shops, which have their own guide, with areas and opening hours. And for the plane, what you can carry through without surprises goes in another guide.

Where to start

If the suitcase only has room for one bottle, let it be a dry Malvasía volcánica: it is the wine that explains the island best, and the one the most wineries make. If there is dinner at the apartment, a Listán negro with crianza holds the table, and for dessert, the sweet Moscatel. And if the doubt wins, El Grifo's audio guide settles it: two wines and the whole story of the house for 15 €, and whatever you liked ends up travelling back with you.

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