The Lanzarote wine route by car: a day among the wineries

Twenty-eight places welcome visitors along one line from north to south, easy to cover in a single run. What sets the pace is not the distance but the clock: most wineries close at midday, and on Sunday only three stay open, all of them in La Geria.

With a car, the Lanzarote wine route has more road than time. The wineries that take visitors line up, almost all of them, along one north-to-south line that runs from Guatiza, at the far tip of the island, down to Uga and Playa Blanca in the south. You drive that line in one direction and never cross the island twice. What pinches is the timetable: the weekend narrows the offer, and some houses open one or two days a week only.

The route below chains the north in the morning, El Grifo at midday and La Geria in the afternoon, and leaves the evening for a wine bar once the wineries have locked up. Every house sits with its coordinates in the table at the end, ready to paste into your sat nav. One detail before you set off: some houses publish no hours at all, so if one tempts you, call before you pin it.

Hours, day by day

From Monday to Friday, the wineries live in the morning. David Fernández and Vulcano close at 14:00, Vega de Yuco at 15:00, and Lanzarote Natural opens at midday only, Monday to Thursday. Martinón opens Tuesdays and Thursdays alone, 9:00 to 14:30, and Finca Testeina splits the day into sessions worth checking before you leave home. Roca Negra is the Saturday house: it opens that day only, 8:00 to 14:00.

On weekdays almost everything is open, so the day builds itself with room to spare. If your calendar gives you the choice, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the widest days of the week.

On Saturday the north goes quiet: from Guatiza to El Grifo only Las Cadenas survives, and what stays alive gathers in La Geria, in the wine bars and in the south. Sunday is another story: only Stratvs, Bodega La Geria and Rubicón open, and the wine bars sleep that day too.

Five houses publish no hours: Bodega Cohombrillo, La Verea, Ignacio Romero, Bodeguita Vega Volcán and Bodegas Timanfaya. With one of them there is a way through: Ignacio Romero announces on its website visits every day with tastings of organic wines, so a phone call clears it up. And if you would rather be driven, Lavatrekking, in Costa Teguise, and Wine Tours Lanzarote, in Puerto del Carmen, will put the guided visit together for you.

Morning: from Guatiza to Tinajo

The day starts in Guatiza, the northernmost village on the route, where David Fernández opens Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 14:00. It is a small-group house, with plans capped at ten people. The tasting is five wines talked through in 45 minutes for 25 €. The full visit, at 35 €, runs an hour and a half and drops from the vineyard into the winery, which is carved out of volcanic rock. You hear how the vines are grown in terrain that looks impossible, and you come out wanting to ask more.

La Vegueta, in Tinajo, keeps the route's wild-card stop: Las Cadenas opens Monday to Saturday, 8:00 to 18:30, the widest window of them all, so it forgives delays, detours and long lunches.

Lanzarote Natural, also in Tinajo, is the tasting with a twist: wines with prickly pear juice and enyesque, with the starting time, 10:00 or 12:00, confirmed over WhatsApp.

Next to the Museo del Campesino, the Casa del Vino Canario opens Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 15:00, with tastings and a shop, and it works well as a mid-morning breather.

And in El Islote, La Florida opens 11:00 to 14:00, Monday to Friday, with a condition attached: visits are for groups and you book by email at info@bodegaslaflorida.com. The walk runs through vineyards, natural gardens and a volcanic jameo, and ends with a board of Canarian cheeses.

Midday: El Grifo

El Grifo is the stop that holds through the whole midday. The winery, on the LZ-30 at kilometre 11, opens Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:30, and the plans scale up. The audio guide, at 15 €, covers winery and vineyard in 45 minutes and ends with two glasses, with free entry up to age 17. The tasting of five wines with commentary runs 30 € and is for adults only. And Wine Lovers, the long option, is two guided hours with a six-wine tasting for 50 €. If the visit runs long, the house has a second address in the village of San Bartolomé, the wine bar on the street down to Guadarfia, open 10:30 to 18:30, where you can sit and drink without watching the clock.

Afternoon: the La Geria road

Two kilometres south of El Grifo the road runs between black ash, and this is where you ease off the accelerator. There are no vines in rows: each vine lives in its own hollow, a bowl dug into the ash that gathers the night's moisture, with a half-moon of dry stone standing in as windbreak against the trade wind. The ash lets its water go slowly, and that is why there are vineyards where there is nothing else. No magic to it: a system of water and wind solved with pick and stone.

The first afternoon stop is Finca Testeina, at kilometre 13. It opens middays Tuesday to Friday, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays it also opens in the evening, 17:30 to 19:00, which is where it is at its best. The vineyard visit with a tasting of wines and artisan chocolate costs 26 € per person, lasts an hour and a half, runs in English on Wednesdays and in Spanish on Thursdays, and children aged 5 to 17 pay 15 €.

A little further down, Vega de Yuco opens Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 15:00, with a shop for taking bottles away, no fuss.

Stratvs, on the La Geria road, opens every day, 10:00 to 19:00, with daily guided visits of an hour and, at midday on Saturdays, its sound pairing, 13:00 to 15:30, with music.

And then the two big names, almost door to door. Bodega La Geria, the house with the most reviews in the area, more than four thousand on Google, opens 10:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday and 11:00 to 19:00 on Sundays, with a restaurant, a shop and guided visits. Rubicón lets you walk its grounds for free every day, 10:00 to 18:30, and the guided visit Entre Muros y Viñedos Centenarios, 45 minutes long, comes to 22 € at 13:30, with 5 € entry for minors aged 11 to 17.

There is still Roca Negra, in Masdache, which packs its hours into Saturday: either it fits your weekend run or it waits for another trip.

Winelanz, at the far end of the valley in Uga, closes the line to the south: a wine shop with tastings, Monday to Friday 9:30 to 14:00 and Saturdays until 16:00. And from Uga on, the day runs downhill.

The evening glass

When the wineries close, the wine carries on in the towns. In Arrecife, Katu opens Monday to Friday, 18:00 to 22:00, Saturdays only 12:00 to 15:00, and it closes on Sundays. It is a wine bar and a tapas place, and it fits as the last stop of the day.

La Rika, in Puerto del Carmen, runs 19:00 to 23:00, Monday to Saturday, with tapas too. El Vino De Fran, also in Arrecife, opens in the afternoon, 16:30 to 19:00, and for a while first thing, 8:00 to 10:00, with nearly three hundred reviews behind it.

And for anyone sleeping in the south, Brunchi, in Marina Rubicón, in Playa Blanca, opens Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 15:00 and 18:00 to 22:00.

The twenty-eight businesses, from north to south

The full list, with hours, phones and coordinates to paste into your sat nav. The ones that publish no hours are worth a phone call first, and Lavatrekking and Wine Tours Lanzarote, though they appear in the list, are guides who arrange visits, not houses you can just walk into.

Whichever day you get

With a Tuesday or a Thursday, the route runs end to end without surprises. On Saturday it is worth starting in La Vegueta early, heading on towards La Geria and adding Roca Negra before midday. Sunday is a day for a single road, the one through La Geria.

If your trip allows one day and it lands on a weekend, the day fits inside La Geria: the free visit at Rubicón in the morning and the guided sunset at Stratvs. And if it falls on a weekday, the reward is up north: the unhurried tasting in Guatiza in the morning and, if the day is a Wednesday or a Thursday, Testeina's chocolate as the light goes.

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