Grapevines are remarkably adaptable. They thrive on limestone, clay, chalk or gravel, and each soil type shapes a wine’s structure and flavour.

The chalk of Champagne, the terra rossa of Coonawarra, and the gravel of Bordeaux’s Left Bank have all become shorthand for regional identity.

Yet few soils capture the imagination like volcanic earth, which covers just 1% of the planet’s surface. Volcanic vineyards are among the rarest – and their wines among the most compelling.

The science beneath our feet

Volcanic soils are formed from cooled lava, pumice and ash. Unlike older sedimentary soils, they are geologically young and chemically active.

‘Volcanic soils are particularly distinctive in wine production,’ explains Michele Brusaferri, agronomist at Tenuta Tascante on Mount Etna.

‘They are rich in micro-elements such as sodium, potassium and magnesium, within a porous, draining structure that provides a balance of oxygen and humidity. The vines may struggle at first, but once the roots penetrate, they find everything they need for healthy growth.’

That struggle is crucial. On poor, stony volcanic soils, vines are forced to dig deep for water and nutrients. Yields are smaller, the berries more concentrated, and the resulting wines often display depth, intensity and an unmistakable mineral edge.

Tension on Tenerife

Jonatan García Lima of Suertes del Marqués, one of Tenerife’s leading producers, makes a key distinction: ‘I make a difference between acid volcanic soils and basic volcanic soils. In acid soils the wines are more mineral, higher in acidity and with greater tension, but they are also more reductive. Both types share salinity, which is also influenced by being on islands.

‘The vines adapt very well to volcanic soils as they are very rich and fertile, especially in areas with rain, mostly on the north face of the islands at high elevation – Tenerife, La Palma, Gran Canaria. For me, when I taste wines from Santorini, the Azores or the Canaries, the common factor is salinity and a feeling of purity.

‘On the Canary Islands, all vines remain ungrafted, which is something special. With centuries-old vineyards, continuous mutations and natural crossings, we have a viticultural heritage of more than five centuries – an inheritance for the world of wine.’

Elegance on Etna

Nowhere is volcanic viticulture more celebrated than on Sicily’s active volcano: Mount Etna. Vineyards here sit on a shifting mosaic of continuous lava flows, with more than 40 distinct soil types mapped across contrade, or single-vineyard districts.

‘The hallmark characteristics of wines from volcanic soils are freshness and, above all, minerality,’ says Brusaferri. ‘On Etna, Nerello Mascalese may appear pale in colour, but the wines have astonishing depth. They carry flinty, balsamic and even liquorice notes – aromas and textures clearly marked by the volcanic earth.’

Carlo Ferrini, renowned oenologist and founder of Alberelli di Giodo on Etna, emphasises the role of minerals: ‘The key feature of volcanic soils is their richness in minerals. The vines thrive here: their roots reach great depths without major obstacles, and the wines show an unmistakable minerality. These are wines that express themselves in length rather than width, with elegance as their ultimate goal.’

Survival on Santorini

Across the Mediterranean, Santorini’s vineyards grow on pumice and ash left by the Minoan eruption 3,600 years ago. Rainfall is minimal, and organic matter is almost absent, yet the porous pumice ‘aspa’ traps precious moisture, sustaining ungrafted vines that can be more than a century old.

‘The volcanic soil is crucial to the survival of our dry-farmed vineyards,’ says Stratos Guillame Xyrafis of Domaine Sigalas. ‘Combined with the sea fog that drifts in at night, the pumice allows the vines to endure extreme drought.’

The results are wines of remarkable purity. Assyrtiko from Santorini is renowned for its piercing acidity and saline edge. ‘It’s as if the volcanic character is etched into the wine itself,’ notes Yannis Valambous of Vassaltis Vineyards. ‘The struggle of the vine translates into concentration and purity, with tension and minerality you can taste a mile away.’

Why volcanic wines stand apart

So what makes volcanic wines special? It is partly science: mineral-rich, fast-draining soils that encourage deep roots and concentrated fruit. It is partly resilience: vines surviving heat, drought and wind on ungrafted rootstocks.

But most of all, it is sensory. Volcanic wines tend to be vivid rather than heavy, bursting with acidity, salinity and brightness. They capture, perhaps better than any other style, the drama of the landscapes from which they spring. Volcanic wines don’t just speak of place – they erupt from it.

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The fire started at the Lomo Redondo viewpoint at 1,225m in altitude, within the municipality of Arafo. During the investigation, authorities have found not only the origin but also suspect it was started intentionally as an act of arson.

While now controlled, the fire continues to burn over a month after it began.

To date, over 15,000ha of forest have burned across the Mount Teide peak of the island. The intensity and size of the fire was fuelled by strong winds, heat, and very low humidity. It has already been registered as the worst fire in the Canary Islands in the last 40 years and the worst in all of Spain for 2023.

While there have been no human fatalities, the damage to the wilderness and ecosystem at this altitude has been incalculable as this is a unique zone that, due to its altitude, allows specific vegetation and animal life that isn’t possible in the lower, tropical zones of Tenerife. These altitudes are also where a great many vineyards are cultivated.

Unlike the 2021 fires on the island of La Palma due to a volcanic eruption and which viticulturists are still working to recover from, this is a rather remote region in Tenerife that didn’t immediately threaten built-up areas, although more than 26,000 residents were told to evacuate as a precaution.

Those with vineyards in the area could do little more than watch at firefighters battled the blaze. Worry grew a great deal once the fire jumped the Cordillera Dorsal, a 25km ridge that bifurcates Tenerife and therefore allowed the fire to spread to the northern side of the island.

With five Denominations of Origin (DOs), Tenerife has the most on it within the Canary Islands and there are two that cover the region of the fire: Tacoronte-Acentejo and Valle de Güímar.

Administrators at Tacoronte-Acentejo told Decanter they’d thankfully been spared any damage from the fire as it had largely been contained to the far upper reaches of the Teide peak where no one has any vineyards.

For Valle de Güímar, it’s a somewhat different story. DO secretary, Oscar Rodríguez García, initially told Decanter that they had been waiting to get access to the affected areas.

Ultimately, they found that 2ha of vines had been burned. The owner is a viticulturist who sells the grapes to one of the larger producers on the island. Many other vineyard owners had extremely close calls given that the flames came within 50m of their vines. The vineyards were spared given that they have been found to be natural firebreaks.

While the level of loss given the scope and intensity of the fire may seem low, smoke from the fire drifted eastward, covering a great deal of the Valle de Güimar territory and when asked about possible smoke taint issues by Decanter, Rodríguez García confirmed that 64ha could potentially be affected and that they were carrying out analyses to understand the scope of the issues. Wineries in the neighbouring DO Valle de la Orotava have also commented that they are potentially concerned about the smoke and ash drift.

As has been seen around the world in recent years, smoke taint, more than the fires themselves, is often one of the long-lasting issues brought about by climate change-provoked wildfires.

In addition to the issues of burned vineyards and smoke taint, the fire, in combination with the extreme climactic conditions of 2023 in Spain, has advanced the harvest on Tenerife. Normally, it begins at the end of August or beginning of September, but this year saw harvest start at the end of July, which was accelerated considerably once the fire broke out in mid-August.

While the fire on Tenerife will undoubtedly be fully extinguished in the near future, it, along with countless other fires across the globe this year, such as those in Greece and Italy, is testament to a quickly-changing world.

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Surreal is a word you sometimes see used to describe the vineyards of the Canary Islands. And it’s true there’s something uncanny, almost nightmarish about, say, a vineyard trained with the traditional cordon trenzado method in El Valle de la Orotava on the archipelago’s largest island of Tenerife.

Arranged horizontally just inches above the ground, the gnarled, plaited vines, many of them well over a century old, some as much as 200 years old, seem to slither around the vineyards like entwined wooden snakes, stretching as far as 15m from the mother trunk – a sight made all the more eerie when shrouded in the mist that is such a frequent feature of this sub-tropical climate.

No less peculiar, surprising and dreamlike are the vineyards of Lanzarote, which call to mind some imagined post-apocalyptic experiment to make wine on the moon. Here the vines are dug into the thick layer of pícon volcanic ash that covers the island, each bush vine protected from the winds that blow in off the Atlantic by being planted in pits (hoyos) surrounded by low semi-circular stone walls (abrigos or overcoats).

So yes, surreal, but very far from irrational. The vineyards look like they do because they’ve been adapted to the very specific challenges of their surroundings by generations of ingenious wine growers. That their radical difference comes as a shock to those of us weaned on the conventions of modern mainland European viticulture is largely due to the fact that the Canary Islands have been away from the vinous mainstream for so long.

That’s not surprising. Strictly – geographically – speaking, the seven islands that collectively form Europe’s most southerly wine region are part of Africa: clustered, at 28° latitude, on the southern border of the Northern Hemisphere’s traditional band of winemaking possibility, with the southwestern Moroccan Atlantic coast just 96km from the southeastern coast of Fuerteventura. Culturally and politically, however, this is Spain of course, and has been since the islands were colonised and settled in the late 15th century.

Canaries and Balearics Literary past

With the Spaniards and Portuguese (who gave up their claim on the Canaries in exchange for the Spanish leaving Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde to them) came the vine, and the islands’ first brush with vinous fame. Canary Island wines, thanks in no small part to the islands’ ideal position on transatlantic trade routes, were much coveted in Elizabethan England. References to ‘canary sack’ abound in Shakespeare plays – from ‘a cup of canary’ in Twelfth Night to the ‘marvelous searching wine’ that ‘perfumes the blood’ in Henry IV Part II. Later, Thomas Jefferson is said to have asked for a Canary Island wine to toast the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

By the 20th century, however, Canary Island wines had dwindled into a largely parochial concern. It’s striking that, in the most recent edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine, the brief entry on the Canary Islands (written by respected Spanish wine expert Victor de la Serna) describes how ‘mediocre wines for the tourist trade are being replaced by much more interesting products’.

Holidaymakers aside, for most wine drinkers outside the islands, even those ‘mediocre’ wines were a mystery. It’s really only in the past decade that the Canary Islands have begun to make any sort of mark on the modern international wine scene. But it’s the islands’ very isolation that has made that renaissance possible – and so exciting.

It was the archipelago’s remote geographical position, after all, that meant the Canaries avoided the phylloxera plague that swept through Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. That in turn meant there was no need to apply the cure: rather than replacing vineyards ravaged by the louse with plants grafted on to American rootstocks, Canary Islanders have been able to keep vines on their own rootstocks (pie franco).

The absence of phylloxera also accounts for the remarkable age of many Canary Island vines, and for the islands’ defiantly eccentric portfolio of grape varieties.

Local variety

On the white side, Malvasia was historically considered the most important, the ingredient of the sweet sack that made the archipelago’s name (although recent evidence suggests the wines may well have been blends). It is still widely planted, notably on both La Palma and Lanzarote, producing both dry wines in an array of styles and quality, and sweet wines that reference the old days (and occasionally hit a tangy-lusicious sweet spot). Malvasia is joined by Listán Blanco (the local name for sherry country’s Palomino Fino), and Vijariego Blanco (once common in Andalucia, now confined to the Canaries, and to Tenerife and El Hierro in particular); as well as Marmajuelo and Gual (the local name for Madeira’s Bual) among others.

For reds, another Madeiran favourite, Tinta Negra Mole (known in the Canaries as Negramoll), the Portuguese variety Alfrocheiro and Jura’s Trousseau (going by the local synonyms Baboso Negro and Tintilla, respectively) are joined by Vijariego Negro (Catalonia’s Sumoll) and the solo star or main player in many of the Canaries’ most critically acclaimed reds: Listán Negro.

With Canary Island wines it’s not so much the grape varieties themselves as the way they interact with the archipelago’s unique conditions that, literally, gets the mouth watering. Broadly speaking, the climate is sub-tropical, with the fierce heat of Saharan Africa moderated by the cooling effects of Atlantic trade winds, leading to warm summers and mild winters.

However, there are many different microclimates on each island. On the largest island of Tenerife alone you can find enormous variations defined by the varying altitudes and expositions on the slopes of El Teide, an active volcano that, at 3,718m above sea level, is Spain’s highest peak. These differences are reflected in Tenerife’s five DOs (from the dry, southern Abona, with plantings touching 1,500m above sea level, the highest in Europe, to the more humid Ycoden-Daute-Isora, on the island’s northwest side).

There is corresponding variety in the wine style, too, although at this stage in the Canary Islands’ evolution it isn’t always easy to say how much is down to terroir and how much to individual winemaking philosophies. In general, however, Canary Island wines are categorised by a wildness of flavour that shouldn’t be confused with rusticity: a mix of electric acidity and saltiness, and a lightness of alcohol that makes them very refreshing, and very of the moment.

While they’re entirely their own thing, as a frame of reference, the reds often have something of Etna’s Nerello Mascalese about them: a kind of Pinot Noir-like grace and red-fruited suppleness charged with peppery spice, earth and iron-like minerals. Meanwhile in their mix of intensity, tang and zip, the white wines are how I imagine unfortified Madeira would taste. Not everything – not nearly enough, in fact – reaches the UK. But these deliciously idiosyncratic wines are worth getting to know when you find them.

Balearic beat

If the Canary Islands’ modern-traditional wines are a true expression of volcanic, Atlantic terroir, then Spain’s other great renaissance island wines, from the Balearics, are all about the flavours and charms of the Mediterranean.

When we say Balearics – and certainly when we’re talking about wines available in the UK and US – we really mean one island. Although there is a small but growing and increasingly interesting scene on Menorca, and a sprinkling of ventures on Ibiza and Formentera, the heart of the action in the archipelago that begins 96km east of Spain, is in Mallorca. With around 2,500ha of vineyards it is home to the Balearic Islands’ two officially recognised DOs, Binissalem and Pla i Llevant, as well as two regional wine designations and some 70 producers.

Wine arrived in Mallorca with the Romans, but like the Canary Islands, it was as a producer of Malvasia sack in the 16th century that it first came to fame. Unlike the Canaries, however, the vineyards of Mallorca fell victim to phylloxera, which came to the Balearics in 1891, and which, by the time it finished its work, had destroyed the local wine industry.

The recovery was slow to come. Farmers quit the wine business in favour of other forms of agriculture (almond trees being a particularly popular choice), and where vines were replanted, often with a co-planted, intermingling mix of varieties both red and white, it was strictly for local consumption. By the 1980s, however, a handful of growers had started taking production more seriously, sprucing up cellars with modern equipment and planting vines. And by 1990, Binissalem, in the centre of the island, had become Spain’s first island wine DO. Now interest in Mallorcan wine became more than a mere tourist-inspired curiosity.

As with so many other (re-)developing Spanish – and, indeed, southern European – wine regions, international grape varieties played a major role in the late 20th-century expansion of the Mallorcan vineyard. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are all found in varying quantities around the island, as well as Tempranillo, known by its Catalan synonym (islanders speak a dialect of Catalan) Ull de Llebre, Monastrell (aka Mourvèdre) and the Cava grapes Macabeu and Parellada. But it is the local grape varieties – vinified separately or as part of a blend – that produce the most distinctive wines.

For reds, there are three that stand out: Manto Negro, which on its own produces a light, juicy, succulent style for relatively early drinking; Fogoneu, with its distinctive freshness and low pH; and Callet, a dark-skinned grape with an intriguing spiciness. For whites, the dominant – most widely planted – local is Moll, or Prensal Blanc, which on its own produces Verdicchio-esque wines of crisp briskness with an almondy twist, and which has the natural acidity to serve as a base for some of the island’s Cava-like sparkling wines.

Most wineries are still using those native grapes in blends that include both local and international varieties. But, as with the wines of the Canaries, it’s the island climate rather than the varieties per se that makes Mallorcan wines such an engaging proposition. The influence of the sea, with a consistent sea breeze that reaches far inland, has a distinctly moderating, cooling effect. The wines are consequently much lighter than their mainland Mediterranean peers – the Bordeaux varieties do very well here, with little in the way of excess jamminess – with a distinctive twist of salt-edged freshness that gives life and drinkability from everything to fish-partnering blanc de noir whites to the meatiest of red blends.

The Canaries and Balearics Wines

See Tom Cannavan's top six Suertes del Marqués wines - from an up and coming producer in Spain's Tenerife.

Suertes del Marqués with it’s ancient island vineyards and organically farmed indigenous grapes is fast becoming known as one of the most exciting wineries in Tenerife and Spain.

Located in the valley of La Orotava, on the slopes of Tenerife’s volcano El Teide, Suertes del Marqués was founded in 2006 by owner Jonatan Garçia Lima. The estate is based on a patchwork of ancient vineyards, and many of Suertes del Marqués’ plots are more than 100 years old.

The winery uses organic farming techniques and only indigenous grapes. Here Tom Cannavan picks his top six Suertes del Marqués wines to try.

• Read more: a producer profile of Suertes del Marqués

Tenerife is not just a sun-seeker's paradise, says Tom Cannavan, who pays a visit to one of the island's wine producers earning plaudits for its distinctive, indigenous mineral wines from volcanic soils.

Suertes del Marqués, with it’s ancient Tenerife island vineyards and organically farmed, indigenous grapes, has a fast growing reputation.

Situated off the north African coast, Tenerife is the largest of the Canary islands and from all around the coast you cannot miss the massive volcano of El Teide.

At the centre of Tenerife, it is the highest mountain in Spain and one of the world’s largest volcanic structures. Snow-capped Teide breathes life into the island’s wine industry, protecting the south from Atlantic squalls, while the cooler north benefits from higher rainfall.

It is here, in the green valley of La Orotava, that Suertes del Marqués is based. Their vineyards climb the lower slopes of El Teide between 350m and 700m above sea level. Soils vary, with sand and clay in deep patches, but always as a topsoil to Teide’s volcanic base.

Owner Jonatan Garçia Lima and his family founded Suertes del Marqués as recently as 2006, though the estate is based on a patchwork of truly ancient vineyards that they have acquired piece by piece over the years.

Island identity

This is glorious country for growing vines: the narrow ribbon of vineyards, strewn with spring flowers, snakes up the mountainside. The old vines, with trunks as thick as many trees, are twisted into some highly unusual training systems. Vines are unirrigated and are not planted on rootstocks – phylloxera never reached Tenerife – and many of Suertes del Marqués’ plots are more than 100 years old.

Listán Negro is the main red variety (a genetic match for the Mission grape of North America) and its partner Listán Blanco is the mainstay white grape, otherwise known as Palomino, which is used in Jerez for sherry production. Los Pasitos is a cuvée made from the ancient Baboso Negro variety, known as Bastardo in Portugal.

Other estates on the island have embraced a new quality culture too, but it is Suertes del Marqués that has set the pace, especially since bringing young winemaker Roberto Santana on board.

• SEE: Tom Cannavan picks his top six Suertes del Marqués wines

After a spell making the wines for Casa Castillo in Jumilla, he joined Suertes del Marqués in 2008, where he has introduced low-intervention, organic winemaking practices and a relentless focus on the individual character of its 21 tiny vineyard plots.

Santana pursues a strictly hands-off philosophy, flirting with natural wine ideologies and following some biodynamic practices. Minimal sulphur dioxide is used, only indigenous yeasts are employed, and the wines are never filtered or fined. The naturally low yields created by these old vines, climate and soils are celebrated, and across the Suertes del Marqués range the wines capture the freshness and agility that mark so many of the most exciting contemporary fine wines.

Minimal intervention

Having begun with stainless steel tanks and all new oak barrels, Santana now scoffs at the notion. He pours Blanco Barrica, an older white, fermented and aged in 100% new wood, alongside its new incarnation – a very lightly oaked wine renamed Trenzado after the ancient training system in which vines are literally braided together. Stainless steel has largely been replaced by concrete tanks – ‘the same as at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Pétrus’, Santana reminds me – and for the minimal amount of new oak now used, 500-litre barrels are coopered in Burgundy to an exacting specification.

There is no set winemaking recipe for the various cuvées in the Suertes del Marqués portfolio. Some wines are whole-bunch fermented at cold temperatures, some at much warmer temperatures, and there is skin contact for the whites. ‘I am not making Coca-Cola,’ emphasises Santana. ‘I need to find the different personalities not only of the soils, but also of the vintage, and of the people who work the vineyard.’

And the wines? Santana prefers not to disturb them once in barrel, so there is no racking or lees stirring. While most show a touch of reduction on pouring, they quickly open up in the glass. But forget any notion of orange wines or cloudy reds: these wines are as natural as you like, but they are crystal clear and pristine. The volcanic soils give spice and peppery minerality.

Both Santana and Jonatan Garçia Lima were born and raised on Tenerife, and their pride is obvious in having nurtured these old vines into producing such exciting and beautiful wines. While this Spanish holiday island may be a surprising source of such aesthetically pure, quality-driven bottlings, Suertes del Marqués is just one of many other pockets of fanatical expertise across the world that are creating distinctive, intellectual wines of real natural charm. They are part of an ever-more intricate global network of winemakers who combine a new vision with an undying respect for tradition.

• Find out more about Spanish wine with tastings, region guides and more.