Speaker 1: M Do you hear that sound. That's the sound of
Speaker 1: waves splashing against the rugged volcanic rocks that make up
Speaker 1: the Canary Islands. Situated along the northwestern coast of Africa.
Speaker 1: The Spanish archipelago has been home to eruptions and remnant
Speaker 1: ash that have given the islands a unique biosphere and microclimate.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to point of origin. On today's episode, we're
Speaker 1: talking Wine in the Canary Islands with wet Stone Magazine
Speaker 1: contributor Monica Goya. Monica has a special connection to the
Speaker 1: Canary Islands as her mother grew up on the island
Speaker 1: of Tannerief. Yeah. So my mom grew up in on Tenerife,
Speaker 1: and that's where half of my family still lives because
Speaker 1: she's the only one who left. And so when I
Speaker 1: was when I was growing up, I would go there
Speaker 1: every summer and also sometimes other school holidays like Christmas.
Speaker 1: And my mom has a very special relations with vineyards
Speaker 1: because when growing up, my granddad work, he had a job,
Speaker 1: so my mom always talked with very with with you know,
Speaker 1: love about the vineyards and and that life of tending
Speaker 1: the land. And then when she moved to mainland Spain
Speaker 1: after she married, there were no vineyards here, so whenever
Speaker 1: we went, she would be very excited to visit my
Speaker 1: uncles bien yards and to see what he was doing.
Speaker 1: And I feel that if my mom had been born
Speaker 1: later on, maybe something that he might have pursued as
Speaker 1: a profession. But of course there were no opportunities back then.
Speaker 1: She grew up during the Franco dictatorship, so women were
Speaker 1: not as free as we are today to do what
Speaker 1: we please. I started to become interested in in wine somehow,
Speaker 1: in wine from there, because all my life I had
Speaker 1: this my mom had been telling me about how the
Speaker 1: things they did when they work in A massive volcano
Speaker 1: erupted on my palmer, and the remnants of the ash
Speaker 1: parted in the soil gave the smaller Canary Island a
Speaker 1: unique quality. The Canary Islands are seven main volcanic islands,
Speaker 1: plus a few smaller ones, located in the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: off the coast of Morocco. They are a tropical holiday
Speaker 1: spot for many Northern Europeans, notorious Librets, Germans and Nordics
Speaker 1: as well. Um The temperatures are mild year round, rarely
Speaker 1: going above thirty degrees celsius, which is I think near
Speaker 1: ninety fahrenheit in the summer or below seventeen in winter. However,
Speaker 1: it's a land of contrasts, not only because of the
Speaker 1: changing landscape from arid plains to deep, narrow ballets, black
Speaker 1: volcanic sandwiches, green forests, or jagged mountain, but also because
Speaker 1: of the weather. There are dozens of microclimates within the
Speaker 1: same island, and this is due to the rugged nature
Speaker 1: of the islands and their greater elevations. For example, La Palma,
Speaker 1: which is one of the smaller islands, so this last
Speaker 1: volcano erupted in it was the last one um to
Speaker 1: erupt in the archipelago. It's called the ten Idea volcano
Speaker 1: and is located in the south of the island, so
Speaker 1: it's not far from where Victoria has her winery and
Speaker 1: some of her vineyards. La Palma that in terms of
Speaker 1: soil is actually like two different islands because the north
Speaker 1: is geologically much older than the south, so in the
Speaker 1: North that the soil is dritts in organic matter you
Speaker 1: can find clay, for example, whereas in the South, because
Speaker 1: it is much younger, the soil is ritter in minerals,
Speaker 1: but it's poorer in organic matter. Trade winds soften the
Speaker 1: hardness of the nearby Sahara desert climate, so the weather
Speaker 1: and conclusion is very nice, with almost three thousand hours
Speaker 1: of sunshine per year. And one of the most famous
Speaker 1: crops from these islands are bananas um, which are grown
Speaker 1: it seeks out of the Seven Islands, mostly in Tenerife
Speaker 1: and La Palma. And if you ask a person from
Speaker 1: mainland Spain for a characteristic food from the islands, they
Speaker 1: would very likely say platinus, which means bananas in Spanish.
Speaker 1: But they are different to the ones imported from South
Speaker 1: America that we get here in Europe. They are smaller
Speaker 1: and sweeter, and they have also black dots on their skin.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about another important product of the Canary Islands. Wine.
Speaker 1: Wine is actually very important there for the people who
Speaker 1: lived there, but I don't know if it's as well
Speaker 1: known outside the islands. Um. So the culture of wine,
Speaker 1: I mean wine has been produced in the Canaries for
Speaker 1: over five hundred years, and it's even mentioned in some
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's places, But until very recently it was not
Speaker 1: something that maybe people were necessarily proud of um And
Speaker 1: now I think that's changing because there is a new
Speaker 1: generation of wine makers who who are doing amazing things
Speaker 1: with the great varieties that are indigenous to the islands,
Speaker 1: and they have vines that are over two hundred years
Speaker 1: old in some cases. Um so I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a sweet moment because things are improving massively. One
Speaker 1: of those new winemakers Monica refers to is Victoria Torres
Speaker 1: Paces on the island of La Palma. Victoria tends to
Speaker 1: vines that are over one hundred and thirty years old.
Speaker 1: The Tortres Bodega is at Queen Calli In, which is
Speaker 1: at the very southern tip of La Palma, on that
Speaker 1: pure black volcanic ash. But the vine she cares for
Speaker 1: can be found all over the island, all ungrafted and
Speaker 1: consequently very old. So I met her when I and
Speaker 1: I went to La Palma. I had had her wines before,
Speaker 1: and last year when I visited La Palma, I contacted
Speaker 1: her and I asked her if I could visit. And
Speaker 1: I had read a bit about her and what she
Speaker 1: was doing, and it fascinated me that she embarked. She
Speaker 1: embarked herself on this mission too, to rescue old vineyards.
Speaker 1: And when you are a woman, maybe it's harder so
Speaker 1: many many of these wineries are still led by men
Speaker 1: and they take the decisions. So having a woman approaching
Speaker 1: you when you are, you know, a man, maybe in
Speaker 1: your seventies or eighties, and she tells you that she
Speaker 1: wants to look after your vineyards if you can no
Speaker 1: longer work, you need to be very brave to do
Speaker 1: that in a place where as I said, this is
Speaker 1: still there are women, of course, but it's very men dominated.
Speaker 1: Is still. So she went to to complete her studies
Speaker 1: in a different island, and when she went back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, she started working with her dad
Speaker 1: and she learned the tricks of the trade from him.
Speaker 1: Of course, as a child, I'm sure she spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the vineyards because that's how you
Speaker 1: grow up when you are there with a family that
Speaker 1: works the land. Um And also is remarkable about Victoria
Speaker 1: that she only had one day off when she was
Speaker 1: working with her dad, and she used that one day
Speaker 1: off to go and work with German couple who had
Speaker 1: organic vineyards in the north of the island, and the
Speaker 1: island is La Parma, is very abrupt, so there is
Speaker 1: no motor way, and she used that one day off
Speaker 1: instead of to rest to go and keep working even
Speaker 1: more in different vinyards. So that's that shows a lot
Speaker 1: of determination and how willing she was to learn as
Speaker 1: much as you could. Victoria Torres is a fifth generation winemaker,
Speaker 1: taking over from her father, one Mattias Torres in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, who she had been working closely underneath to
Speaker 1: learn how to successfully operate the family business. This new
Speaker 1: generation of winemakers started to do things differently. They are
Speaker 1: not trying to compete with industrial wine from other parts
Speaker 1: of the country that is cheap because they don't have
Speaker 1: the means to do that. Tip wine. In other parts
Speaker 1: the terrain is flat and it's easy to use machines
Speaker 1: to produce the wine, whereas here, I mean on the islands,
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the of the islands is
Speaker 1: most of the work is done by hand. So unless
Speaker 1: you do an artisan product, it's hard to sustain because
Speaker 1: you can't ask people. You can't ask for I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty euros for a bottle of wine which is which
Speaker 1: is not good quality. But you can't either make tip
Speaker 1: wine there because because as I said, many of the
Speaker 1: of the works in the vineyards have to be made
Speaker 1: by hands. So these people started to appreciate that the
Speaker 1: quality of the grapes, native grapes that they have in
Speaker 1: the Canaries, and they started to to be proud of
Speaker 1: this of these grapes that not many people knew. And
Speaker 1: they started to work the vineyards using maybe like a
Speaker 1: sort of um minimal intervention approach, if you like, so
Speaker 1: that it would show the soil, it would show different
Speaker 1: things that maybe not many people did in the previous years.
Speaker 1: And Monica, I'm interested in the relationship between the return
Speaker 1: to indigenous grape varieties and the sort of conservation mindset
Speaker 1: as it relates to the soil um In other words,
Speaker 1: do you think that there is a relationship between the
Speaker 1: movement to conserve indigenous grape variety and a movement to,
Speaker 1: let's say, conserve the health of the soil as we
Speaker 1: see in natural wine. Do you think those are similarly aligned.
Speaker 1: I think they go together, at least in the cases
Speaker 1: of the of the winemakers I have met during these years.
Speaker 1: They have a great interest in keeping traditional alive. They
Speaker 1: are rescuing some vineyards that because the average of the
Speaker 1: of the average eight of wine growers is very high.
Speaker 1: It's over sixty years old, so some of them can
Speaker 1: no longer work the land, and these people are appearing
Speaker 1: and just trying to to preserve that tradition and that heritage.
Speaker 1: And in some cases they have found vineyards that had
Speaker 1: been abandoned basically, and they are trying to recover them.
Speaker 1: So it's also a matter of patients, because maybe for
Speaker 1: three or four years they are working in these vineyards
Speaker 1: and not getting anything in return. In the fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: the Canary Islands already had a well established wine industry
Speaker 1: and a moniker of sorts to go with it. Canary
Speaker 1: sack sac is an antiquated wine term referring to white
Speaker 1: fortified wine and possibly derivative of the Spanish saka, meaning
Speaker 1: to draw out a method similar to the solary system
Speaker 1: used in cherry production. The Islands are part of Spain
Speaker 1: since the fifteenth century UM, and it was different. Portuguese
Speaker 1: and Spanish were the main invaders, so some some of
Speaker 1: them of the of the ways in which the grapes
Speaker 1: are grown. They have different influences, and some people say
Speaker 1: it was the Portuguese who brought grapes, it was the Spanish.
Speaker 1: Is probably a mix of of the people who who
Speaker 1: first lived there. After the conquest, so sometimes and the
Speaker 1: century the French slash Portuguese. UM most likely planted vines
Speaker 1: in the Canary Islands is that I guess it was
Speaker 1: probably first in the sixteenth century, because the conquest ended
Speaker 1: in fourteen nine Tennarifa was the last island to fall
Speaker 1: Tenerifa La Palma. Actually the first ones were the most
Speaker 1: eastern islands. And then also it is said that some
Speaker 1: of the vines planted in America we're coming from the
Speaker 1: Canary Islands because the islands became the first stop on
Speaker 1: the way to the New World. UM. What makes her
Speaker 1: wine most notable is the farming. And we've talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about natural wine on the podcast about low
Speaker 1: intervention in viticulture. So can you tell us about what
Speaker 1: the different grape varieties are that she's growing, um, and
Speaker 1: also what the characteristics of of the wines are. She
Speaker 1: grows white and red grapes that probably the most famous
Speaker 1: one in the in the wise is the Malbasa aromatica,
Speaker 1: which means aromatic malbaca and is is like the start.
Speaker 1: But she grows other wide varieties as well, like list
Speaker 1: Toan Blanco Diego and Alvido Griolo and she has red
Speaker 1: grapes like Negramle list and Negro or List tampriato. The
Speaker 1: white grapes and use at the tours Bases domain are
Speaker 1: both familiar from the Canary Islands as a whole and
Speaker 1: also from southern Spain. These are at least Don Blanco
Speaker 1: and Malvasia, and the main red variety is Negamon. There's
Speaker 1: also least Don Brieto, perhaps better known as a variety
Speaker 1: which has recently been revived in South America, where it
Speaker 1: is called Pais in Chile or Grioa in Argentina. As
Speaker 1: someone who has had some of these grapes but not
Speaker 1: all of them, I think the Canary Island wines specifically
Speaker 1: have a very beautiful but kind of subtle aromatic quality.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean subtle um in terms of what
Speaker 1: you can smell, but it's more like elegant. It's not
Speaker 1: like a lot of heavy fruit um or it's not
Speaker 1: like super funky. It's more like you know, c notes,
Speaker 1: earth notes, mineral notes, metal notes, sailing are these Is
Speaker 1: this just like in terms of the way that you
Speaker 1: would describe um some of these grapes, because these are
Speaker 1: this isn't like you know obviously chardonet or or lower
Speaker 1: cabernet that many folks in the West are used to drinking. Um,
Speaker 1: So can you speak like on the I don't know,
Speaker 1: just like the feeling of drinking some of these different
Speaker 1: wines or the taste, the impression that was left. I
Speaker 1: completely agree with what you said. But for example, one
Speaker 1: of of my favorite wines from Victoria is one called
Speaker 1: Lass and this I was lucky enough to visit the
Speaker 1: plot with her. It was the first one we visited
Speaker 1: when I went. And it's a is a vineyard that
Speaker 1: has been in her family for five generations, so she's
Speaker 1: one that she loves. And I believe her dad made
Speaker 1: white wines with all the wide grape varieties that they had,
Speaker 1: but she started making a single vineyard white wine from
Speaker 1: this Machukeras place and it's a hundred percent list on
Speaker 1: blanco grape and half of the vines are over a
Speaker 1: hundred years old. So I don't know. Maybe it's my imagination,
Speaker 1: but I I think you can feel that persistent in
Speaker 1: the in the wine, if that makes sense, and it's
Speaker 1: it's elegant, and it has the minerality that volcanic wines
Speaker 1: often have and it's fresh and it's complex at the
Speaker 1: same time. So he said, you could have that wine
Speaker 1: for a special occasion, but you could also have it
Speaker 1: on a normal day. It's just, you know, a wine
Speaker 1: that you can drink and and and it has that
Speaker 1: because this is complex at the at the same time
Speaker 1: that is fresh. I think it's a keen observation because
Speaker 1: least On Blanco and least On Negro where my first
Speaker 1: introductions into wines from the Canary Islands, and the least
Speaker 1: On Blanco in particular. What you say about the ability
Speaker 1: to enjoy it for a special occasion or on a
Speaker 1: normal day is so very true. I hadn't quite. I mean,
Speaker 1: I really love that about so many wines right like
Speaker 1: that that feel that it could be dressed up, or
Speaker 1: that feel really casual to our guests clothes or anything
Speaker 1: for that matter. That's such a good quality, that kind
Speaker 1: of utility. Is there anything else? Um that my sports
Speaker 1: mentiondn't autromatic which is naturally sweet. Auromatic Malva uh is
Speaker 1: a spectacular wine, but it's not for every day because
Speaker 1: it's a sweet wine, so you are meant to have
Speaker 1: it small doses. Um, And I tasted it last last
Speaker 1: time I tasted it was during a wine fair in
Speaker 1: London earlier this year, and Big Key was there. And
Speaker 1: it's difficult to put into words the amount of layers
Speaker 1: of significance that the existence of this wine represents, because
Speaker 1: you know the care, the patients, the tradition. So she
Speaker 1: visits the vineyards for weeks waiting for the exact moment
Speaker 1: when these Malvasia aromatica grapes are ready to be harvested.
Speaker 1: Harvest that she does together with only one person, and
Speaker 1: she only makes this wine in exceptional vintities, so it's
Speaker 1: not a wine that she produces every year. And I
Speaker 1: remember the honyed taste and even if it was a
Speaker 1: sweet wine, it had a very surprising or balance between
Speaker 1: switness and acidity. I'm not used to drink sweet wines,
Speaker 1: but that's what surprised me. And it's a funny anecdote.
Speaker 1: After this fair, I was outside talking to some other
Speaker 1: wine professionals, and I mean they didn't know that I
Speaker 1: had met Biggie before or anything like that. They were
Speaker 1: talking about their favorite wines for the day after a
Speaker 1: whole day tasting wines from Spain, and four out of
Speaker 1: five had said that the wine that they were more
Speaker 1: surprised than amazed. Why was this malvasia aromatica that she makes?
Speaker 1: And I thought, I really like that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's so much harder to make an excellent sweet wine
Speaker 1: as opposed to making excellent dry wine, because it's so
Speaker 1: much harder to find that that balance. You know, well,
Speaker 1: I I know that I'm ready to visit the Canary Island.
Speaker 1: It's a place that I've always wanted to go. Victoria
Speaker 1: Torres's wines are they widely available? Are they widely exported?
Speaker 1: They are widely exported, so they are widely available elsewhere,
Speaker 1: but not so widely available on the island. Do you
Speaker 1: hate that? So? I wasn't very happy about that when
Speaker 1: I was there, because I mean, also for her, because
Speaker 1: it's nice that people where you live appreciate or have
Speaker 1: access to what you're doing, especially when it's remarkably different
Speaker 1: to others. To the wine is that other people are
Speaker 1: making um there, But I mean, you can't find it,
Speaker 1: but if you if you don't look for it, it's
Speaker 1: hard to come across it on the island at whet Stone,
Speaker 1: our love of wine has been exhaustively chronicled and continues
Speaker 1: to be but in our reporting. For sure, one of
Speaker 1: the most exciting trends we've seen on a global level
Speaker 1: is precisely this aforementioned intertwining relationship between the preservation of
Speaker 1: native grapes and natural wine production, which summons a hands
Speaker 1: off viticultural and seller management technique without much consideration. Either
Speaker 1: could be viewed as a trend catering towards a growing
Speaker 1: consumer base of conscientious wine drinkers. But there is a
Speaker 1: real story under lying this about a revolution that is
Speaker 1: happening in the vineyards, a revolution that matches the native
Speaker 1: grapes and its natural soil habitat that refuses the pesticides
Speaker 1: or additions that serve at the whims of the winemaker
Speaker 1: instead of let's say, the land or its traditions. If
Speaker 1: we are to have a future in agriculture on this planet,
Speaker 1: we would certainly benefit from more relationships between what grows
Speaker 1: natively above the ground and what is well suited for
Speaker 1: the vital life force below it. We'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our guest today, Monica Goya and Victoria Tortrees Passes. You
Speaker 1: can read Monica's full story and Whetstone Volume six, or
Speaker 1: also on Instagram at Whetstone magazine. We'd also like to
Speaker 1: thank our incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are
Speaker 1: the best. To our editor and Whetstone part partner and
Speaker 1: director of Video David Alexander in London, appreciate you, Dave.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau,
Speaker 1: and last but not least, my business partner Mel she
Speaker 1: who makes all things at Whetstone possible. Thank you Mel.
Speaker 1: We'd also like to thank our partners in production at
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and
Speaker 1: executive producer Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: more from the world of food worldwide Point of Origin listeners.
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