While many farmers in Europe are going high-tech, the grape-growers on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands are sticking to some ingenious eighteenth-century traditions—with marvelous results. After a series of volcanic eruptions in the 1700s covered their wheat fields with a thick layer of ash, called lapilli, farmers on the desert-like island, only 60 miles from Morocco, discovered that the lapilli captured what little moisture they received and, once they dug down a bit, kept the soil at the perfect temperature for grapevines. Over the next two centuries they perfected their technique, growing vines in craters roughly 30 feet wide and up to 15 feet deep, and building small stone walls to protect them from the hot trade winds. Many of the family-owned growing pits are more than a century old, like these of Finca de la Geria on the slopes of Montaña Diama, owned by the Hernández family for at least five generations. One variety grown here, the endemic Malvasía Volcánica grape, produces small batch wines that are celebrated throughout Europe.
