Few islands fit so much variety into a glass as Tenerife. In barely two thousand square kilometres there are five appellations of origin of its own, vineyards running from the coast up to around 1,700 metres, and a wine with four centuries of reputation behind it. All of it between a volcano and the trade winds.
The essentials
- Five DOs of its own: Tacoronte-Acentejo, Valle de La Orotava, Ycoden-Daute-Isora, Valle de Güímar and Abona. The island can also produce under the DO Islas Canarias.
- Around a hundred wineries, mostly in the north.
- In Abona, in the municipality of Vilaflor, there are vineyards at around 1,700 metres, among the highest in Spain.
- Ycoden-Daute-Isora, in the north-west, is regarded as heir to the old canary wines once shipped to England.
A wine with an English history
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Canary wine, above all malvasía, was a luxury in England, where it was simply called canary. Shakespeare put it on record: in Henry IV, Part 2, Mistress Quickly tells Doll Tearsheet she has drunk too much canaries, “and that’s a marvellous searching wine”, and in Twelfth Night Sir Toby Belch tells Sir Andrew: “O knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary”. It is not folklore: it is proof that this wine travelled far long before tourism existed.
Five appellations, five landscapes
Tacoronte-Acentejo, in the north-east, is the greenest and dampest area, facing the trade winds. Valle de La Orotava, at the foot of Teide, is the valley that fascinated European naturalists, today shared between vines, banana plantations and houses. Ycoden-Daute-Isora, around Icod de los Vinos and Garachico, keeps the memory of the export trade. On the other side of the island, Valle de Güímar climbs the eastern slope, and Abona, in the south, rises to the vineyards of Vilaflor, above the pine forests.
There is no need to memorise them. It is enough to know that on the same island you can drink wines of a damp Atlantic climate and high-altitude wines, dry and sunny.
What makes Tenerife wine different
The most widely planted grapes are the islands’ traditional varieties, led by listán negro and listán blanco, with malvasía as a reminder of the days of canary. And one fact explains a great deal: phylloxera, the pest that devastated Europe’s vineyards in the late nineteenth century, stayed away from the Canary Islands for more than a hundred years. That is why the island still has so many ungrafted vines on their own roots, something increasingly rare in Europe. In 2025 the first outbreaks were detected in vineyards in the north of Tenerife, and the Canary Islands Government has brought in control measures, such as restricting the movement of plant material between islands (information as of October 2026). If you visit vineyards, do not take cuttings or plants away with you.
Visiting wineries without hurrying
The north has most of the wineries, and it is where a visit makes the most sense. A few ideas:
- Start at the Casa del Vino de Tenerife, in El Sauzal, to get the whole map before choosing a winery. Check opening times before you go.
- Always book. Many wineries are family-run and have nobody waiting at the door; visits are arranged in advance.
- One or two a day, no more. Mid-slope roads are slow, and the pleasure lies in staying.
- Decide who is driving. If you plan to taste seriously, the sensible choice is a driver who is not drinking, or a taxi.
If you are there in autumn, look for the guachinches: the most direct way to drink a grower’s own wine. At the end of November the north also celebrates San Andrés, when cellars open and the new wine is tasted with roast chestnuts; we cover it in Tenerife from October to June.
To go with the glass, see eating in Tenerife; and to see what fine dining does with these wines, Tenerife’s Michelin stars.
Our view
Tenerife wine does not compete on volume or fame: it competes on singularity. Ungrafted vines, vineyards above the clouds and wineries still in one family’s hands. Few things belong to a place as much as a glass from this island drunk where it was made.
