Bodegas Viñatigo's Juan Jésus Méndez and his wife Elena Batista; they've worked closely with academics to study, catalog, preserve, and most importantly, vinify rare indigenous grape varieties. Over the 25 years of Juan’s tenure at... Read More

Bodegas Viñatigo's Juan Jésus Méndez and his wife Elena Batista; they've worked closely with academics to study, catalog, preserve, and most importantly, vinify rare indigenous grape varieties. Over the 25 years of Juan’s tenure at Viñatigo, they’ve isolated 80+ unique varieties and begun to grow many of them.

The Canary Islands’s most common grapes are Listan Blanco and Listan Negro, varieties originally from Jerez (Listan Blanco = Palomino) and Castilla La Mancha (Listen Negro = Mission, aka País), respectively. They produce stunning wines, but Juan and Elena have worked so hard to reveal the islands’ more mysterious inhabitants, and we find ourselves absolutely fascinated by them.