The person behind the figure is Jorge Rodríguez, who heads the island's wine council, and he gave the estimate with the harvest around halfway through.
What has made the difference is water. Two dry years in a row had left the vineyards struggling, but a wet winter soaked deep into the ground and gave the vines a reserve to draw on through the growing season. That reserve proved its worth when the summer heat arrived, with the vines holding up through a heatwave that pushed temperatures close to 40 degrees on the island.
It is worth being clear about what kind of good year this is. The 2.5 million kilo estimate towers over last year's failure, but it actually sits below what growers were hoping for back in the spring, when 3 million looked possible. A bout of fungal disease among the vines then pulled the projection back. So this is the island's vineyards climbing out of a hole rather than hitting new heights, and Rodríguez is quick to point out the number could still move before the last grapes are in.
The heat did more than test the vines. It ripened the grapes ahead of schedule, and several bodegas brought their picking forward into early July rather than waiting for the usual mid-to-late-month start. First into the presses was Malvasía Volcánica, the white grape the island is known for and the one that goes into much of its wine, including its sparkling.
Among the first to start were the David Fernández and Jable de Tao bodegas, with El Grifo, the oldest winery on the island, weighing in early grapes for its Brut. Every bunch is cut by hand, as the island's denominación de origen requires, because the vines grow one to a pit in the black volcanic ash and no machine can reach them. It is punishing, painstaking work, and it is the reason Lanzarote's wines taste of the place they come from.
There is a quirk to all this worth knowing. Because Lanzarote is so hot and its grapes ripen so early, the island regularly holds the first grape harvest anywhere in Europe, frequently wrapping up before the vineyards of mainland Spain, France and Italy have even begun. The 2026 picking will run on through August. For anyone visiting the wine country around La Geria in the coming weeks, it is a good time to see the bodegas at their busiest.
