Shakespeare’s Tenerife tipple making a comeback
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
Grape varieties used in wine making in Tenerife are among the few survivors of a disaster that struck the European wine industry nearly 150 years ago.
An aphid from America was accidentally imported into France in 1860, destroying vines that had been refined and nurtured over hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Phylloxera spread across the continent, bringing the European wine industry to its knees in little more than ten years.
Wine producers turned to different grape varieties, mostly phylloxera-resistant imported from America, and slowly the industry recovered.
Tenerife and the other islands in the Canarian archipelago survived the ravages of phylloxera and the ancient grape varieties that European settlers brought with them to the island after the Spanish conquest at the end of the 15th century continue to flourish to this day.
They make the wines produced on the island today unique.
So much so that the island authorities are now ...