|
|
|
|
| The introduction of the Wine in the Canary Islands. |
| The Canary Islands were conquered by the Europeans during the 15th Century. The distance and the rough and craggy and sheer orography of the land, above all in the Western Islands, made that the conquest was extended during all the century, being Tenerife the last island conquered in the year 1496. Once they arrived, the conquerors found a population in full Bronze Age. |
| |
| The 15th Century |
| The Europeans brought the vine (Vitis Vinifera) along this century. It is known that the first vine in Tenerife was planted by the Portuguese Fernando de Castro, in the year 1497 and that John Hill, an English, planted the first vine in El Hierro in 1526. The Western Islands (Lanzarote and Fuerteventura) were conquered almost a Century before by Juan de Bettencourt, and for that, it seems that the origin of the vines is probably French. |
 |
| The 16th Century |
| The Canary wine acquires quality and prestigious up to a point that since the beginning of the Century, it started to be exported to Madeira in 1515 and to Jerez in 1517 and to England from America in 1519. In 1573, the King Felipe II receives a report about the vine-growing activity in the Canary Islands. This boom is mainly caused by two facts: the vine is a good substitutive growing for the sugar cane, whose market was being taken by the massive production coming America; and to the facility to the exportation that the Island had, due to their strategic situation in the traffic of shipping among Spain, America and Africa. |
|
|
|
|
