Where is the highest vineyard in Europe located?

"Of course with us," claim the winegrowers from Visperterminen in Valais and proudly present their Hauswingert, which extends from 650 to 1150 meters in continuous terraces made of dry stone walls.

"No way, it's with us," the colleagues from the Upper Vinschgau throw at them and insist on their vineyard near the Marienberg monastery, which reaches a height of 1340 meters above sea level.

"All nonsense," says Carlos Luende in his soft voice and points to his winery with an outstretched arm up to the village of Vilaflor on the flanks of Mount Teide on Tenerife.

"My vines are up there, at an altitude of 1689 meters, and that's the record" - which his continental competitors also know and are honest enough,

This was not Christian charity

Jakob Strobel and Serra

deputy head of the feature section.

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However, Carlos Luende, the owner of Bodega Frontos in Granadilla de Abona in the very south of the largest island of the Canary Islands, does not make a fuss about his superlative and thus fits into the overall picture of Canary winegrowing, which prefers to practice modesty than to be in Sunshine glitz and glamor.

He would have every right to do so, because his character and his story are unique in the world.

Nowhere else did the Europeans plant vines outside of their continent, and nowhere else, thanks to fortunate circumstances, is the continuity of European viticulture as great as here.

As early as the fourteenth century, Mallorcan missionaries brought the first vines to the islands, not only for the pleasure of drinking, but also because wine was indispensable for the liturgy.

However, the Guanches, the natives who were as defensive as they were stubborn, learned their lesson of Christian charity badly and in 1392 killed the missionaries down to the last man of God.

It was not until the Spanish conquest of the archipelago in the late fifteenth century that viticulture finally took root.

The conquistadors brought dozens of different grape varieties to the islands where there were no indigenous varieties, experimented for decades, suffered many setbacks and finally found which grapes best coped with the climatic and topographical conditions.

His greatest friends were the British, who imported so many casks that a port complex in London is still called Canary Wharf.

Shakespeare took part of his salary in the currency of Canarian wine and told his Henry IV that the island's plants were wonderful and perfumed the blood.

But political turmoil between Spain and England meant that one day the British no longer wanted to drink wines from Tenerife or Lanzarote and instead defected to their new ally Portugal with flying colors.

When the Duoro became the first protected designation of origin in the world in 1756, nothing stood in the way of the triumph of Portuguese wines - and the decline of the Canarian winegrowers, who soon only pressed cheap mass wine, was just as unstoppable.