Lanzarote. Who Designed This?
Lanzarote. Who Designed This?
Lanzarote. Who Designed This?
Thousands of holes in a black volcanic landscape. Either someone had a very strange idea, or a very good reason.
Thousands of holes in a black volcanic landscape. Either someone had a very strange idea, or a very good reason.
Show a photograph of Lanzarote's vineyards to two graphic designers over coffee, and I suspect you'll get an argument about whether they're looking at a masterpiece or somebody's rather obsessive relationship with circles.
From above, La Geria resembles a landscape attacked by an enormous hole punch. Thousands of irregular depressions interrupt the black volcanic ground, each with a tiny green vine and a crescent-shaped wall of stone. The repetition is strangely satisfying, especially because the circles are never quite identical. One designer might admire the composition, while the other would probably ask why anyone thought digging so many holes was a good idea.
THE VOLCANO DID THE FIRST DRAFT
Between 1730 and 1736, volcanic eruptions covered large areas of Lanzarote's farmland with lava and volcanic debris, leaving the islanders with a rather challenging redesign of their agricultural landscape.
The farmers had little rain, persistent winds and a thick layer of black volcanic gravel between them and the soil they needed. Their solution was to dig through the gravel, plant vines in the hollows and build curved stone walls to protect them from the wind.
As it turned out, the volcanic gravel was not entirely bad news. Known locally as picón, it helps capture and conserve moisture, allowing vines to grow in conditions where water is scarce and conventional vineyard layouts would be difficult to maintain.
What looks like an extravagant exercise in landscape design is actually a collection of practical decisions, repeated thousands of times until they created a pattern that is almost impossible to mistake for an ordinary vineyard.
I rather like the idea of a designer spending weeks trying to achieve this kind of visual coherence, only to discover that Lanzarote's farmers arrived at it because they needed somewhere to plant grapes.
NICE DESIGN. DOES IT SELL?
The vines growing inside those curious circles produce, among other wines, Malvasía Volcánica, an aromatic local white grape that has become closely associated with Lanzarote.
But the landscape may be more widely travelled than the wine itself. Photographs of La Geria circulate far beyond the Canary Islands, while D.O. Lanzarote reported that only 2.69% of its wineries' billing in 2025 came from outside Spain.
It's an amusing reversal of the usual design brief. The vineyard was built to produce wine, yet the arrangement of holes and stone walls has become an attraction in its own right. Visitors come to admire a composition that nobody originally intended as a visual spectacle.
I imagine our two designers finishing their coffee and agreeing that the result is rather brilliant, even if neither would have thought to begin a vineyard design project with a volcanic eruption.
Wine is never just wine. Sometimes the best-looking thing in the room was never designed to be looked at.
Show a photograph of Lanzarote's vineyards to two graphic designers over coffee, and I suspect you'll get an argument about whether they're looking at a masterpiece or somebody's rather obsessive relationship with circles.
From above, La Geria resembles a landscape attacked by an enormous hole punch. Thousands of irregular depressions interrupt the black volcanic ground, each with a tiny green vine and a crescent-shaped wall of stone. The repetition is strangely satisfying, especially because the circles are never quite identical. One designer might admire the composition, while the other would probably ask why anyone thought digging so many holes was a good idea.
THE VOLCANO DID THE FIRST DRAFT
Between 1730 and 1736, volcanic eruptions covered large areas of Lanzarote's farmland with lava and volcanic debris, leaving the islanders with a rather challenging redesign of their agricultural landscape.
The farmers had little rain, persistent winds and a thick layer of black volcanic gravel between them and the soil they needed. Their solution was to dig through the gravel, plant vines in the hollows and build curved stone walls to protect them from the wind.
As it turned out, the volcanic gravel was not entirely bad news. Known locally as picón, it helps capture and conserve moisture, allowing vines to grow in conditions where water is scarce and conventional vineyard layouts would be difficult to maintain.
What looks like an extravagant exercise in landscape design is actually a collection of practical decisions, repeated thousands of times until they created a pattern that is almost impossible to mistake for an ordinary vineyard.
I rather like the idea of a designer spending weeks trying to achieve this kind of visual coherence, only to discover that Lanzarote's farmers arrived at it because they needed somewhere to plant grapes.
NICE DESIGN. DOES IT SELL?
The vines growing inside those curious circles produce, among other wines, Malvasía Volcánica, an aromatic local white grape that has become closely associated with Lanzarote.
But the landscape may be more widely travelled than the wine itself. Photographs of La Geria circulate far beyond the Canary Islands, while D.O. Lanzarote reported that only 2.69% of its wineries' billing in 2025 came from outside Spain.
It's an amusing reversal of the usual design brief. The vineyard was built to produce wine, yet the arrangement of holes and stone walls has become an attraction in its own right. Visitors come to admire a composition that nobody originally intended as a visual spectacle.
I imagine our two designers finishing their coffee and agreeing that the result is rather brilliant, even if neither would have thought to begin a vineyard design project with a volcanic eruption.
Wine is never just wine. Sometimes the best-looking thing in the room was never designed to be looked at.
