Extraordinary vineyards and the Land-Art of Lanza

The tiny island of Lanzarote hosts something the MoMa acknowledged as Art: Land-Art.
Yes, the MoMa. The gorgeous Modern Art Museum in New York. The Museum found out about Lanza's Vineyards thanks to - here he is again - Cesar Manrique.

When you see the pics (and google 'la Geria' for even more stunning ones) you 'll see why.
It's Art with a capital A.

There's this strange and barren island. Hardly fertile, but with a benign climate.
A climate just right for growing grapes.
And somehow or other the Lanzarotians found a way to grow them - in pits. In 'hoyos', holes in the ground. Not your common or garden hoyos in the ground, but endless fields of symmetrical pits, the black earth changing colour at even paces, and in the centre of the changed colour - the pit - one tiny, bright green grape vine, growing almost flat on the bottom of the pit, surrounded by pícon: small poriferous lava stones that retain water. Around the pit a low wall of lava stones to protect the vine from the trade winds.

Don't ask me how they manage to keep these vines alive, or how they harvest them. I have no idea.
But wine comes from it, and a lovely wine it is: the rightly famous, dry-and-sweet Malvasia.

The tourists came and they had to be entertained. Looking at the artfully pitted fields didn't urge them to part with their money, hence the tourist shops next to the wineries.

They offered the most extraordinary and vulgar stuff imaginable. Airport quality and far worse.
So don't go there, feast on the landscape instead.

As much as we were in awe of the vineyards we felt sordid after visiting the tourist infrastructure around it. We moved on: to a nice Lanza restaurant with good food and a bottle of the wonderful Lanzarote wine. We soon forgot the shops, and could give the vineyards their proper due. Amazing, they are!