Juan Jesús Méndez, a fourth-generation grower from Tenerife and founder of Bodegas Viñátigo, has spent the past twenty-five years reviving the viticultural heritage of the Canary Islands. Alongside his wife, Elena Batista, and in collaboration with viticulture expert Fernando Zamora, he has identified and rescued over eighty indigenous grape varieties—such as Baboso Negro and Vijariego Negro—ensuring their preservation and replanting in Tenerife. A professor of viticulture and enology, Juan Jesús has passed his passion to the next generation: his son Jorge, who now oversees organic and increasingly biodynamic vineyard practices, and his daughter Celia, who manages marketing, education, and sales. Together, the family continues Viñátigo’s legacy of sustainable, low-intervention winemaking, hand-harvesting grapes, fermenting with native yeasts, and avoiding synthetic additives to authentically express the volcanic terroir of the Canary Islands.
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