A town and port in north-western Tenerife, on lands of the old menceyato (Guanche kingdom) of Icod. It was founded after the conquest of the island (1496) on the initiative of the Genoese banker Cristóbal de Ponte; its name, of Guanche origin, comes from the rock standing off the coast.
wine port 16th–17th centuries; Canary Company 1665; wine spilled August 1666; dissolution 1667The night in 1666 when wine flowed through Garachico
In the 16th and 17th centuries Garachico was the great port of northern Tenerife, from which the district's “Canary wine” was shipped to England and the Indies. In 1665 Charles II of England granted a group of London merchants the Canary Company, which sought to buy the island's wine as a monopoly and at a low price. The island councils and the Royal Audiencia ordered its agents expelled, and in August 1666, with sales blocked, the growers of Garachico opened their cellars and poured their own wine into the streets rather than sell it off cheaply; the captain general had to arrive with troops. In 1667 the company was dissolved. A monument beside the port commemorates that night.
Alive today: A monument showing a man carrying a barrel, with the inscription “One night in 1666 torrents of wine flowed through Garachico”, commemorates the episode. The municipality is part of DO Ycoden-Daute-Isora and has one producer registered with the Regulatory Council, based in El Guincho (brand Canales del Palmar).