Güímar
Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Canary Islands
VC Islas CanariasDO Valle de Güímar22.009inhabitants
1550wine documented
A town in south-eastern Tenerife that gives its name to the old Guanche menceyato of Güímar. The first settlement arose in the 16th century beside the sugar mill of the Piombino brothers, in Güímar de Arriba, and in the 17th century the population shifted towards the hermitage of San Pedro.
First mention: The place name appears in the Datas de Tenerife (land allotments following the conquest of 1496) in the spellings Agüímar, Agoymad, Goymad and Ygoymad (E. Serra Ràfols, Las Datas de Tenerife, 1978). The exact date of the first mention has not been found.
The legend
vineyard plots documented in the mid-16th century; export boom, 18th centuryThe vineyard plots of the Güímar estate
After the conquest, the former menceyato (Guanche kingdom) of Güímar was divided among settlers, and some Italian merchants built the first sugar mill in southern Tenerife there. Little by little the land was concentrated into a great estate which, around the mid-16th century, when Captain Pedro de Alarcón bought it, was larger than the present municipality and, alongside its cane fields and mill, had many vineyard plots. When sugar declined the vine gained ground, and in the 18th century the town grew on the strength of a wine exported as “false Madeira”. Today the vineyards climb the valley slopes to almost 1,500 metres, among the highest in Europe.
Alive today: Güímar gives its name to the DO Valle de Güímar (1996) and hosts the headquarters of its Regulatory Council, on Calle Tafetana. Its fiestas of San Pedro, at the end of June, include a district wine competition, and family bodegas such as Viña Gómez make wine in the municipality, while the large district bodega is in neighbouring Arafo.
Wineries and their wines
- Nubes de Altura
- Viña Gómez
Wine towns nearby