Icod de los Vinos
Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Canary Islands
VC Islas CanariasDO Ycoden-Daute-Isora24.616inhabitants
1464first mention
1772wine documented
A municipality in north-western Tenerife, known for its Drago Milenario (thousand-year-old dragon tree). It takes its name from the Guanche menceyato of Icod; after the Castilian conquest it grew around the hermitage of San Marcos (c. 1500), a parish from 1515.
First mention: In 1464 the mencey of Icod attended the symbolic taking of possession of Tenerife by Diego García de Herrera, lord of the Canaries (according to Rumeu de Armas, ‘La Conquista de Tenerife’, 1975). In the land-allotment records it appears as Icode, Ycode or Ycoden.
The legend
tradition of the boards 16th century; malvasía documented in 1772 (Viera y Clavijo); “de los Vinos” official in 1949The San Andrés boards and Icod's new wine
Icod was the heart of the old Guanche menceyato of Ycoden, which gives its name to the DO. After the conquest, its slopes were covered with vines, and its wine, together with that of the whole district, was shipped from the nearby port of Garachico as the celebrated “Canary wine” of the 16th and 17th centuries. According to local tradition, in those days men brought timber down from the sawmills on the summits to the coast to build ships and barrels, sliding down the steep streets on planks. Over time that work turned into a festival: on the eve of San Andrés, the town's patron saint, when the cellars are opened and the new wine is tasted, young people hurl themselves down the streets on waxed boards. What is on record: in 1772 the historian Viera y Clavijo noted that almost all of Icod's land was planted with malvasía, its principal crop, and that ships came to the cove of San Marcos to load wine.
Alive today: Every 28–30 November Icod celebrates San Andrés with the official uncorking of the first bottle of the vintage, the Wine Festival with wineries from all over Tenerife, and the dragging of boards down streets such as El Plano and San Antonio, attended by tens of thousands of people. Bodegas Aceviño, in La Cueva del Viento, is still active in the municipality.
Wineries and their wines
Bodegas Aceviño
- Aceviño blanco afrutado
- Aceviño blanco seco
- Aceviño tinto
Wine towns nearby