Bastardo Negro

The Story

Bastardo Negro is the Canary Islands expression of one of the wine world's most confusingly named grapes — Trousseau — a red variety with roots in eastern France that traveled to Iberia centuries ago and quietly settled into volcanic island soils. The grape was known for generations as a blending workhorse in Port and Douro reds, and historically contributed to the brownish hue of Tawny Port, yet it remained so underappreciated that it was nearly abandoned in the late 19th century when Phylloxera and Oidium devastated Portuguese vineyards. In Madeira, it came within a hair's breadth of total extinction, with just 1.73 hectares surviving. On the Canary Islands, however, something different happened: Phylloxera never arrived. The Atlantic isolation that made the Canaries feel remote also made them a living time capsule, preserving ungrafted vines, pre-Phylloxera genetics, and minor varieties like Bastardo Negro that vanished elsewhere. Felipe Monje of Bodegas Monje discovered the variety growing in his own vineyards almost by accident — a single plot called La Mostaza at 670 metres altitude on Tenerife, facing the Atlantic with views of Mount Teide. With only 760 bottles produced from the first dedicated bottling (2013 vintage), Bastardo Negro became one of the rarest Canary Islands wines ever made.

Insider Story

The name "Bastardo" carries a deliberately provocative history. The grape's illegitimate reputation stems from its deeply confused identity across Iberia: it was called Bastardo do Castello, Bastardo dos Frados, Merenzao, María Ordoña, Maturana Tinta, Verdejo Negro, and Tintilla in different corners of Spain and Portugal — essentially a different alias in every region. DNA profiling eventually confirmed that Trousseau/Bastardo has been cultivated on the Iberian Peninsula for at least 200 years under these names, and genetic analysis found that Savagnin may be one of its parents — making it a distant cousin of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. In Madeira, the variety's resurrection is even more dramatic: after near-total extinction, a single farmer named Teófilo Cunha planted new Bastardo vines in 2004 on his family's lands in São Jorge on Madeira's north coast, keeping the variety alive. Barbeito winery then produced their ultra-rare "Três Pipas" Old Reserve from just three barrels of this revived grape — only 2,139 numbered 50cl bottles were made. In the Canary Islands, the Bastardo Negro sits alongside other rescued natives on soils where 70-100+ year old ungrafted vines produce absurdly low yields, and the cordon trenzado (braided cordon) vine training method is still used — a winemaking technique you'll see almost nowhere else on earth.

Technical Deep Dive

Bastardo Negro (syn. Trousseau, Merenzao) is a thin-skinned, early-ripening red variety that produces wines of light-to-medium body with strikingly high, sour-candy acidity and a mineral, almost jerky-like nose. The tannins are soft and fine-grained. On Tenerife's volcanic basalt soils at 670m altitude, the characteristic mineral spine intensifies dramatically — tasting notes from the Bodegas Monje bottling show blue fruit (plums, blueberries), spice (black pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon), and a volcanically mineral palate that finishes with a slight, refreshing astringency. In Portugal's Douro, Niepoort's single-variety Bastardo vinifies with 50% whole stems, 20-day maceration in open wooden vats, and 15 months in used French oak for malolactic — producing a tense, vibrant wine with sliced orange peel, fresh cherry, iron and rust notes, and an umami-driven savory finish. Young Bastardo smells of wild berries and fresh red fruit; aged examples evolve toward smoke, dry leaves, coffee, prunes, and tobacco. In Madeira, Bastardo was historically valued for its naturally high sugar content and early ripening, contributing delicacy and aromatic complexity to fortified wines. The variety prefers free-draining soils and is susceptible to both Oidium and grey rot — which explains its historical decline. In the Canaries, the combination of volcanic free-draining soils, Atlantic wind, and the absence of Phylloxera means vines can be grown on their own rootstocks, unlocking a terroir expression that is impossible to replicate on the mainland.

Industry Secrets

Bastardo's identity crisis was so severe that it took modern DNA fingerprinting to untangle. For decades, Spanish ampelographers debated whether Merenzao in Galicia was the same grape as Bastardo in the Douro. It is. And the Bastardo Negro of the Canary Islands is almost certainly the same variety again, carried to the islands during the period of Spanish colonial expansion when the Canaries served as a critical Atlantic way-station for ships heading to the Americas. This means Bastardo Negro vines on Tenerife may be direct descendants of mainland Spanish vines planted 400-500 years ago — pre-Phylloxera, pre-modern clonal selection, essentially living genetic archives. Serious natural wine producers in Galicia (where the grape goes by Merenzao) have quietly elevated the variety in recent years, finding it produces fresh, low-intervention reds that suit contemporary palates. In Madeira, the Barbeito "Duas Pipas" and "Três Pipas" releases are some of the most sought-after expressions globally precisely because of the grape's near-extinction narrative — limited production, compelling back-story, and genuinely distinctive wine. The Canary Islands version remains almost unknown outside Spain.

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