Conservation, food and local culture on Gran Canaria

Teresa Machan learns about island conservation and the joys and challenges of rural life on a food and wine tasting odyssey across a less visited part of Gran Canaria

It’s milking time at the Cortijo de Pavon cheese factory and all hands are on udders. With a 400-strong herd of Canary Island sheep there’s no time to waste. The Mendoza family has nailed this process. Milk hits the aluminium buckets like hail on a tin roof and before long a full lechera (urn) is being hoisted onto a trolley and wheeled at pace to the production area. “Raw milk adds properties to the cheese but the milk’s temperature must be maintained,” explains my guide, Rafa Molina Rafa Molina whose company EtnoExperience Canarias, specialises in ethnographic hiking routes.

Hands also help to maintain the temperature of the cheese. I followed two of the farmers into a small, stone building where the unpasteurised milk is poured into an oblong vat and salted and paddled before the coagulation process is initiated with a sprinkling of rennet. The curd is sliced into ‘grains' and the whey filtered into buckets. The cheese is then wrapped into muslin parcels, kneaded to expunge more liquid and pressed into circular moulds. The entire hands-on process takes around 40 minutes.

The stages of cheese making at Cortijo de Pavon cheese factory. Photos: Richard Hammond

It isn’t only farming skills that have straddled four generations of this family. An ancient pastoral tradition known as transhumance binds them to the land. Towards the end of June the two female sheep farmers I’ve been observing, Belén (26) and Laura (21), will pack up a few belongings and pick up the trail of the nomadic shepherds, walking between mountain refuges for up to 12 hours a day. The lush pastures of the mountain north enrich the milk of the sheep and are ideal for fattening up the herd.

Meeting female shepherds in their 20s was the first of many surprises during a recent visit to Gran Canaria. The popular winter-sun destination is well known for its beaches, sand dunes and resort hotels. Point the handlebars inland, however, and you’ll find hiking trails that thread through laurel forest, world-class archaeological sites, natural parks sheltering endemic flora and birds and village restaurants where tables groan with farm-to-fork produce.

As well as supporting a sustainable, circular food system, transhumant shepherds are helping protect the land from the increasing threat of forest fires. According to the environmental conservation organisation Gran Canaria Mosaico almost half of the island’s surface area sits within a high fire-risk zone. Wineries, cheese factories and small farms are the island’s greatest allies, because ‘every cultivated field, orchard and meadow acts as a productive firebreak.’

Watch the video of Teresa's trip to Gran Canaria:

Filmed and edited by Richard Hammond. A Green Traveller production.

Wherever I ate the words ‘zero kilometres’ (Km.0) usually cropped up. Canarians are fortunate to have a climate that facilitates a field-to-table approach to dining but a deep-rooted passion for the terroir is a key ingredient in the food on the plate.

As well as its artisanal goat, sheep and flower cheeses the island has potato, coffee and banana plantations and vines that march across volcanic slopes. Almonds, of which there are more than 50 varieties, warrant an annual blossom festival, held in the village of Tejeda in February. Travelling around I tasted jams made from sun-ripened tomatoes, figs and prickly pears, honey, prized navel oranges, papaya and pork from the indigenous black pig.

Incredibly, 43 per cent of land in Gran Canaria falls within the Gran Canaria Biosphere Reserve, an area that encompasses several villages, including Tejeda and Artenara, in the centre of the island. This year Artenara found its place on Spain’s list of Pueblos Mágicos – ‘living towns’ singled out for – among other criteria – practices that preserve the environment, heritage and culture for future generations. For a small island, it is quite an achievement.

In the town’s San Matias plaza, I pulled up a chair at Arte-Gaia Bio Tasca (the loose translation is “organic tavern”) and set about eating the land. The day’s lunch menu featured watercress soup with corn, chickpea, saffron and Canarian pork rib, roasted aubergine smothered in palm syrup and cheeses from the Biosphere Reserve. The papas arrugadas – small, flavoursome potatoes cooked and served in their wrinkly jackets on a puddle of spicy mojo sauce, deserved special attention. “The potatoes are from the ravine and the mojo is an old lady’s recipe,” said owner Juana Teresa.

The “ravine” she mentioned is in the fertile Tejeda crater. A few minutes from the restaurant is a viewpoint offering yawning views across this monolith-strewn bowl.

Farm to table dining at Arte-Gaia Bio Tasca, Artenara. photos: Richard Hammond

In pretty Tejeda, an edge-of-the-caldera village full of traditional, white-washed houses, marzipan lovers go to die. Here, I discovered bienmesabe, an almond-based sauce to be dribbled over ice cream (or eaten straight from the spoon) and, at the other extreme, saquitos de morcilla te van (which translates as ‘little pockets of blood sausage’).

“You will love them,” said the waiter at Cueva de la Tea, as I popped a filo pastry parcel of black pudding mixed with pine nuts into my mouth. And he was right.

It isn’t just potatoes and almond trees that thrive in the Biosphere Reserve. The last two decades has seen a huge resurgence in traditional wine-making – with unique varietals and scores of bodegas across the island. The absence of phylloxera allows vines to be cultivated using ungrafted rootstocks, allowing varieties to harvest the soil's minerals.

As our car wound through the volcanic valley I wondered how much higher we could go before running out of road. Eventually we came to a halt at Bodegas Bentayga. Set on the slopes of Caldera de Tejeda, the winery was founded by Don Juan Rodriguez, who in the early 1990s converted an old dairy farm into a winemaking facility. Most of the current vines were planted in 1994, at altitudes ranging from 1,050 to 1,318 meters, making this the highest-altitude winery in the Canaries. Juan Armas’s legacy continues under the direction of his daughter, Sandra.

Part of the winery is excavated from stone and a cool cave that extends from the winetasting room houses red wines maturing in American, Hungarian and French oak barrels. During the 90-minute tasting I sampled a clean, flinty and rounded white, Agala Altitud 1318 and a red, Altitud 1295, that was somehow light but packed with plummy depth.

Outside, among the butterflies and vines, I drank in the land, both literally and metaphorically. Directly in front of the bodega is Gran Canaria’s emblematic Roque Nublo, and beyond, Roque Bentayga. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen and felt their presence, but this front-row view of the monoliths is unmatched.

Teresa tasting wine at Bodegas Bentayga overlooking Gran Canaria’s emblematic Roque Nublo, and beyond, Roque Bentayga. Squint and you can see Tenerife's Mount Teidi (far right). Photo: Richard Hammond

Back at Cortijo de Pavon, Belen invited Rafa and I to taste the cheese. Not the white, fresh (younger than 20 days) rounds lined up on rows of shelves like single-layer wedding cakes, but the semi-aged cheeses on sale in the farm’s small shop. Before we leave the production room, I ask the girls about shepherding. What about a social life, partners and Tik Tok?

Belen says she is completely committed to the business she is taking over from her parents. She loves the “quiet” of the production process and the cathartic, hands-on nature of the work. Laura gave up a job in the town of Galda to work at Cortijo de Pavon. She wanted to pursue a different way of life. She loves her work, she says, and feels part of the family.

As we sat in the sunshine, eating our cheese, Rafa hit the nail on the head. “It's not just about making cheese,” he said. “It’s about nature, landscape, culture and prevention.

“Tourism is well balanced here. Our identity is visible.”

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Disclosure: Teresa Machan was a guest of Gran Canaria Tourism. She had full editorial control of this feature, which has been written in her own words based on her experience of visiting Gran Canaria in the summer of 2025. All opinions are the authors’ own.

How to travel to the Canary Islands without flying

There are two ferry routes from mainland Spain to the Canary Islands, from Huelva (near Seville) operated by Baleria, and from Cadiz, operated by Armas Trasmediterránea. For how to travel to these ports from the UK without flying, see our guide to how to travel overland to Spain.

The ferries from Huelva run to the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (which takes about 40 hours) and stop at the Port of La Luz in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria en route, while the ferries from Cadiz run to most of the main islands, including Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, La Palma, Lanzarote and Tenerife, taking 28–35 hours.

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Book ferry tickets to the Canary Islands

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