Winery tour in Gran Canaria: Visit Bodega San Juan - Finca El Mocanal (winetasting included)

During our two-month visit this year to Gran Canaria, we've had the time and pleasure to explore several more places beyond the sunny south, where most of the island's tourist resorts are concentrated.

For those of you who are repeat visitors to Gran Canaria and looking to explore new places far from the busy resorts, we'd recommend taking a look at our article Gran Canaria beyond the resorts, where we speak about how we spent our day with an official tour guide in Gran Canaria and what are some of the activities that you could do.

One of the places we visited on that day along with our guide Guillermo at Gran Canaria Sightseeing was Bodega San Juan - Finca El Mocanal, but we wanted to dedicate a separate article just for this place since we had a really good time visiting the winery. 

The visit to Bodega San Juan includes a tour of the vineyard, a small museum, the old winery and a wine tasting experience at the end 

During our visit to Bodega San Juan, we were accompanied by one of their guides who made the entire experience even more special as we got to learn more about the history of the place. 

The visit to Finca El Mocanal is also suitable for families with kids wanting to experience Gran Canaria's winemaking culture since the kids have space to run around and there are two lovely ponies and a "retired" donkey which will surely be the main attraction for the little ones.

Bodega San Juan has been a family business for generations 

Nowadays, Bodega San Juan - Finca El Mocanal is run by Cristina Millán, but the vineyard was set up by her great-great-grandfather in 1912, so this place has a history of over 100 years of growing grapes on the island of Gran Canaria. 

During our visit, we learned that the Bodega had been closed for several years until 2017 when Cristina took charge and reopened the vineyard for the public. With studies in fields like Agricultural Engineering and Viticulture, she is now the one running the business and continuing with the family tradition that her ancestors started. 

Bodega San Juan is currently in the process of getting their Organic Certification

Every process involved in cultivating the grapes at Finca El Mocanal follows the ways of organic agriculture, as the Bodega is currently in the process of getting accredited as a producer of wine with Organic Agriculture Certification. 

So if you're not simply interested in tasting a Canarian wine, but you're also interested in quality and sampling a clean wine, produced with care while adhering to organic farming methods, then you should definitely come and try the tinto Mocanal. 

Get to know more about the types of grapes cultivated in Gran Canaria's volcanic soil

Finca El Mocanal mostly cultivates Listan Negro, a type of grape endemic to the Canary Islands, but also Negramoll, another variety of grape specific to the archipelago.

You can visit the vineyard and see how the grapes are grown and cared for, without using chemical products and using cultivation techniques that are respectful of the environment.

The purpose of Bodega San Juan is to produce high-quality artisanal wine while minimizing the use of mechanical equipment and promoting the human factor both in the cultivation of the vine and in the production of the wine. As we learned during our tour, even the wax seal is done manually, ensuring the delivery of a  product that adheres to traditional craftmanship methods, while still adhering to the modern standards of hygiene when it comes to production processes.

Bodega San Juan is a pioneer in using the Monte Lentiscal Origin Denominacion, referring to the region of Monte Lentiscal, located between the Bandama Natural Monument and the Tafira Protected Landscape.

Bodega San Juan hosts a small museum with old equipment used in the process of winemaking

After seeing the farm and the vineyards, the tour at Bodega San Juan will take you to see a small museum where you get lots of info about the old machinery used in the process of winemaking, information about the process of harvesting the grapes and you can also see some old historic photos depicting the methods people used to make wine in the old days. 

After the visit to the museum, the tour leads to see the winery's old barrels and old wine bottles collected by the family, before passing on to what is probably the most anticipated part of the entire tour: the winetasting.

Mocanal wine is produced exclusively with grapes produced at Finca El Mocanal and it's an artisanal natural wine crafted without added external yeast and without clarifying or filtering.

In this area of the Bodega San Juan - Finca El Mocanal, you can admire the beautiful event room and inviting courtyard, where you can sit to enjoy the wine produced at the Bodega, accompanied by other local products like cheeses, which are also available to buy in their shop.

Visit Bodega San Juan - Finca El Mocanal

• Address: Ctra. Bandama, 68, 35310 Sta Brígida, Las Palmas, Spain

Exploring Gran Canaria with an official tourism guide

We want to offer special thanks to our guide, Guillermo at Gran Canaria Sightseeing, whose passion for Gran Canaria and nature has made the day even so more interesting and fun for us, so if you want to explore more of the hidden landscapes and paths in Gran Canaria, we highly recommend Guillermo as the perfect companion and guide around the island.

This sightseeing day trip was kindly organized for us by Gran Canaria Tourist Board, whom we thank for their support.