Bodegas like Vega Sicilia, Protos, Pesquera or the regions Rueda and Toro are mainly the names that gave Castilla and León world wide fame and recognition. This region, which is the biggest in Spain (more than 94,000 square kilometres), offers such huge variety, wealth and diversity that a lot of people consider it THE BIG SPANISH BODEGA. Red wines, white wines, rosé wines, clairets, sweet wines and sparkling wines come from this region.

The region also hosts several quality classifications, first of all the famous Denominaciones de Origen (DO): Ribera del Duero, Rueda, Cigales, Toro and Bierzo, but also the more and more recognized Vino de la Tierra (VT) from Castilla and León and last, but not least, the no less famous Vinos de Calidad Producidos en Region Determinada (vcprd), which in English means quality wines produced in a specific region.

These are Arribes del Duero, Arlanza, Tierras de León, Tierra del Vino de Zamora and Valles de Benavente. The division into nine provinces (Avila, Burgos, Leon, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Valladolid and Zamora) is shared by a lot of viticultural appellations having conditions of soil and climate favourable to the production of wines.


Even though the wines from Castilla and León were exported on the ships which sailed to America at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century, the real launching of these wines on the international market is relatively recent. It was not one of the first regions to open up for the international market but nevertheless today there are a large number of bodegas which do export and some of them sell more than  half of their production abroad.
Exports to a large number of different countries increased as of the beginning of 1991 and started with a lot of small quantity orders to various countries of the European Union such as Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark, Holland, and France, which absorbs 34% of the production, in addition to the 11% of the production which goes to Switzerland. The American market is also growing in importance each year for these wines, lead by the United States and Mexico.

Activities related to the wine business have increased tremendously during the last few years and the wine industry as such has become the most important agro-alimentary activity of the region. Meanwhile, the wine producers and bodega owners are constantly seeking to increase the quality and variety of all the wines they produce.
This will to increase quality is also reflected in the various classifications which give an indication of the quality of the wines (DO, VT, vcprd). De facto, the most recent data shows that more than 50% of the total of new wine production comes from one of the five regions amongst the Denominacion de Origen, one of the most appreciated guarantees for excellence on the market. Viticulture is the sector of activity that employs more than 3,000 employees in some 1,000 bodegas.

The sector is quite split up if we consider that 80% of the companies employ less than 5 employees and another 10% employs just between 5 and 10 people. Very few companies only employ more than 50 people.

In spite of the small size of most of the bodegas, there are some which are extremely large and whose annual turnover is more than 10 million € a year, such as Bodegas Vega Sicilia in Valbuena de Duero (Valladolid); Bodegas Protos in Peñafiel (Valladolid); Avelino Vegas in Santiuste de San Juan Bautista ( Segovia); Benito Blazquez e Hijos in Cebreros ( Avila) and the bodegas situated in the province of Valladolid: Bodegas Viña Mayor, from the group Hijos de Antonio Barcelo in Quintanilla de Onesimo, the Group Yllera in Rueda and Alejandro Fernandez in Pesquera de Duero.

With a surface of some 20,500 hectares of vineyards, la Ribera del Duero is situated between the provinces of Burgos, Segovia, Soria and Valladolid.

 

It is the most important Denominacion de Origen in the region and one of the most famous in the whole of Spain. It is crossed by the river Duero which in earlier times constituted the frontier between the Christian north and the Muslim south.

 

Today it is an axis which groups over 100 villages in a viticultural region which extends for 115 kilometres alongside the river and some 35 kilometres inland.

The climate of this region is mostly characterized by medium to little rainfall (400-600 millimetres) and extreme temperatures with hot and dry summers and long and very cold winters. It is a region with a Mediterranean climate and a continental character, with fresh but moderately wet autumns, without rain that could damage the harvest.

 

In the spring there might occur some frosts that could eventually damage the yield. The region is very luminous with a lot of sunshine, sometimes with more than 2,700 hours of sun in some of the villages.

Lying on the northern plateau, Ribera del Duero is characterized by its clayey soil. The vines are mostly planted on limestone slopes a bit higher that produce wines of excellent quality.  There are also areas of sandy soil covered with pine-groves. These constitute soils that are not threatened by phylloxera and are able to produce wines of outstanding quality.
For the production of wines with the DO Ribera del Duero quality label, the following grape varieties can be used: Tinta del País or Tinto Fino, Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha Tinta, Malbec, Merlot and Albillo.
Out of all these grape varieties the most important and the most traditional one is Tinta del País, which is also known as Tempranillo in Spain and which constitutes about 60% of the vineyards. This variety found its ideal terroir in the region, which gives to its wines a perfect balance in their young years and also when they evolve.

The wine here has more acidity and more colour than in other Spanish regions, which enables the production of very elegant wines with a good structure and very extracted. In Ribera del Duero today you will find about 200 bodegas which employ some 8,500 wine workers.

Ribera del Duero is the locomotive for the viticulture of Castilla and León, despite being a young winemaking region; and its history can not be dissociated from the history of Vega Sicilia, and Protos or Alejandro Fernandez, one of the key people who really played a big role in initiating this prestigious Denominacion de Origen.
La Ribera has more than 2,000 years of viticultural history behind it. Its vineyards and vine covered countryside have been the protagonists of a great number of chapters of the region’s history, ever since the Romans introduced its culture and the monastries refined the production and winemaking techniques.

One of the key events for the future of the region took place in the second half of the 19th century when the Lecande family founded Vega Sicilia.

This bodega has, throughout its history, changed its proprietors several times but has always maintained the quality of its wines.

 

The wines of Vega Sicilia are concentrated, ripe, generous and extremely elegant. Located on the borders of the river Duero, its vineyards successfully acclimated such foreign varieties as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec.

And for nearly a century, Vega Sicilia maintained itself as the only bodega of worldwide fame in the middle of an unknown region; this was largely because the other producers were only able to make peasant-like wines for local use.  

The founder of Vega Sicilia was the first to produce brandies and started to become supplier of the Royal House, but the company did not start to produce red wines until the arrival of Domingo Garramiola at the beginning of the 20th century. He introduced winemaking techniques from Bordeaux, restored the vats and invested a lot of time and work on the clarification and aging of the wine.
That is how the red wines from Vega Sicilia and Valbuena were born in 1915. Exemplary wines for that time, thanks to their long aging in wooden barrels and so they were distributed only to the upper middle class and aristocracy.
After the death of Garramiola, the bodega changed hands several times with different owners until its acquisition in 1982 by the Alvarez family who are still today the owner of the company.

Since Vega Sicilia has always maintained its prestige and worldwide recognition, the owners started to invest in some new projects. In 1992 they created Alion, a new Bodega in Peñafiel (Valladolid); in 1993 they created Tokaj Oremus situated in the region of the same name, Tokaj; in 2001 they founded Bodegas Alquiriz, a new project in Toro.

Member of PREMIUM FAMILIAE VINI, an association created by twelve of the world’s most famous and recognized wine producers, Vega Sicilia is a Mystic bodega, and a name that is recognized throughout the world by wine lovers. It has for a long time been a small oasis, encircled by wine producers, producing average quality wines.

This is without any doubt what enabled this region to become impregnated by the concept of Chateau wine, wine-aging and the reason that the appellation Ribera del Duero crossed the frontiers with the fame of a big name.

With the exception of Vega Sicilia, the wine industry in Castilla and León, and more concretely in Ribera del Duero, has traditionally and for a long time been characterized by the existence of a large number of small wine producers and producers who sold their products on the local market.

Towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century appeared the first cooperatives, which generally sold their wines in bulk. Nevertheless Ribera had some luck, having a group of eleven producers amongst its wine producers in the community of Peñafiel, who in 1927 constituted the Bodega Cooperative, which was a revolutionary concept in terms of business politics. This was the basis of Bodega Protos.

Today’s production of Bodega Protos is about 3 million bottles. Speaking of Protos, which in Latin means “the first”,  is speaking about the Spanish red wine brand which has the widest distribution in Spanish restaurants and wine bars and which is largely present in many foreign countries as well ( USA, Germany, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico all in all in 30 countries). Bodega Protos is without any doubt the standard for cooperatives of the region.

At the moment it is made up of some 800 hectares of vineyards, both of its own property and controlled vineyards in which are found the varieties Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The buildings of the bodega have been growing ever since its creation. Today there are 8,000 barrels of American and French oak, Inox vats with a capacity of 1.2 million litres and some 5,000 square metres of bottling lines.

Cellars in the Mountains of Castillo de Peñafiel are made up of tunnels and galleries which are about two kilometres long and where the wines age at a temperature of 15°C and an air humidity of 75% throughout the year.

The cooperative has the capacity to transform more than 4 million kilos of grapes into wine. The wines elaborated in these cellars are a good, typical example of wines from Ribera del Duero. They are the classic wine in all the restaurants for traditional food in Spain. They have all the characteristics of the Spanish winemaking style, more agreable on the palate than on the nose, with tones of austerity and a noble composition. Definitely a great selection.

With the exception of the great success of Vega Sicilia, the wines of Ribera remained anonymous until the arrival of Alejandro Fernandez, one of the key people in the history of Spanish wine. In the history of the wines from Castilla and León, there is a “before Alejandro Fernandez” and an “after Alejandro Fernandez”. Even before his arrival, people knew of Vega Sicilia, yet most wine lovers did not know where to situate that prestigious property, geographically speaking, and most of them did not associate it with either Ribera del Duero or with Castilla and León.
The region can be grateful to Alejandro Fernandez, because it is thanks to him that the world began talking about the wines of Ribera del Duero.Alejandro Fernandez did several other jobs before founding his own bodega, Pesquera de Duero, where he produced great red wines which astonished the world.

Thanks to him and his wines, people started to associate the name of Ribera del Duero with high quality red wines. Constant hard work, emphasis on “terroir”, use of the typical grape varieties of the region and modern technology and equipment were the origin of his success which soon became recognized by international critics.

Alejandro Fernandez red wines were an example for other producers and bodega owners in Ribera del Duero and by 1975 were astonishing the entire world. Since then, this entrepreneur has had confidence in the soil, in the great micro-climate of the region, and in the Tempranillo grape, and has begun to integrate other regions as well. Following his success in Pesquera, this entrepreneur, who is a great personality and always active, undertook other projects in such new regions as La Mancha (with Bodega El Vinculo), in Zamora (with Dehesa de La Granja), and, in addition to its second headquarters in Ribera del Duero, Condado de Haza.
Alejandro Fernandez branded wines are characterized by their sweet tannins which are the result of the ripe fruit from which the wines are made and they always offer a suave ambiguity between astringency and sweetness, flavours typical of the best Tempranillos.

At the same time as the project of Alejandro Fernandez, several other bodegas from Ribera del Duero began to emerge which led to the renown of the quality of the wines from Ribera del Duero being discussed throughout the world.

Thus in 1974 the Peñalba family founded Torremilanos (Peñalba Lopez), an example of the concept of Oenoturism in Ribera del Duero, thanks to the construction of a hotel which today is surrounded by some 200 hectares of vineyards.

This enabled the bodega to produce a wine of great quality with the grape varieties Tempranillo, Garnacha, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. 60% of the production of this bodega is dedicated to the production of red wines and 40% to that of white wines, they emphasize the first category and, more particularly, the crianza wines, which are synonymous for fine wines with an excellent structure.

Viña Mayor has also been an example for Ribera del Duero wines, thanks to its recognition for wines with an unequalled quality/price ratio. Starting in 1986 the project has been managed by the hundred years’ old company, Hijos de Antonio Barcelo (Gruppo Acciona: Bodegas Palacio in Rioja; Bodegas Peñascal, VT Castilla and León; Finca Caserio de Duñas in Rueda and Bodegas y Viñedos Anzil in Toro) which made a great success of elaborating the wines of the Bodega situated in Quintanilla de Enésimo (Valladolid) which is famous all over the country.
Bodegas such as the Matarromera Group, one of the leaders, and Bodegas Arzuaga –Navarro are also among the pillars of exportation of Ribera del Duero wines throughout the world. Bodega Arzuaga Navarro, which is situated close to Vega Sicilia, was founded by Florentino Arzuaga at the beginning of the 1990s and soon became recognized for its red wines.

De facto, today this is one of the best selling wines in Spanish restaurants and wine cellars. With a production capacity of about 1,000,00  litres, the bodega owns 140 hectares of vineyards and a cellar containing over 2,000 barrels of French and American oak.

The region of Ribera del Duero contains a large number of small bodegas that are successfully producing wines which receive good tasting comments and appeal to even the most demanding consumers and these bodegas are threatening the big investments which have been made in the wine industry in the region.
Ever since 1982 when the Denominacion de Origen was recognized, there have always been more and more bodega workers in the region in viticulture and other sectors, who decided to create their own bodega.

This is the case of the Bodegas Alonso del Yerro and Bodegas Cuevas Jiménez, two examples of family bodegas in Ribera with small productions but excellent results in terms of the quality of the produced wines.

The first of them was in 2002 on the occasion of the wedding between Javier Alonso and Maria del Yerro with the clear objective of producing wines of quality and distinction out of Tempranillo grapes in Ribera del Duero. To make this dream come true, they entrusted the project to a famous consultant, Stéphane Derenoncourt who is also the consultant to several big Châteaux in the Bordeaux region, such as, for example, La Mondotte and Canon La Gaffelière.

He began the project with some 26 hectares of vineyard using one single grape variety, “la Tinta del País”, or Tempranillo. The bodega produces two wines under the names of its creators, both of which are to be found amongst the best in the country in terms of growth and recognition of quality since their launching.

Bodegas Cuevas Jimenez is another example of a bodega from the Ribera region which is about to change the concept of winemaking, using small productions with a very high quality of grape and which gives intensive care to the grapes and to every step of the winemaking process.

This intensive care results in a wine that could be called “de alma” or “the soul of wine”. This project has also been a family one : Cuevas Jimenez, a family that has its origins in the iron industry but claims that they have always wished to produce a wine of quality.
It is Maria Luisa Cuevas who is holding the reins of the Bodega. She decided one day “More or less by accident but fortunately she did so” to say good-bye to her career in the world of law, which until then she had been following, and she now concentrates completely and with a great deal of passion on the development of the new family activity. Supported by her family, the young General Manager of the company learned everything about wine from the start of the bodega.

She has always been supported and advised by the best experts, including the bodega’s own oenologist, Benigno Garrido, and such well established and reputed Spanish distributors as, for example, José Antonio Mijares and Quim Vila (Vila Viniteca in Barcelona).

The young Bodeguera recognizes that since the start of the bodega she has had a very loyal ally :”luck”. The family has always been dedicated to the concept of producing wine according to the following motto: “making a wine with its own personality and its own style”, coming from a good soil, hard work in the vineyards, modern winemaking techniques and machinery and paying a lot of attention to the winemaking process itself.

From their first year, 2003, onwards there have always been two wines: Ferratus (which in Latin means, “containing iron” or “with iron weapons” but in this particular case the name is simply a reference to family origins in the iron business), and FERRATUS Sensaciones, the second wine (this one is made from grapes that come from a parcel of the vineyard right next to the bodega).

Both these wines are characterized by the quality of their fruit from Ribera del Duero, together with the elegance of the wood, qualities which have been recognized by consumers as well as by the most renowned and prestigious critics.

The first of these two wines actually obtained the prestigious grade of 90 points from Robert Parker, International Wine guru. A further confirmation of the quality of this wine is its success on the market. The modest production of the company is an average of 30,000 bottles per annum and the whole production is always sold off very quickly to the point that there are already reservations for the next vintage, Ferratus 2004.

The famous Professor of Oenology, Emile Peynaud, who was a real eminence in the world of wine and one of the precursors of modern oenology, already described the region of Castilla and León as synonymous for the quality of its wines.

The maestro from Bordeaux was particularly interested in the red wines from Ribera del Duero, in the white wines from Rueda and also in other red wines produced in the region of Castilla and León, which according to him would become the most European of all the Spanish wines: the wines from the Denominacion de Origen Toro.

This viticultural region, situated in the provinces of Zamora and Valladolid along the banks of the river Duero, is today the most fashionable place among Spanish winemaking regions.

The taste of the wines produced there pleases both the older and the younger generations, who are astonished by the lovely colour of these wines, which despite of their long aging in wooden barrels conserve all their freshness and all the characteristics of the grapes of this region: the Tinta de Toro.

This traditional regional grape variety also seduced Robert Parker who gave 100 points to one of the wines of this region and 90 to another and who qualified those great Spanish wines as “essential”. In spite of its traditional and ugly image of a region producing rather rough, harsh wines with a high alcoholic degree, and wines in bulk, today Toro has become synonymous for wines of high quality, with a beautiful colour, and an excellent balance between fruity and wood aromas.
It is a region with a long winemaking tradition and the importance that wine and the wine industry play in this region can be seen in nearly all the villages.The DO is constituted of some 50 bodegas and was recognized in 1987.

The grapes used to produce the DO Toro wines are: Tinta de Toro, one of the best varieties for producing wines with a good aging capacity, and Garnacha for the red wines as well as  Malvasia and Verdejo, which latter are used for the production of white wines.

From a business point of view, the wine companies of the region are of all sizes, there are big bodegas, cooperatives, and small producers. The region exports nearly 50% of its production, in particular to the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland.
One of the classic Bodegas from Toro is Bodega Fariña.

This is a family bodega which was created in 1942 and which ever since its foundation has been characterized by its insistence on excellence in order to produce high quality wines.
 Situated in the community of Toro, it has some 250 hectares of vineyards and two bodegas for winemaking, both fitted out with inox vats and the latest high technology equipment and some 2,300 barrels for the elaboration of the wines in French and American Oak. These installations have recently been enlarged by the construction of a new building to allow for the stocking of some 5,000 Bordeaux barrels, which means an increase of 500,000 litres of aging capacity.

Colegiata for young wines and Gran Colegiata for aged wines and reservas are the labels of the company. Both of these wines are of an exceptional colour, good structure, big density, very concentrated and of great elegance. The bodega also produces white wines and rosé wines, which are fruity, fresh and very pleasant. Alongside all this they do a limited production of sweet wine which is commercialized under the name of Val de Reyes and is one of the best examples of sweet wine from the whole of Castilla and León.
In Toro, viticulture and a passion for wine are united in the family Bodega of Liberalia Enologica. This is a very young bodega which succeeded in making a hole in the market and also seduced the famous American taster, Robert Parker, who put five of the wines of this Bodega from Zamora on his list of top grades.

In the year 2000, Juan Antonio, the owner with a degree in agronomic engineering, decided in favour of the Tinta Toro grape and the region of Zamora. He supervises every step of the winemaking process and even has a special melody for each step of the care dedicated to his vineyards, like those the bodegeros in the old days played on their violin during the harvest.
His world of passion gave him the opportunity to become one of the most recognized wine producers in the region of Toro, both for his red wines commercialized under the name of Liberalia and for his white wines, made from the varieties: Moscatel de Grano Menudo, Malvasia and Albillo.

The Denominacion de Origen Rueda is the home of the big Spanish white wines. Amazing aromatic potential, freshness, sweetness, great colour, wonderful on the palate with very long persistence are the characteristics of these magnificent white wines. They are made from Verdejo, which is the grape variety most typical of the region, and Sauvignon Blanc. There are some other varieties cultivated in the region like, for example, Viura and Palomino.

The young Verdejo wines have evolved incredibly and are now great white wines with a very characteristic taste and a considerable capacity for aging.
They are white wines with an interesting nose and a lot of aromas. Verdeja is the typical grape of the region from which are made nearly 85% of the region’s white wines. The best known winegrower of the region is Marqués de Riscal, a hundred year old bodega which is also present in Rioja and which is the pioneer of the modern white wine production in Rueda.

It is also possible to find white wines vinified in barrel as well as, for about ten years now, sparkling wines made of Verdejo (sec, semi-secos, brut and brut nature).

In 2006, 33.3 million bottles of white wine from Rueda have been sold, which means that sales increased by 9.4% compared to the previous year. About 20% of the production is exported to Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland and Belgium. The 2007 vintage is particularly well structured in the mouth with a very elegant nose and a medium to high aromatic potential.
Founded in 1982, the Regulation Counsel ( Consejo Regulador) counts 45 member bodegas, one of which is the very famous bodega of the Gonzalez Yllera family, owners of the Yllera Group. The former name of this property was “Los Curros”.

The Yllera Group was created in 1972 and is now managed by the sixth generation of this family of wine producers and Bodegeros together with the oenologist, Ramon Martinez Palacios.   In 1988, the family enlarged the winemaking facilities and equipped them with the latest high tech equipment available.
They are producing a wide range of different wines, red wines in Ribera del Duero and Toro, white wines in Rueda and a lot of other different types of wines with the classification VT (Vinos de la Tierra Castilla y León). They own three old, traditional bodegas, in which you can find the ancient, traditional subterranean vats dating from the 14th century of more than 20 metres in depth.

The grape variety cultivated in Castilla and Leon which is finding more and more supporters is Mencia. Mencia can be considered as the “Queen” of the Denominacion de Origen Bierzo, “the Northeastern Volcano”, first of all because of its quality but also because of the extension of its planting. The region of Bierzo, situated in the northeast of the Castilla and León province, has a geography and vegetation very different from the rest of Castilla and León.

Located in between the Castillian and the Gallegean vineyards, Bierzo is the biggest region in León covering some 3,000 square kilometres. It has a Mediterranean microclimate where vineyards and fruit trees, pastures and big forests of chestnut and oak trees grow side by side.
The soil is mostly alluvial and diluvial with some areas that have granite or siliceous soils. The vineyards are situated on terraces with very little inclination, near the rivers or the terraced slopes in altitudes between 450 and 700 metres.

Bierzo wines have only one main grape variety and that is Mencia. Mencia is present alone or mixed with other white varieties. The wines resulting from this are fresh rosé wines, very pleasant with a big variety of aromas varying from green fruits to ripe fruits, depending on the varieties with which it is combined. Mencia is a grape which is particularly known and recognized for the production of red wines, giving them a velvety character, with good structure and which, after ageing in barrel, acquire a very rich taste.

From the same family with Cabernet and Prieto Picudo this variety produces wines of an intense colour which are able to age for a considerable time. During the last few years, the red wines from Bierzo have enormously increased in quality and the young reds as well as the rosé wines arrive on the market with good structure and nice aromas.

The wines from the grape variety, Godello and Doña Blanca, although produced in a less important quantity, complete the offer of wines in which the crianza and reserva wines are not missing; these are even categories which are represented in an increasing number amongst the wines from Bierzo commercialized today.
One of the most important pillars of Bierzo wines today is the project of Dominio de Tares which saw the light of the day in the year 2000. Situated in the community of San Roman de Bembire (Bierzo Alto), the bodega is managed by a young professional team who right from the beginning have tried to get the best out of the traditional local grape varieties of the region: Mencia and Godello.

These grapes form the blend of the best wines produced by this bodega. In order to fulfill their own requirements they accordingly equipped the bodega with large winemaking halls, for the elaboration of the wines, a bottling line and cellar with a tasting room and offices next to it.

Over 35 temperature-regulated inox vats with a capacity of around 20,000 litres for the fermentation and more than 2,500 barrels of French, American and Central European Oak with different degrees of toasting which are chosen according to which vineyard the grapes come from. Baltos, Bembire, Cepas Viejas, Godello FB, Tares P3 are some of the labels of this company which produces about 400.000 bottles a year. 

If the homeland of red wines is Ribera and the homeland of white wines Rueda, the rosés have their homeland in the Denominacion de Origen Cigales.Renowned since the beginning of time for its “claret” (a rosé which is made in the same way as red wines), the DO Cigales  is the motherland of modern Spanish rosé wines, in addition to the red wines produced in this region which are becoming more and more well known.
Cigales is situated in the south of Tierra de Campos, a naturally marked region of Castilla and León which covers the provinces Zamora, Valladolid, Palencia and León. The countryside is characterized by huge vineyards, often very spread out and covering the small hills which border the river Pisuerga.

The climate here is continental influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. There are big variations in temperature during the day as well as during the year. There are frosts in the springtime, which are very dangerous for the vines and there are also big variations in terms of rainfall (from less than 300 to more than 500 litres per annum). The winters are hard and long with frosts and frequent snowfalls. The geology of the viticultural region of Cigales is no coincidence. The soil is made of terciary and quarternary sediments. The vineyards can be found at an average altitude of  700 metres above sea level on small hills with deep clay loam soils and a proportion of between 10% and 15% of chalk. The Consejo Regulador de Cigales (Regulation Council) was created in 1991.
Today, about 40 bodegas altogether, belong to it and, during the 2006 harvest, they harvested 10.8 million kilos of grapes, an increase of 22% compared to the previous year. The quality of the grapes was very good and the report on the vinification of this vintage was that “the level of acid and phenolic compontents was just right, the fruit was perfectly ripe which has permitted the production of red and rosé wines of good quality”. 
 
The most important international markets for Cigales wines are Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain, the United States and Mexico. The queen of the Cigales grape varieties is Tinta del Pais (Tempranillo). This grape variety, in combination with some white grape varieties, is the basis of modern rosé wines. But the revelation of this traditional rosé region are its red wines. Those red wines are particularly outstanding in today’s trend-inspired market. They are Wines with colour, a good aromatic potential, and a fine tannic structure. Thus today, Cigales is a region known not only for its young and modern rosé wines, but is also producing very promising red wines that possess great aging potential in oak barrel.
It is not surprising that it was Cigales that was chosen by Carlos Moro as the last pillar of his chain of bodegas. Carlos Moro is the founder of the famous bodega Matarromera and also of the no less prestigious Emina, both situated in Ribera del Duero.

Moro created his Bodega in Cigales in 1998, when he arrived in this region with the firm intention of changing and producing red wines rather than clarets. This had a very deep impact on the region. Here again, it can be considered that there was a “before and an after the arrival” of Moro and his ideas in the region, as everything he did was crowned with success.
Situated in Cubillas de Santa Marta (Valladolid), Bodegas Valdelosfrailes covers some 50 hectares of vineyards, with both high trellis plantings and bush vines of the grape varieties, Tinta del Pais and Garnacha. The modern facilities are equipped with inox vats with temperature regulation systems, and in its barrel hall can be found some 500 barrels in which crianza wines, reservas and grandes reservas are aging. The bodega has a production capacity of 395,000 bottles per annum.

Even though Arribes del Duero has not yet obtained the classification Vino de la Tierra or Denominacion de Origen, Arribes del Duero vcprd (Vino de Calidad Producido en una Region Determinada) in English “Quality wine produced in a specific region”, it is a good example of the quality of the Castilla and León wines.
This winegrowing region is the result of the unification of two smaller regions: Ribera de Salamanca and the environs of Fermoselle (Zamora) both of which places are situated alongside the Duero river. One of the particularities of the Arribes del Duero region is its plantation system: a large number of vines are planted on naturally formed terraces. The region also has its one endemic grape variety, Juan García.

The viticultural region can be divided into two different geological parts: the end of the high plain and the valleys of the two rivers which separate it. The high plain starts as a small, straight band and gets larger towards the Portuguese boarder where the river Duero and its effluents join the plain. This creates a land with a very particular geology and an amazing landscape. The reason is, first of all, that the Duero River, which is some 140 kilometres long, has created a real paradise of natural beauty.
This area is one of Spain’s most beautiful regions and landscapes. That is probably the reason why National Geographic called it the most emblematic landscape of the region containing one of Spain’s most famous landmarks, the great waterfall “Pozo de los Hunos”. This has a height of 60 metres with unique canyons on which oak, olive and cherry trees grow as well as the hundreds of years’ old vineyards which colour the slopes.

Crossing these landscapes gives you an impression of travelling back in time. Old people pass slowly and quietly by the rocky slopes on their mules with their traditional working tools which gives an impression of what life has been like in this region for generations and generations. The rocks are the witnesses of the hard work, the knowledge and the love with which these people have reached a perfect harmony between the harshness and poorness of their lands and the green vegetation of their plantings.
The climate is very dry with long winters and very hot summers with fresh and cool nights. This climate is regulated thanks to the porous structure of the slate which acts like a sponge maintaining the humidity and thus preserving the flora and fauna of the region.

The altitude of more than 600 metres above sea level, the granite and the slate, the small amount of rainfall and lots of sunshine make this region a paradise for the vine. The wines produced under the name of Arribes del Duero are red wines (the blend of these reds contains a minimum of 60% of Juan Garcia which is mainly blended with Tempranillo, Rufete, Garnacha, and Tinto Fino) but rosé and white wines are also produced in this region. There exist about 15 bodegas in Arribes del Duero and the majority of their production is sold on the Spanish market. However they also export an increasing percentage of their production to Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Danmark).
The white wines from Arribes are renowned for their freshness, fragrance, and well balanced acidity. They are a brilliant, yellow straw colour with some tints of green and have a great, very intense nose of exotic fruit, pineapple and maracuja and some lemon. On the palate these wines are rather dry with well balanced acidity and very long persistence and good body.

The rosé wines are both visually and on the nose wines that have everything that makes a great wine, plus a big potential. On the palate they are very rich and well balanced, the young red wines are purple red in colour and have aromas of black fruit with an interesting mineral backbone, on the palate the wine is very intense, well structured and has good body. The red crianza wines are unctuous on the palate, very well balanced and have an extremely long aftertaste; the colour is cherry red and the nose is of black fruit. In Arribes there is one bodega which can be considered as an example and which, ever since its creation, has produced red wines of great quality from local grape varieties. The wines age in oak barrels.
The name of that bodega is Bodegas Ribera de Pelazas. It is situated in the province of Salamanca, in the very heart of the natural park of Arribes del Duero. The vineyards are situated on slopes at an altitude of 600 metres and are between 50 and 100 years old. The two local grape varieties, Juan Garcia and Bruñal, have some very particular characteristics which perfectly reflect the character of the region’s soil and which result in a fine and very complex wine. These wines are rich in aromas of ripe fruit, dried fruit with mineral hints which come from the granite and slate soil that nourishes the vines.

The oenologist responsible for the vinification of the bodega’s three wines is the Uruguayen oenologist, Julio Gallo. The grapes for the three wines are harvested manually and the wines are recognized for their quality in Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Poland. Abadengo is a crianza wine made exclusively from Juan Garcia grapes, which is aged for 12 month in oak barrels. Its colour is an intense red cherry, brilliant with lovely forest fruit aromas.
Gran Abadengo is made of the same local grape variety but is aged for 18 months in oak barrels. It is a fabulous cherry red in colour, rich in spicy aromas, ripe fruit and chocolate, the tannins are very soft almost sweet.
Bruñal is the bodega’s “Star”, it ages in the best oak barrels for 12 month and its production is limited to 2,000 bottles per vintage. This wine is just outstanding. It’s the top-of-the-range one. Its colour is a very attractive purple red, the nose is elegant and complex, well structured on the palate, this wine is very seductive with jammy red fruit flavours combined with those of liquorice, cocoa and an elegant caramelized finish. This wine has already won a number of important prizes and has received very favourable notes from the critics in a lot of well-recognized Spanish wine guides such as “Guía Campas de los Mejores Vinos de España”.

Vinos de Calidad Tierras de León is another of the region’s quality classifications. This viticultural region, which lies mainly in the provinces of León and Valladolid, is best known for its white wines, made from the grape varieties Verdejo and Albarín. The rosé and red wines are made with the local grape variety Prieto Picudo, which produces high quality red wines. In 2006, the 36 bodegas associated with this classification produced more than 1,600,000 bottles which were sold both on the national and international market and the number of exporting bodegas is increasing.
Today’s situation is the fruit of the hard work that has been done since 1985 by a group of cooperatives and Bodegas from Valdevimbre, Los Oteros and Cea. They obtained the “Vino de Calidad” quality label in 2004 and are now working towards obtaining the Denominacion de Origen classification.

On the nose, the white wines are characterized by their fruity, floral and herbal aromas. The colour of these wines varies from yellow green to golden green and on the palate the wines are dry, fresh, persistent, balanced and unctuous with a long aftertaste. Amongst the bodegas members of the quality label you will also find Bodega Villacezan, a family company, which today is managed by the third generation of winemakers and wine producers. The Bodega, with its traditional values and modern winemaking techniques, is situated in a very particular and unique building dating from the 1920s. One of its ongoing values is its Finca Dehesa de Villacezán, that is situated in the province of León, very close to Valladolid.

This property covers some 500 hectares of which 60 hectares are vineyards. The land lies at an altitude of 740 meters and has a clayey loam soil. The average age of the vines is 25 years and the main grape varieties are Tempranillo, Mencía and Verdejo. But the grape that best reflects the character of the land and that is best adapted to the terroir is the local variety, Prieto Picudo. 
This variety is the big unknown one. That’s perhaps because it is only cultivated in the very South of León and its characteristics are very specific. The acidity is very high and the ph level is very low, which actually is the case of very few varieties. Villacezán, founded a century ago, is the oldest bodega of the region. It has a long tradition and the necessary know-how to get the best out of the grapes and to produce wines of very high quality. In today’s world of wine the bodega is known for its philosophy, which gives to its wines a lot of personality and great complexity.

In Castilla and León you can still find some small bodegas which, even though they are not members of any quality label or classification, produce wines of great quality that reflect the typicity of the terroir and the local grape varieties. Amongst these is Bodegas Antonio Aparicio, which was created five years ago in the community of Sotoserrano in Salamanca. With a capacity of 30,000 litres and some 50 barrels (French oak, American oak and Rumanian oak) the cellar is situated partly beneath the earth like the traditional bodegas of the region, which gives it some typical characteristics, a stable temperature and degree of humidity, favourable to the aging of the wines.
Starting with a production of 10,000 litres in 2003, the bodega produces today about 25,000 litres which are sold with a lot of success on the Spanish market under the name of Valdeherreros, as well as under the actual name of the Bodega Aparicio. The wines have great personality, elegance and complexity and they have not finished surprising us. 

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