| When
co-operatives were the kings
Except for a few wines like Torremilanos,
which was actually founded in 1903, but began to grow
in popularity in the early 1980s, most of the region's
wines were produced by cooperatives that stood on the
outskirts of the larger wine villages. Most of the co-ops
also made rather rustic bottled reservas, a few of which
acquired a following with some Castilian wine aficionados.
The cooperatives usually fermented their wine in open-topped
epoxy-lined cement tanks. God was more or less in charge
of the temperature control system during fermentation.
If the fermentation season was cool and the tanks were
clean, some stupendous cooperative-made, vinos del
año (wines from the current harvest), especially
from vineyards in the cooler uplands of the Ribera de
Burgos, could end up in the terra cotta pitchers of
the region's superb, often colorful country asadores
(brick-oven roast houses).
Though served without labels these house wines became
the stuff of legend in Aranda de Duero,
where of travelers used to stop for lunch on their way
north or on week-end day trips from Madrid. "Aranda
de Duero, Vino y Cordero (wine and lamb),"
signs proclaim at entrances to the town. Drawn by the
town's famous asadores (more than a dozen in
Aranda alone)–with their brick ovens redolent
with the aromas of irresistible roasting suckling lamb–generations
of Spaniards (and a few foreigners) discovered how good
the jewel-like, deep black raspberry-colored Ribera
del Duero vinos tintos could be.
Rise of wines from Ribera del Duero
After the official denominación de
origen Ribera del Duero was granted in 1982, the
nucleus of small grower producers who would soon put
the Ribera del Duero in the wine world's map began to
emerge. Led by Alejandro Fernández
(whose Pesquera would take a moonwalk quantum leap when
Robert Parker, Jr. compared it to Bordeaux's Petrus
in the late 1980s), several grower-producers began to
demonstrate that where there was smoke (Vega Sicilia,
Protos and the pitcher wines of Aranda), there was fire.
Even with their fledging wines, often the first vintages
they had bottled, producers such as Alejandro Fernández
(who established Pesquera in 1972)
in Pesquera de Duero, Torremilanos en Aranda, the Pérez
Pascuas family (Viña Pedrosa) in Pedrosa de Duero,
Valduero in Guimiel de Hizán,
Valsotillo in Sotillo de la Ribera
and Victor Balbás en La Horra
were already showing the great potential of the Ribera
del Duero.
During most of the 1980s, I used to visit these wineries
at least once or twice a year, and, along with a tasting
visit with the great Mariano García,
then the winemaker at Vega Sicilia and consultant to
Mauro (just outside the Ribera del
Duero D. O. in Tudela de Duero), I was able to cover
most of the quality wine producers in a couple of days.
Since then the number of wineries has spiraled up to
more than 200 and now it would take a week or more just
to cover the more noteworthy wineries, not to mention
the new bodegas that spring up every year. Now worthy
of visits are not only the clásico small
producers who surfaced in the early 1980s after the
D. O. was established, but also the wineries which began
their ascent to stardom in the late 1980s and early
1990s: Dehesa de los Canónigos, Pago
de Carraovejas, Matarromera, Emilio Moro, Condado de
Haza (Alejandro Fernández's second venture,
single vineyard estate winery ), Félix
Callejo, Arzuaga Navarro, Bodegas Monasterio
(whose young Danish winemaker, Peter Sisseck
, would become an international star with Dominio
de Pingus, his "garage" wine), Carmelo
Rodero, Vega Sicilia's Alión,
Viña Mayor, Grandes Bodegas (Marqués
de Velilla, Villalobón), Finca Villacreces,
Viña Sastre, Cillar de Silos, López Cristóbal
and Montebaco.
Up until 1995, growth in the Ribera del Duero seemed
manageable for an intrepid wine taster of that old breed
who believes that to really know a wine well, you must
visit the bodega and meet the people who make the wines
(I have visited 42 bodegas in Castilla-La Mancha alone).
Since then the explosion in the number of wineries clamoring
for attention in the Ribera del Duero has reached a
crescendo. Among them are some serious contenders such
as Emina, Pago de los Capellanes, Cachopa, Aalto,
Dominio de Atauta, Real Sitio de Ventosilla
(Pagos del Rey), Pagos del Infante
and Viña Arnaiz, all founded
during the five years leading up to the Millennium.
The year 2000 on seemed to spark its own comet trail
of coming stars to further light up the Ribera del Duero's
wine sky, including the not inaptly named Celeste from
Cataluña's Miguel Torres, Astrales
from Alberto and Eduardo García
(two of star winemaker Mariano García's sons)
and La Rioja Alta's Aster).
Young stars of the valley
Though relatively little known now, there are a number
of nascent stars that have made successful debuts in
Ribera del Duero's red wine galaxy just since 2000,
many of which have drawn high praise from the Spanish
wine press. They include Mattaromera's Rento, Emilio
Moro's Cepa 21, Bodegas Conde's Neo,
the Osborne family's Bodegas y Viñedos
del Jaro (Sed de Caná, Chafandín),
Montegaredo (a new pyramid-shaped bodega),
Alonso de Yerro, peripatetic flying
winemaker Telmo Rodríguez's
Matallana, Lynus, Abadía de San Quirce, Miros
de la Ribera, Codorníu's Legaris, Bodegas Trus,
Uvaguilera (an ex-Mauro winemaker), the very promising
Montecastro and the wines of Bodegas
y Viñedos Lleiroso , the pet
project of Pascual Herrera, Director
of the Enological Station of Castilla y León
and director of the Wine Museum of Peñafiel.
The investment in La Ribera del Duero from bodegas
from outside the region mushroomed after the new Ley
del Vino (wine law) was passed by Spain's Congress
in 2003, allowing wineries to make and sell wines from
other regions. In addition to the wines from Osborne,
Telmo Rodríguez, la Rioja Alta and Codorníu,
other outside producers include La Rioja's Féderico
Paternina (Marqués de Valparaiso), the giant
Cava producer Freixenet ( Valdubón),
Catalan Cava producer Parxet (Tionio),
Pernot Ricard's Tarsus, O. Fournier
( Alfa Spiga) and the Carrion group
(Viña Arnaiz).
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