Ribera

Wine is a way of regarding time, a way of understanding and interpreting the mark left on the senses by a land. That was the idea which gave rise to the Rippa Dorii project, the search for the deepest imprint of the wines of Castile, of a tradition marked by a history which seems to have begun with the arrival of the Vacceans in the Duero Basin around the 7^th to 5^th centuries BC. Estrabón describes the area of Vaccea in volume 3 of his work Geografía as a poor, arid space with a lot of woods, large valleys like the Duero, the Esla or the Pisuerga. But perhaps the key moment in the start of viticulture in Castile dates back to the Reconquest when the lands of the Duero became a battleground and the scene of skirmishes between Moorish and Christina troops, a halfway point between Al-Andalús and the incipient Astur kingdom, a no-man’s-land which nevertheless was clearly suited to the medieval agrarian economy. New settlers decided to inhabit these flatlands and little by little a dense network of royal towns was created in the Tierra de Campos and along the main river courses.

As explained by Julio Fernández Portela in his doctoral theses on the wine industry and viticulture in Castilla León (Universidad de Valladolid, 2014), at this time the vine began to assume a degree of importance as a crop for settlers which helped a new population to put down roots. It took three to five years to see the first fruits, which meant the people growing them had to stay in the same place to get a return on their investment. So a series of measures were put in place which contributed to their reconstitution and expansion, such as presura and the complant of vineyards.

Vine growing and winemaking in the Ribera de Duero existed before the Romans arrived in the peninsula, since archaeological remains have been found in the burials of Vacceans from Pintia (Padilla de Duero – Peñafiel) which clearly show the important role played by wine for this settlement. The Vacceans are a pre-Roman ethnic group who inhabited the central plateau in the middle course of the Duero and the Pisuerga and which were organised around cities such as Pintia.

Its origins date from the 5th century BC and its decline occurred in the 7th century AD, after having been Romanised, with the Visigoth occupation. In the necropolis of this site a vessel dated as being 4^th century BC was found in which analysis has proved the presence of wine, although not vines, although this has not been ruled out because recent explorations in the former settlement of Cauca, nowadays Coca in Segovia province, have unearthed grape pips, so it is not unreasonable to think that they were also grown in this area.  In the burial ground of Las Ruedas de Pintia, examination of ceramic vessels and the tartrate salts found in them are evidence of the consumption of wine in glasses and kraters, mainly, by the higher status warriors, although the social interpretation of certain prints have shown that women and even children shared this precious element in the funeral banquet.

During the 1972 harvest in Baños de Valdearados a 66 square metre roman mosaic was uncovered, considered to be the largest pieces with allegories of Bacchus in the Peninsula, which confirms that winemaking has existed in this region for thousands of years.

The Reconquest is a crucial period in the development of viticulture in the Ribera de Duero area, since it was accompanied by the resettling of a space that had been devastated during the wars between the Christians and moors. In this process the monastic orders which set up all over the territory regained were of great importance, in order to re-establish the Catholic dogma.

One of the key moments for the wines of the Ribera del Duero was the foundation in the 12^th century of the  Cistercian Monastery of Santa María de Valbuena. The Order of the Cister was created in 1098 by Robert of Champagne, who established his first monastery in Citeaux in the heart of Burgundy. With the entry of the congregation of Bernard de Claraval, the Cister spread all over Europe and ended up building over 200 priories. These Cluny monks brought vines with them from French Burgundy and planted them in their extensive lands, as they received huge endowments from kings and nobles, achieving a vast amount of land between the rivers  Duero y Esgueva.

Wine from Castile is so deeply ingrained in the history of the culture that its own crises correspond to cultural crises. So, when phylloxera spread through the lands of the Duero in 1898, on top of Spain losing Cuba and the Philippines, it left a whole generation with no wine.

As the historian David Sánchez explains, in the 18th century in Ribera del Duero, the spread of winemaking which had begun in the previous century continued. Nevertheless, according to the Land Survey of the Marqués de la Ensenada, the vineyards of Peñafiel, Pesquera and Curiel were not very extensive although the wines from these towns were already highly valued. Ribera wines were exported to other parts of the province, such as Medina de Rioseco and Tierra de Campos, which were demanding a higher category of wine than those that they were able to produce themselves, even though these were not very significant either.