CH III / D.O RUEDA HISTORY

Rueda´s geographical
and climatic setting

Undoubtedly, Rueda is the great point of reference for white wines from Castile and is located on the so-called Duero plateau, between the provinces of Valladolid, Ávila and Segovia. As is explained in the classic book ‘Los vinos de Castilla y León’, its swathes of vineyards occupy gently undulating plateaux with an altitude of between 700 and 800 metres. The geological features of the vineyards are related to their tertiary nature formed by wide alluvial (made up of materials dragged and deposited by currents of water) and diluvial terraces (formed by a combination of sedimentary materials dragged by a violent torrent of water) on the banks of the Duero and its tributaries the Trabancos, Zapardiel and Adaja.

To a lesser extent there are also lands from the Miocene era. On top of all these soils isolated clumps of sterile sandbanks formed, preferably occupied by pine groves, especially in the Eastern zone, between the courses of the Adaja, Eresma and Cea. In terms of vine growing, these are loose soils, not very compact, dusty, with a lot of depth and easy to till.

Geographic and climatic setting of Rueda
Huetz de Lemps

Huetz de Lemps

Alain Huetz de Lemps, Emeritus Professor of the University of Bordeaux and Honorary Doctor of the University of Valladolid, author of the work ‘Vinos y Viñedos de Castilla y León’, explains it in this way: Easy sales and price increases have as a result, as on other occasions, a rapid increase in the extension of vines which in the last twenty years of the 19th century came to occupy a considerable area. The two districts: Medina del Campo and La Nava del Rey had 23,500 hectares of vines in 1889, and 25,540 in 1892. In Rueda, the vines cover 3,445 has, that is, three times more than in 1965; in La Nava del Rey, 4,500 has, five times more than in 1965.

Phylloxera

A before and after

But all this landscape collapsed at the end of the 19th century with phylloxera, which invaded Spain and affected virtually all the crops of the Iberian Peninsula. In Castile there were two focal points, one which came from Portugal via the Duero and the one in Burgos, brought by an insect which came from France after passing through Navarra and La Rioja. This disease marked a before and after and vine cultivation has never returned to the levels which existed before the devastating plague.

Filoxera

Wagner
Line

The wine variety heritage of a natural district is based fundamentally on those traditional crops which, positively adapted to their ecological conditions, produce wines with their own character traits, which distinguish and differentiate them from each other.

The Duero basin, with its indigenous stocks, adapted to the natural environment, is in a privileged situation for making fine quality wines and forms the natural dividing line between the part of Spain influenced by the Atlantic and the part influenced by the Mediterranean, determined in winemaking terms, in the whole of Europe, by the Wagner Line. This line, drawn by Philip M. Wagner, divides the European continent into two parts. In the lower one, there is a climate with two seasons, marked by mild, wet winters and hot dry summers. This zone is characterised by its warm, smooth wines, with low acidity, not very fruity and high in alcohol content.

In the upper part of the line there is a mild climate with four very clearly defined seasons, all of them with rain. This zone would give us fruity wines, with greater acidity, more subtle and delicate and lower in alcoholic strength. In this zone you can find regions like Rueda, Ribera del Duero, Rioja or Burgundy.

In the upper part of the line there is a mild climate with four very clearly defined seasons, all of them with rain. This zone would give us fruity wines, with greater acidity, more subtle and delicate and lower in alcoholic strength. In this zone you can find regions like Rueda, Ribera del Duero, Rioja or Burgundy.

To the south of the Wagner Line the winemaking vocation of the districts corresponds to the development of vines which originated from the Proles ponticas and accidentalis varieties, which date back to the dawn of history, adapted to a two-season climate with hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters.

Línea Wagner