Ribeira Sacra rising: Heroic winemaking in the mountainous heart of Galicia

Between the 8th and 9th centuries, Christian monastic orders came in great numbers to central Galicia, searching for solitary places to pray. They found what they were looking for in the Miño and Sil river canyons.

Carved out by tectonic forces over millions of years, the slopes of these deep valleys reach near-vertical inclines in some places, discouraging any unwanted passers-by.

The numerous resulting monasteries that cling to these slopes would inspire the modern wine region’s name: Ribeira Sacra, or ‘sacred riverbank’. People have been cultivating vines here for centuries, carving terraces from unforgiving granite and slate and painstakingly carrying baskets of grapes up the impossibly steep slopes.

This is one of Europe’s great terraced landscapes, deserving to be mentioned in the same breath as Côte-Rôtie, Mosel or the Douro. But Ribeira Sacra has never received the same recognition.

Part of that might be due to its geographical barriers and historical struggles. Its isolation was great for the monks, but not so great for the wine trade.

And once the railways came to Galicia in the 1800s, many growers couldn’t compete with the cheaper wine arriving from flat, fertile Castilla y León to its west.

Faced with hardship, huge numbers of people abandoned their vines and left the countryside – a trend that continued into and throughout the 20th century and, in smaller measure, continues today.

A revival

As Spain moved back to democracy from 1975 and began to open up, new opportunities came calling, bringing both money and new winemaking technology to the countryside.

By the early 1990s, a few pioneering local growers had joined forces to create an official wine region and, in 1996, Ribeira Sacra became a Denominación de Origen.

Now, nearly 30 years after gaining DO status, Galicia’s most heroic wine region (see box below) is finally coming into its own – even as it faces some familiar challenges. As Spain reckons with a changing climate, the light, floral, acidity-driven red wines of Ribeira Sacra may help to future-proof the region.

At the same time, a global decline in red wine consumption, and a lack of young people to take on the strenuous viticultural work their parents and grandparents started, threaten to quash any success achieved thus far.

But not all is lost: a new generation of winemakers is taking over, making more innovative choices than ever, and working to bring public perception of Ribeira Sacra in line with the huge amount of work it takes to grow and make wine on the banks of the Miño and Sil.

Here we introduce eight producers who are driving that change.

Fernando González

Adega Algueira

It was love at first sight for Fernando González when his father-in-law took him to see a family vineyard. He began making wine in the late 1970s. After learning from fellow visionary winemaker Raúl Pérez, he founded Adega Algueira in 2005.

González considers himself a sort of mouthpiece for the region, spreading the gospel of Ribeira Sacra along with a warning of what could be lost if there’s no one to continue.

Luckily for González, second-generation Fabio has joined his father at the helm of the winery. Algueira farms about 25ha of traditional grapes such as Mencía, Merenzao, Brancellao and Godello.

María José Yravedra

Ronsel do Sil

Beginning her career as an architect in Madrid, María José Yravedra didn’t set out to make wine in Ribeira Sacra. But after completing her architecture degree, she studied winemaking and bought property in Parada de Sil, in the Ribeiras do Sil sub-zone.

She rehabilitated an old winery and named it Ronsel do Sil, after the wake (ronsel) left by passing boats on the river Sil. She farms 10ha and also purchases grapes from local growers, some of them coming from the higher-elevation QuirogaBibei sub-zone.

Ronsel do Sil makes a range of wines, from Mencía-based red blends to single-variety expressions of lesser-known indigenous grapes such as Merenzao.

Xabi Seoane

Pacio (Familia Seoane Novelle)

Close to where the Sil river flows into the Miño river at Os Peares, Xabi Seoane farms 4ha of vines as part of a fazenda, or self-sustaining family farm. His family planted vines here in 2002, including Mencía and Merenzao, and released their first commercially sold wine in 2004.

When Xabi took over, he added indigenous grapes such as Brancellao, Espadeiro, Loureira and Doña Branca, and experimented with new winemaking vessels such as granite tanks.

Having left the DO in 2012, Xabi returned in 2019 when he felt the organisation had evolved sufficiently. As a result, Pacio has had vintages both in and out of the DO.

Curro Bareño

Fedellos do Couto

After making wine in the Sierra de Gredos, Madridborn Curro Bareño (above) and Jesús Olivares came to Galicia. In 2013, they founded Fedellos do Couto (see ‘Beyond the DO’) with Argentinian Pablo Soldavini.

‘Fedellos’ is a Galician word that means mischievous or restless. ‘O Couto’ refers to the location of the winery in the Pazo do Couto, a 16th-century manor house.

Fedellos do Couto began making wine within the Ribeira Sacra DO, but left the appellation in 2016. Soon after, Soldavini left. Now, Barreño and Olivares focus on the area around the town of Castro Caldelas, as well as the Bibei river valley where they farm grapes around the village of Manzaneda.

Pedro Rodríguez

Adegas Guímaro

Pedro Rodríguez inherited a family winemaking tradition that dates back to long before the family were founding members of DO Ribeira Sacra in 1996. Guímaro (‘rebel’, in Galician) was a popular nickname for the winemaker’s grandfather and also applies to his approach to winemaking.

When he took over in 2001, he incorporated new techniques such as whole-cluster fermentation and ageing wines in foudres.

He makes two entry-level wines sourced from a mix of plots as well as single-vineyard reds, all of which are blends of Mencía and other traditional varieties like Caíño Tinto, Sousón, Brancellao and Merenzao.

Alfonso Torrente

Envínate

Though it’s not technically in the DO, it’s almost impossible to talk about Ribeira Sacra without mentioning Envínate (‘wine yourself’ in English). Alfonso Torrente, José Angel Martínez, Laura Ramos and Roberto Santana met while studying winemaking at university in Alicante, and together founded this multi-region project.

Torrente introduced the other three winemakers to his home region of Ribeira Sacra and they began making their ‘Lousas’ (the Galician name for the local slate soils) range of wines.

They currently make a village cuvée and two single-vineyard reds, sourcing fruit from across the region. Since 2017, they’ve marketed their wines outside the Ribeira Sacra DO because of disagreements with the consejo regulador authorities.

Paula Fernández

Dominio do Bibei

As its name suggests, Dominio do Bibei is in the Bibei valley, the easternmost part of the appellation and on the border with DO Valdeorras. The winery was founded in 2001 by Javier Domínguez, the brother of Galician fashion designer Adolfo Domínguez.

Until 2015, Priorat-based Sara Pérez and René Barbier Jr were the consulting winemakers.

Now, Paula Fernández (formerly of Dominio de Tares in Bierzo) leads the project, making wines mostly from Mencía, but with small percentages of the indigenous grapes Brancellao, Mouratón, Sousón and Caíño, as well as white grapes Godello, Albariño and Doña Branca (spelled Doña Blanca in other parts of Spain).

Adrián Rodríguez

Abadía da Cova

Adrián Rodríguez is the fourth generation of his family to make wine in Cuñas, on the banks of the Miño river in the cooler climate western part of Ribeira Sacra.

His great-grandfather Baldomero Moure Pérez planted vines on family property upon his return from Cuba, where he had emigrated as a young man to find work.

Over the years, the Rodríguez-Moure family became known for making wine and distilling orujo, the traditional Galician pomace brandy.

Today, Adrián continues the family legacy alongside sister Paloma and cousin José Moure. Together they have begun making single-parcel bottlings using indigenous grapes such as Brancellao and Merenzao, as well as white wines from Albariño and Godello, with Adrián in charge of the winemaking and viticulture.

Heroic viticulture in northwest Spain

The first people to grow grapes in Ribeira Sacra did so out of sheer determination – and with particular spiritual attunement. They dug narrow, stonewalled terraces into the steep hillsides and planted them with vines.

Today, the punishing geography is a double-edged sword: the steep terraced slopes allow grapes to soak up the sun – important in rainy Galicia – but they force growers to do everything by hand, from planting to pruning to harvest.

Workers pick grapes, put them into crates, then carry the crates on their back up slopes that range from a 35% gradient to near vertical.

It’s certainly a heroic feat – so much so that the wine world even has a name for it: ‘heroic viticulture’ is a term coined to acknowledge the enormous amount of effort it takes to grow grapes in the precarious conditions that exist in wine regions such as Ribeira Sacra.

Since 2011, CERVIM (Centre for Research, Environmental Sustainability and Advancement of Mountain Viticulture, based in Valle d’Aosta, northwest Italy) has given wine regions a specific seal for heroic viticulture if they meet certain criteria, such as cultivating vines at elevations above 500 metres, on slopes above 30% gradient, or on terraces or embankments.

European regions such as Valtellina and Trentino Alto-Adige in Italy, and Côte-Rôtie in France hold this distinction; in Spain, Ribeira Sacra is one of only a few DOs that can use the seal.

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