D.O.Ribeira Sacra, extreme viticulture that aspires to be a World Heritage Site
D.O. Ribeira Sacra faces this 2020 with the hope of becoming in 2021 in the first Denomination of Origin of Spain whose territory is declared a World Heritage Site. When the Denomination of Origin was established in 1996, it was not possible to imagine everything that would be generated around wine and the socioeconomic dynamization that the sector would mean for this territory.
Today D.O. Ribeira Sacra are more than 20 municipalities located on the banks of the rivers Miño, Sil, Cabe and Bibei between the provinces of Lugo and Ourense, which are grouped into 5 subzones: Amandi, Chantada, Quiroga-Bibei, Ribeiras do Miño and Ribeiras do Sil. It has 2,500 hectares of wine production and nearly a hundred registered wineries.
The main characteristic of the Denomination is the cultivation of the vine in terraces that reach slopes of 85%. This form of cultivation makes working in the vineyard defy vertigo and makes it one of the world's greatest exponents of Heroic or Extreme Viticulture. But this difficult terrain, its orientations, soils and climate also give the grapes special characteristics. But this difficult terrain, its orientations, soils and climate also give the grapes special characteristics. This, added to the particularities that exist between the different subzones, makes us face unique wines full of personality. These wines are the fruit of a terroir that makes them fresh, aromatic and different. They are high quality wines, as supported by the results obtained in national and international competitions. And wines that set trends in consumers and prescribers who approach wine in search of new sensations.
2019 Grape Harvest
The Taste of a Land is the slogan with which Denomination of Origin is presented. This landscape of vertigo vineyards that is completed as this territory is the one with the highest concentration of rural Romanesque in the world and has a wide and varied folkloric and gastronomic tradition.
All of this has earned this territory to be the Spanish candidate for World Heritage Site by UNESCO. And that is what their wines convey. Most of the wines that are made under D.O. Ribeira Sacra are red wines of its star variety, Mencía. They also have a wide representation of white wines that mainly use Godello and recently rosé wines were incorporated. To bring the taste of a land to where you want, D.O. launched at the beginning of summer from its website www.ribeirasacra.org, If you want a Ribeira Sacra, ask for it.