The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Spain’s secret wine region is taking on Napa Valley
A fresh generation of vintners is setting up shop in Ribera del Duero – and word is spreading beyond its borders, says Lucy Thackray
Itziar Calleja swirled the dark ruby liquid around her glass, catching the sun and sending a plumcoloured ripple of light around the bar. “Take your time,” she said, inhaling a noseful of the wine’s aroma. “When you get home after a hard day, don’t just pour a huge glass and gulp it down. Stop. Smell. Taste. Pay attention to every scent and every flavour.”
I was exploring the northern Spanish wine region of Ribera del Duero, a delightfully under-radar area two hours north of Madrid, with Itziar as my guide – and her wine tasting was already more like a meditation class.
Long popular among wealthy Madrileños – drawing them with its expansive, big-skied views and lavish spa hotels poured into old monasteries – Ribera del Duero’s charms still remain largely unknown outside Spain, unless you happen to be a sommelier or serious collector of fine wines. And though the locals certainly wouldn’t mind keeping it that way, the region’s wine-tourism scene has been slowly evolving. In 1982, when Ribera became a DO (denominación de origin), the region had just seven wineries. Today, as it finds itself likened to California’s sophisticated, upmarket Napa Valley, there are more than 300, and it seems word of Spain’s best-kept secret is finally spreading beyond its borders.
I was staying at Abadia Retuerta, a luxury hotel set in a 12th-century abbey. Fittingly, it was a winery first in 1996, adding a hotel in 2012. Its peaceful walled gardens and heavenly spa are reason enough to drive out here after a night or two soaking up Madrid’s world-class galleries and restaurants; with a Michelin-starred restaurant, Refectorio, set in the monks’ high-vaulted dining hall and a spa touting wine-inspired treatments, it’s as much a temple to history as to wine. It’s also a gateway to the sprawling Ribera del Duero region, with fabulous bodegas (wine estates) nearby, many with glossy wine bars and visitor experiences crafted within the last decade.
I started my journey at Castilla Termal Monasterio de Valbuena, a hotel set in a 12th-century Cistercian monastery – they don’t seem to do straight-up new builds here – with thermal waters in the spa and peaceful gardens to explore. I spent a day decompressing after the urban crush of Madrid, then Itziar picked me up for a visit to Alonso del Yerro (alonsodelyerro.es), an idyllic family-run estate where children frolic by the vines and dogs bark in raucous welcome.
The vineyard’s matriarch, Maria, showed us towering steel vats named after her husband, children, grandchildren and in-laws; two or three were even named for the estate’s longest-serving workers. Several barrels had been painted with the names of each grandchild, with their baby footprints and toddler drawings inscribed on the oak. Around the warehouse, Maria displayed her collection of silk scarves as art. It was effortlessly charming and unusually personal, despite being a relatively new operation (their first vintage was 2003).
We travelled on to Dominio Lubiano (dominiolubiano.com), a thoroughly modern estate with a huge, concrete grand design of a tasting room, built in 2020. Arriving in October, I was lucky enough to see the harvested grapes slurping up large plastic tubes before being sorted by hand. I peered down into the vats, where the blue-purple skins had floated to the top. It was all very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Owner Mónica Peñas – it was hearten- ing to see plenty of female entrepreneurs – took us to the hillside between her vineyards to taste a glass or two at a beautifully crafted limestone table, echoing the type of soil here. Dark as a hedgerow blackberry and packed with plenty of boozy aroma (RDD wines tend to be between 14 and 15.5 per cent ABV), it was quite the wake-up call.
While unfamiliar to me, there was nevertheless an air of rarity and polish about these wines – partly due to scale (while Rioja produces around 280 to 300 million litres of wine annually, Ribera del Duero turns out a modest 50 million) – but one that’s been noted by locals, too. “If you bring a bottle of Ribera del Duero with you to a dinner party, your host will notice,” my friend Miguel, who lives in Madrid, told me. “It’s something a bit special.”
I was surprised by the variety of complex flavours in the wines I tasted, at the two family wineries and in a hip tasting bar at Emilio Moro’s bodega (emiliomoro.com). “With summers getting hotter and longer, the Tempranillo grapes can lose some of their acidity, becoming too sweet,” explained Agustí Peris, Abadia Retuerta’s sommelier. “Winemakers can blend up to 25 per cent of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Malbec to balance the sugar and acidity.”
The vintages I tried all have layers of complexity; del Yerro’s Maria 2019 has violet and herbal notes, while Lubiano’s Limited Edition 2019 is a spicy, saucy 100 per cent tempranillo. The complexity of styles comes not just from blended grapes but the variety of terrain, from clay-rich soil by the Duero river (known as the Douro in Portugal) to limestone slopes and sandy plots.
Before I left, Itziar took me for lunch at Protos (bodegasprotos.com), a historic restaurant in Peñafiel, where every table – including ours – was tucking into the region’s speciality, suckling lamb. Thick, fatty, juicy slivers of the stuff melted off the bone, set off by a simple, vinegary salad and, naturally, a bottle of red.
Returning to Abadia, I bumped into a small group of Americans – the first non-Spanish voices I’d heard all weekend – who were stopping off on a road trip from Madrid to San Sebastian. Familiar with Napa, they waxed lyrical about how wonderfully relaxing they’d found Ribera, a world away from frantic vineyard-hopping and mass-market bus tours. Could it be that this lovely, lesser-known spot is already winning hearts away from its well-established peers? It’s likely – and I can certainly see why.