La Rioja: Spain's first great wine Spain

Two thousand years, since the Romans

Growing vines and making wine in La Rioja was already a reality more than two thousand years ago, as shown by the Roman wine-press and winery remains found in this land. This wine culture continued through the Middle Ages under the shelter of monasteries such as San Millán de la Cogolla, Nájera or Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where Gonzalo de Berceo praised Rioja wine in his verses.

In the 16th and 17th centuries Rioja's vineyards went through a period of economic splendour. In 1787 the Real Junta de Cosecheros was created to improve wine quality and trade with northern markets, linking the wine towns with Vitoria and the port of Santander.

French phylloxera, an unexpected boost

It wasn't until the second half of the 19th century that Rioja wine set out on the path that would bring it fame, led by wine men who introduced Bordeaux methods and founded their own wineries —a rapid success, driven by the arrival of the railway. The terrible phylloxera plague that devastated French vineyards forced buyers there to look for wines from elsewhere, and La Rioja, thanks to its proximity and similar methods, benefited especially. But in 1900 the epidemic reached its own vines too: in seven years, 70% of the region's vineyards disappeared.

The recovery, led by the Haro Wine Station (1892), took two decades. The 1970s brought a real revolution in production structures, and in 1991 the Denominación de Origen Rioja became the first in Spain to be recognised as a Denominación de Origen Calificada.

Why we're not there yet

La Rioja isn't part of the Terroir Radical catalogue yet —it's perhaps the best-known Spanish designation and the one least in need of an introduction. But we keep an eye on the small producers working outside the dominant commercial model.