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Taking a trip through Ribera
It is evident that with so many quality wineries to
consider, keeping up with the Ribera del Duero can be
a daunting task. Still, a two-to-four day trip can be
immensely rewarding for lovers of wine country. The
Ribera's wineries and vineyards are located on either
side of a 70-mile stretch of the Duero River that runs
from east to west. But many of the wineries are concentrated
in several main wine towns in the Ribera de Burgos hills
and along the river plains on both sides of the valley
in the provinces of Burgos and Valladolid
(there are also Ribera del Duero D. O. vineyards in
Soria and a few in a small northerly portion of Segovia).
And, unlike the days when I first began traveling in
the Ribera del Duero, there are now a number of good,
charming, reasonably priced lodgings along the way.
Then, as now, there have always been some wonderful
country asadores, where, if you are lover of lamb, you
will be in for some of the great dining experiences
of your life.
A trip like the one I planned in the summer of 2006
can provide a good overview of the wines, gastronomy
and historical sights of the Ribera del Duero and provide
those in search of great back country wine adventures
with indelible memories. I usually rent a car at Madrid's
Barajas airport and drive north on the A-1 auto-route
through the mountains to Aranda de Duero
and turn west on the Soria-Valladolid road (route 122),
then drive northwest on local roads through the picturesque
uplands of the Ribera de Burgos to Roa, where I often
make my base.
However, on this trip, I decided to change my normal
route to visit Soria, the easternmost and least known
of the four provinces that comprise the Ribera del Duero.
There are two wineries well worth considering in this
province: Dominio de Atauta, which
has been making some sensational wines that have drawn
raves both in Spain and internationally, and the more
modest, but quite delicious Viña Gormaz,
located in the historic town of San Esteban de Gormaz,
which has one of the oldest Romanesque churches in Spain.
The town of Atauta is filled with centuries-old, hand-hewn
bodegas burrowed into the hills and has a mirador
that overlooks a sea of vineyards. Atauta was unknown
even to serious Spanish wine aficionados until recently,
when Dominio de Atauta began making a series of first-rate,
limited edition wines from a series of a very old single
vineyards planted on pie franco (French rootstocks),
since the 19th-century phylloxera bug invasion did not
reach this back-country area.
The next stop to the west of San Esteban de Gormaz
is the great crossroads town of Aranda de Duero, where
the wineries of note are Torremilanos, Martín
Berdugo and the new-wave star, Bodegas
Conde, which produces highly regarded, but
oaky Neo. Aranda is famous for its legendary asadores
such as Mesón de la Villa, Casa
Florencio, El Pastor y the
perennial favorite, Rafael Corrales,
which feature fall-off-the-bone roast suckling lamb
and other Castilian cuisine specialties. Don't miss
Aranda's Santa María church with its superb 15th-century
Isabeline plateresque façade and the picturesque
Plaza Mayor in the 15th- and 16th-century old quarter,
beneath which is a subterranean network of ancient wine
caves. Aranda has several hotels worthy of using as
a base of operations, including two out by the main
highway- Torremilanos, a winery hotel
set in the vineyards, and the comfortable, well-appointed
four-star Hotel Tudanca, which is located
at a major highway rest stop complex and also has a
noteworthy restaurant.
From Aranda, head north and west of the city, to the
Ribera de Burgos region, where in the past twenty years,
wine has joined sheep raising and wheat as the main
pillars of the area's agricultural economy. You will
enjoy meandering through this strange, picturesque section
of Castilian landscape, exploring quaint back country
wine villages such as Gumiel del Mercado, Sotillo de
la Ribera, La Horra, Roa, and Pedrosa del Duero, where
tourists are practically unknown and you can taste excellent
wines in such bodegas as Valduero, Valsotillo,
Balbás, Condado de Haza, Viña Pedrosa,
Carmelo Rodero and Pago de los Capellanes.
Sotillo also produces some excellent Castilian type
ewe's milk cheeses. In this area, there are also newly
renovated places to stay in small towns, including several
casas rurales (inexpensive, often rustic and
charming, but very comfortable bed-and-breakfast lodgings)
in Gumiel de Izán (see listings) and in the renovated
and highly recommended Palacio de Guzmán y Santoyo
in the village of Guzmán near Pedrosa (see listings).
Zarceras: Those strange, fascinating
rock formations protruding from nearly every hillside
in towns like La Horra, Sotillo and Gumiel del Mercado
are called zarceras. The hills are soft sandstone
or limestone, which made digging bodegas, or
wine cellars, relatively easy so the villages in this
region are honeycombed with hundreds of manmade wine
(and cheese) caves. Each of these caves needs a ventilation
shaft, so the landscape sprouts weird, often individualistic,
conical-shaped, stone-and-cement zarceras .
There may be as many as twenty or thirty of these five-to-ten
foot tall structures cropping from a single hill. The
effect is other worldly, resembling an outdoor pop sculpture
garden crafted by visitors from another planet.
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