A helpful devistation

It is one of those beautiful days when the country slips away ahead of you; the Ebro gleams to the north and there is bugger all to review.  

We will go near the Viñedos "Finca Valdeguinea" and that is good enough for me.  https://www.bodegaluissaenz.com/  The website is the usual young people living their best life, rolling acres of vineyards and bottles of plonk.  BTW, the origins of plonk are a bit murky.  Some suggest Australia is our friend here, being a term for ‘blanc’.  Sounds a bit convenient.  Others suggest that this may have some truth, but originating from the soldiers who served in France in the Great War.’


The website is available in Spanish, English and Chinese. The Centenary vineyard is, by there accounts  is ‘The vineyard, due to its age and characteristics, has become the fundamental basis for obtaining the best Rioja wines. At 600 meters above sea level, we find our centenary vineyards planted on mountain slopes and cultivated, in glass -goblet system-, in the traditional style. To preserve the typicity of our vineyards, we perform our own manual grafting on land.  Reviewers are kind but unwordy.








We’ve not got a lot more to do than sip some wine and think of History.  The first Phoenician settlers in 11th century BC may have brought the first vineyards to the regions.. The Romans did there bit and founded many of the Rioja vineyards. The phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century was a major catalyst in the expansion and modernization of the Rioja wine industry, with the devastation of the French wine industry both opening up the French wine market and bringing an influx of French investment into the region.



 Phylloxera was a friend to La Rioja. In the 1850s, the fungal disease powdery mildew began to ravage vineyards in Galicia, opening up the market up for Rioja bodegas, which had been only slightly affected. The completion of a railway system linking Logroño to Bilbao, Madrid and Irun coincided with the onset of the phylloxera epidemic in Europe which helped in transporting the stuff about. As the French were the first. and hardest hit by the aphid La  Rioja stepped up to the mark. French winemakers, mostly from Bordeaux, traveled to the Rioja to set up wineries. This ushered in a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity for the region.






The subsequent boom in the Rioja wine industry lasted until phylloxera finally reached the region itself in the 1890s. By then the cure of grafting American rootstock had been successfully employed in France and it was only a matter of time before the Spanish were able to replant their own vineyards with the new grafted vines. In the meantime, regional authorities stepped in to sharply curb all wine imports, so that the local wine supply would take priority. Laws were passed prohibiting the export of wines from any bodega producing less 750,000 liters of wine per annum.


















I think that is enough to think about today.










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