The Spanish Wines of Toro

Filed in archive Spanish Wines on October 29, 2009

© Rivard


Mercury News had a feature recently on the growing popularity of wines from Spain's historic Toro region.

Vines have been planted in Toro, about 100 miles northwest of Madrid, for hundreds of years and winemaking has been documented since the 1st century B.C. But the region was recognized as a Denominación de Origen only in 1987. The primary grape is a local version of tempranillo known as tinta de Toro, and many small, impossibly gnarled bush vines are quite old — some 100 years or more.

While some of Toro's wines are now becoming pricey, you can still get excellent Toro wines for as little as $20 a bottle. It's an interesting feature.