Denomination of Origin Toro

TORO D.O. HISTORY

Despite having achieved international fame recently, the history of TORO wine is very old. Since Roman times, and throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, Toro wines were prized trade goods and even enjoyed royal privileges. During the reign of Alfonso IX, Toro wine was the only foreign wine allowed to enter the city of Seville. It was also Toro wine that accompanied Christopher Columbus in his discovery of the Americas; to the point where ‘La Pinta’, one of his three sailing ships, was given its name by the Toro native Fray Diego de Deza, one of Queen Isabella’s confessors, in reference to a unit of volume used in Toro, which is still today used as a colloquial expression to talk about a swig of wine.

Then in the 19th century, with the arrival of phylloxera in Europe, Toro became a big export region of wines, primarily to France. The invasion of this plague had only affected a small proportion of the vines in this area.

Columbus Monument - Photograph by Luis García

Modern Viticulture

Throughout history, the value of Toro wine has centred mainly on its alcohol content and body, characteristics that gave it a long shelf life, allowing it to be transported overseas. That explains why, until past the mid-20th century, demand for it, which was based on these qualities, did not call for any change in the production methods of that potent wine. But as the market began demanding finer and more elegant wines, the future of these wines was difficult to predict.

Seeing this situation in the 1970s, and convinced that the high alcohol content of Tinta de Toro was not intrinsic to the variety, but a result of its late harvest, Manuel Fariña started implementing the first big change in the region: bringing the grape harvest forward by almost one month. It was a matter of picking the grapes at their optimal point of ripeness, which reduced the alcohol content from 16º-17º to 13º-14º.

The Toro D.O.

In 1987, the designation of origin was approved, covering sixteen municipal districts in the area, belonging to the provinces of Zamora and Valladolid. Manuel Fariña was chosen as president of the first Regulatory Board of the Toro D.O. With just six wineries covered under the new quality label, it was the start of a new era full of challenges, and promise.

Some of the most prestigious wineries and winemakers in the world have recognised the potential of Tinta de Toro, and have come to the Toro D.O. to create new wines here with the Designation of Origin.

Today, Toro is one of the most well-known winegrowing regions in the world. In the last few years, the TORO D.O. has come out of obscurity to become one of the focal points of the world's winegrowing scene, thanks to its high quality wines with unmistakeable personality.

Grape varieties

Red Varietie

Tinta de Toro

The region’s star grape. Some studies consider it to be part of the Spanish variety “Tempranillo”, whose adaptation to the area’s soil and climate over the centuries means it can be considered to be a native grape, with its own properties. This variety occupies the largest part of the 8,000 hectares dedicated to the Toro Denomination of Origin. Its thick skin, where all of the tannins, colour and aromatic components are found, favours wines that are concentrated and rich in aromas. The Tinta de Toro is used to make reds and rosés. The rosés are fruity and flavoursome. The reds are powerful and have a distinct structure that makes them very good for ageing in wood, and gives them extraordinary longevity.

Red Varietie

Garnacha

This is the other red variety permitted in the Toro D.O. With fewer tannins and structure than the Tinta de Toro, it was used to make rosés in the past. The majority of vines of this grape variety are old. The Toro D.O. regulations allow their use in red wines, up to a maximum of 25%. The grape clusters are medium-sized and conical. The grapes are spherical, reddish-blue in colour, and thin-skinned.

White Varietie

Malvasía

This is the most abundant white variety in the area and, for the most part, it comes from old vines with very low production. It is a very old variety that comes from Greece, and was used by the Romans. Its good natural acidity and aromatic potency produces very fruity wines, with a well-balanced acidity level and a distinctive personality.

White Varietie

Verdejo

Introduced to Castile by the Mozarabs, it became less and less common over the years until it became a minority variety in the Toro D.O. Both its bunches and grapes are small with a thick skin, which contributes to a high concentration of extracts in the musts.

Climate

Toro, with around 350 millilitres of rainfall annually, is one of the driest winegrowing regions in Spain. Its continental climate, with an influence from the Atlantic, has a large difference in temperature between day and night. Its winters are long and cold (down to -7ºC), and its summers are short but intense, with temperatures of around 40ºC. The average annual temperature is around 12ºC.

Although snow is rare, springtime frosts are a threat to the vines until mid-May.

Soil

Toro’s soil is stony and alluvial, which allows it to accumulate heat during the day, thereby acting as a temperature regulator. Its light, sandy surface, that is poor in organic material, may be the reason why phylloxera doesn’t affect the Toro vineyard the way it does in other areas. The subsoil, frequently argillaceous, allows the soil to store the little water the land receives, meaning the vine can use it more efficiently.

The amount of stones, and their size, mean that the vines in some plots of the vineyard, if they haven’t been recently ploughed, look like they have been planted on rock.

This unique combination of climate and soil encourages the grapes to ripen optimally and early in Toro, which means a higher concentration of its properties and an extensive range of fruity and floral aromas.