Rueda wine tour: discover the white wine wonder

Over the last 25 years, the Spanish wine region of Rueda has been an unparalleled success story. Since the turn of the millennium, the area under vines in the Denominación de Origen (D.O.) in the heart of Castile and León has more than tripled, even doubling in the last ten years. Today it stands at 20,800 hectares. This growth is particularly striking, as wine consumption is decreasing like everywhere else in the world and many other wine regions in the country are stagnating or even losing area. Rueda, on the other hand, is booming. And for good reason: Rueda is one of the few regions in Spain where mainly white wines are produced, and demand for them has been rising for years. The region's success story is inextricably linked to the Verdejo grape variety, which is currently cultivated on around 87 percent of the D.O.'s total vineyard area. The variety has been cultivated in Rueda since the eleventh century and is said to have come to Castile from North Africa during Moorish rule.