A town in the Arlanza valley, head of the Infantado de Covarrubias, which Count García Fernández created in 978 for his daughter Urraca. Tradition attributes its foundation to the Visigothic king Chindasuinth, without any documentary support cited.
donation including vineyards, 974; Infantado, 978; charter with a pail of wine, 1148; DO Arlanza, 2007The vineyards of the Covarrubias monastery and the pail of wine in the town charter
On 6 January 974, a cleric named Juan and four companions, two of them women, gave themselves to the monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian “in the place called Cobasrubias”, governed by Abbess Justa. With them they donated their property, and the list included land, vineyards, orchards and mills. Four years later, in 978, Count García Fernández founded the Infantado of Covarrubias there. In 1148, the Infanta Doña Sancha and Abbot Martín granted a charter to the settlers of the town. Each householder would pay thirty loaves of bread a year, a ram or a side of bacon, eight heminas of barley and “one pail of wine”, and a widow half of that. The same charter gave the settlers, as a heritable holding, the vineyard belonging to the monastery house. All of this is recorded in the Cartulary of the Infantado, published by Luciano Serrano in 1907.
Alive today: Covarrubias has been part of DO Arlanza since 2007, and the Regulatory Council lists two wineries in the town: Bodega Covarrubias (Viña Valdable, whose gran reserva is called Abadía de Covarrubias) and Ortegaz. The collegiate church of San Cosme y San Damián, heir to the abbey, still stands.