A municipality on the Granada coast, in the Contraviesa, which includes La Rábita. The town council dates its foundation to Andalusi times, in the taha (district) of Cehel, under the name Hisn al-Bunyul, which it translates as 'castle of the vineyard'. In 1505 it passed to the lordship of Luis Zapata.
18th–19th centuries; production figure from Madoz (vol. I, 1845); replanting of 1978Albuñol's 70,000 arrobas that ended up in Jerez
On the slopes of the Sierra de la Contraviesa that run down to the sea, Albuñol lived off its vineyards for centuries. Scholars of the district speak of a “very brilliant” winemaking history in the 18th and 19th centuries, with wine and raisins shipped out through the port of La Rábita, now part of the same municipality. In the mid-19th century, Pascual Madoz's Dictionary noted that wine was Albuñol's most abundant product, some 70,000 arrobas, alongside 12,000 of raisins, and that most of it was distilled into aguardiente that was sent to Jerez. In 1884 the Town Council itself complained to the Ministry that, for lack of roads, the wine of the Alpujarra sold cheaply. Then came phylloxera, which laid waste to almost all the vine-covered hills. In 1978 Miguel Lorente replanted with cuttings from the few century-old vines that remained, and the following year he founded Bodegas Nazaríes on the Cerro del Gato.
Alive today: Albuñol belongs to the Contraviesa-Alpujarra subzone of DOP Granada. Bodegas Nazaríes, founded around 1979 on recovered old vines, still makes wine there, and the district's harvest begins in Albuñol's lowest vineyards at the end of August.