Barbastro
Huesca · Aragon
DO Somontano17.807inhabitants
802first mention
1400wine documented
A town in Huesca, capital of the Somontano, beside the river Vero. Of Islamic origin as a stronghold of the kura (province) of Barbitaniya, it was taken in 1064 (the so-called crusade of Barbastro) and definitively conquered by Peter I of Aragon in 1101, who made it an episcopal see.
First mention: According to a passage by al-ʿUdri (11th century), Barbaštur was founded in the year 186 AH/802 AD, in the time of Jalaf ibn Rašid. Ibn ʿIdari mentions it as a hisn (fortress) in connection with events of 295 AH/907–908.
The legend
ancient and monastic tradition (DO account); vineyards documented in Barbastro, 15th century; Lalanne since 1842Vines, olive trees and the Bordelais of the Castillo de San Marcos
In late medieval Barbastro, according to the minutes of its town council, the landscape surrounding the city was dominated by vineyards and olive groves, and wine, together with wheat and oil, was one of the pillars of the Somontano. The DO's official account goes further back and speaks of vines in the Ebro valley around 500 BC and of monasteries that replanted after Muslim rule. The best-known chapter comes in the 19th century: the Bordeaux family Lalanne, fleeing phylloxera, settled on the San Marcos estate, brought French vines and took advantage of the railway, which reached Barbastro in 1880, to sell wine in France and Argentina. In 1964 the district cooperative was founded, the seed of today's DO.
Alive today: Barbastro is the capital of the DOP Somontano (1984) and home to its Regulatory Council. Every summer it hosts the Festival Vino Somontano. Within its municipal area, Bodegas Lalanne, at the Castillo de San Marcos, and Bodega Pirineos, heir to the 1964 cooperative, are still making wine. The large bodegas of Salas Bajas are a few kilometres away.
Wineries and their wines
- Gran Vino Lataste Lalanne
- Lalanne Classic Crianza
- Lalanne Gran Reserva
- Lalanne Merlot
- Lalanne Reserva
- Laura Lalanne Blanco
- Leonor Lalanne Gewürztraminer
- Lucrecia Brut Nature
- 3.404 Barrica
- Alquézar ICE
- Alquézar Rosado
- Gewurztraminer Pirineos
- Marboré Cuvée
- Principio Moristel
- Señorío de Lazán Único
Wine towns nearby