Olite/Erriberri
Navarra · Navarre
DO Navarra4.069inhabitants
621first mention
1200wine documented
A town of the Zona Media of Navarre, head of a merindad (district), with remains of a 1st-century Roman walled enclosure. Tradition makes it a foundation of the Visigothic king Suintila (621) against the Vascones; in 1147 García Ramírez gave it the fuero of the Franks of Estella, and it later became a royal seat.
First mention: Saint Isidore of Seville (History of the Goths) relates that King Suintila founded the city of Ologicus (Ologite) in 621 against the Vascones; it is identified with Olite. The forms Olit and Holeti appear in documents of 1102.
The legend
vineyards documented from the early 13th century; legend of the court of Charles III (15th century); Ochoa 1843The vineyards of the people of Olite and the court of the Noble King
The medieval records of the Olite town council show that as early as the beginning of the 13th century the townspeople were buying land, above all vineyards, across the boundary with San Martín de Unx. This sparked the town's longest lawsuit with a neighbouring village. Two centuries later, Charles III the Noble began building his palace in Olite in 1402. Tradition, repeated by bodegas and guidebooks, has it that the king expanded the vineyards to supply wine to the court and the kingdom, although no cited document proves it. In the 19th century Olite experienced the export boom to phylloxera-stricken France and the ruin that followed. In 1843 the first stone of the Ochoa bodega was laid.
Alive today: Olite is home to the Regulatory Council of the DO Navarra, on the Rúa Romana, and houses the Museo de la Viña y el Vino de Navarra. Since 1993 the Cofradía del Vino de Navarra has held the Fiesta de la Vendimia in Olite at the end of every August, the DO's official event. Bodegas Ochoa, Vega del Castillo and Marco Real are still in the town.
Wineries and their wines
- Blanco Lías
- Crianza Origen
- Gran Reserva
- MDO Moscato
- Moscatel Vendimia Tardía
- Reserva
- Rosado de Lágrima
- Tinto Nude
- Alegria Red Garnacha
- Finca El Espartal
- Marques Real Defensa Colección Privada
- Merak
- Vega del Castillo Chardonnay
- Vega del Castillo Crianza
- Vega del Castillo Garnacha
- Vega del Castillo Rosado
Wine towns nearby