Lebrija
Sevilla · Andalusia
DO Jerez-Xérès-SherryVC LebrijaDO Manzanilla de Sanlúcar27.788inhabitants
18first mention
90wine documented
A town in the Lower Guadalquivir, on the edge of the marshes that occupy the ancient Lacus Ligustinus. It was the Roman Nabrissa Veneria, a municipality under Latin law; conquered by Ferdinand III in 1249, it passed definitively to the Crown of Castile in 1264 under Alfonso X.
First mention: Strabo, Geography III 2, 5 (written between c. 7 BC and c. AD 18), names Nabrissa among the towns of the Baetis estuaries, together with Asta and Onoba. Pliny the Elder (NH III, 11, AD 77) calls it ‘Nabrissa cognomine Veneria’.
The legend
Dionysian founding legend recorded by Silius Italicus (c. AD 90); Nebrija, 15th–16th centuries; vineyards documented 1844Nebrissa, the city of Bacchus and the fawn skin
The people of Lebrija say that their town was founded by Bacchus himself, the god of wine, beside the marshes of the Guadalquivir, and that its ancient name, Nebrissa, comes from the nebris, the fawn skin worn by the bacchantes in their rites. The story has very old literary support: at the end of the 1st century, the poet Silius Italicus, listing the Hispanic cities that followed Hannibal, describes Nebrissa as a place consecrated to the thyrsi of Dionysus, haunted by satyrs and by maenads who celebrated their mysteries by night. In the Renaissance, the humanist Antonio de Nebrija, the town's most illustrious son, repeated that his homeland had been founded by Dionysus, or Father Liber. The first statistical data on the vineyards date from 1844.
Alive today: Lebrija gives its name to the DOP Lebrija (“Vino de Calidad de Lebrija”), recognised by the Junta de Andalucía in 2009, whose area covers Lebrija and El Cuervo. It produces whites, finos aged under a veil of flor (“Flor de Lebrija”), olorosos and sweet wines. The benchmark bodega, González Palacios, still plays with the myth: one of its brands evokes the Bacchic nebris.
Wineries and their wines
- El Poeta
- Flor de Lebrija Frasquito
- Lebrija Old González Palacios
- M. Fina El Poeta
- Moscatel Dulce Flor
- Overo
- Solo
- Viento en la cara
Wine towns nearby