Rueda
Valladolid · Castile and León
DO Rueda1.118inhabitants
940first mention
1494wine documented
A town in the Tierra de Medina (Valladolid) that gives its name to the DO Rueda, the birthplace of Verdejo. Recorded as Rota in the 10th century, it was a frontier fortress (Castro Rota), and Alfonso IX resettled it in 1195.
First mention: July 940: a document mentions the town as “Rota” (according to A. Calvo, El Monasterio de Gradefes, p. 60). In 996 it appears as “Castro Rota”, and again so in 1195 when Alfonso IX resettled it.
The legend
arrival of Verdejo with the Mozarabs, 11th century: tradition; ordinances protecting the vineyards, 1494 and 1498; Rueda takes over as wine centre, 17th century; DO in 1980The Verdejo of the Mozarabs and the Dorado of the Tierra de Medina
Tradition has it that the Verdejo grape reached the Duero basin in the time of Alfonso VI, at the end of the 11th century, in the baggage of the Mozarabs who came to resettle these plains. For centuries the wine was known as “de Tierra de Medina”, and the Dorado, an oxidative white aged in the sun in demijohns, came to be drunk at the court of the Catholic Monarchs, who issued ordinances to protect the vineyards in 1494 and 1498. When the fairs of Medina del Campo declined, trade shifted in the 17th century to the towns best placed on the road north: La Nava, La Seca and Rueda, which honeycombed its subsoil with bodegas. In 1970 Marqués de Riscal came in search of a great white and found it in the Verdejo of Rueda.
Alive today: Rueda gives its name to the DO Rueda, the first recognised in Castilla y León (1980), and houses its Regulatory Council on Calle Real. It is the capital of Verdejo, with historic bodegas such as Félix Sanz (1934) and that of Marqués de Riscal (1972), and its Dorado was recognised by the EU as a fortified wine in 2023.
Wineries and their wines
- Casaverde
- Maderal
- Viña Cimbrón
- Finca Montico
- Herederos del Marqués de Riscal
- Viña Calera
- Alta Plata
- Leguillón
- Mocén
- Montestrella
- Bracamonte
- Cantosán
- Cantosán Espumoso
- Tierra Buena
- Viña 65
- Yllera Verdejo
- Azoe
- Oro de Castilla
- Valdelapinta
- Finca La Colina
- La Chalada
- Montesol
- Sanz
Wine towns nearby