Bierzo reborn

After decades of relative obscurity, this region at the northwestern edge of Castilla y León is emerging as a source of some of the country's most in-demand wines

- BETH WILLARD

Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974. Undisputed heavyweight champion George Foreman takes on Muhammad Ali, a boxer with an impressive pedigree but who is now on the comeback trail. Physically intimidating, with unrivalled punching power, Foreman is the clear favourite but Ali, dancing, ducking and dazzling the champion, surprises the world, winning by knockout in the eighth round.

Worry not, you're still reading Decanter, not Sports Illustrated - but let's draw a parallel. Bierzo has a millennia-long history of wine production, but the region was somewhat forgotten for much of the 20th century. Then, in the 1990s, the development of new projects and the arrival of new winemakers led to a resurgence and now, Bierzo producers are making some of Spain's best wines.

Is this small region - in a quiet corner of Spain, far from major cities - ready to challenge its heavyweight counterparts among some of the world's most famous wine regions?

Bierzo's wine journey

Like great swathes of Spain, Bierzo's vinous history can be traced back to the Romans who came looking for gold, bringing vines with them. Cistercian monks followed in the ninth century, expanding the vineyard area of Bierzo and most of northern Spain. With the important markets of Galicia and Asturias on the doorstep, Bierzo's wines achieved a certain fame and economic success.

In the late 19th century, phylloxera struck, wiping out vineyards and resulting in several decades of grafting and replanting, which saw Bierzo's vineyards begin to flourish again by the early 20th century. The subsequent boom in cooperativism in the 1960s put many of the region's vineyards to work; it could be argued that cooperatives saved much of the viticultural heritage of Bierzo.