Marqués de Riscal Finding new life in old vines

Focusing on old vines, organic farming and regenerative agriculture is helping Spanish stalwart Marqués de Riscal to adapt to climate change while still delighting consumers

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Successful vineyards can sometimes become factories: vines are planted and then harvested to exhaustion, producing large quantities of grapes before being uprooted as soon as their yields start to decline, to make way for the next generation of workhorse plants. Marqués de Riscal does something very different. The iconic Spanish winemaker, which traces its roots back to 1858 and was voted Best Vineyard in the World in 2024, places a special value on its old vines. Marqués de Riscal is even using them to breathe fresh life into some of its younger vineyards and help them adapt to the changing climate. Throughout Europe and many other parts of the globe, vines are grafted onto American rootstocks to protect the plants from phylloxera, a tiny louse that devastated the vineyards of France in the 1860s and those of Spain soon afterwards. American rootstocks are resistant to the pest, protecting the vines.