Ribeira Sacra rising

A dramatic landscape of vertigo-inducing rocky slopes, this Galician heartland region is not for the faint of heart. Yet determined winemakers are embracing the back-breaking challenge to produce some of Spain's most exciting wines, saving Ribeira Sacra from fading into oblivion

- STORY NOAH CHICHESTER

Between the 8th and 9th centuries, Christian monastic orders came in great numbers to central Galicia, searching for solitary places to pray. They found what they were looking for in the Miño and Sil river canyons. Carved out by tectonic forces over millions of years, the slopes of these deep valleys reach near-vertical inclines in some places, discouraging any unwanted passersby. The numerous resulting monasteries that cling to these slopes would inspire the modern wine region's name: Ribeira Sacra, or 'sacred riverbank'.

People have been cultivating vines here for centuries, carving terraces from unforgiving granite and slate and painstakingly carrying baskets of grapes up the impossibly steep slopes. This is one of Europe's great terraced landscapes, deserving to be mentioned in the same breath as Côte-Rôtie, Mosel or the Douro. But Ribeira Sacra has never received the same recognition. Part of that might be due to its geographical barriers and historical struggles. Its isolation was great for the monks, but not so great for the wine trade. And once the railways came to Galicia in the 1800s, many growers couldn't compete with the cheaper wine arriving from flat, fertile Castilla y León to its west. Faced with hardship, huge numbers of people abandoned their vines and left the countryside - a trend that continued into and throughout the 20th century and, in smaller measure, continues today.

As Spain moved back to democracy from 1975 and began to open up, new opportunities came calling, bringing both money and new winemaking technology to the countryside. By the early 1990s, a few pioneering local growers had joined forces to create an official wine region and, in 1996, Ribeira Sacra became a Denominación de Origen.

Now, nearly 30 years after gaining DO status, Galicia's most heroic wine region (