T wo hours’ drive north of Madrid, on a high, windswept plateau a long way from the beaches, lies a fine wine region that manages to be both famous and forgotten. On the one hand, Ribera del Duero’s oldest modern winery, Vega Sicilia, is recognised as Spain’s most prestigious; and these days, Familia Fernández Rivera (makers of Tinto Pesquera), Dominio de Pingus, Dominio de Es and others have fortified that reputation with their own admired and high-priced wines. On the other, the area was only awarded official DO status in 1982, and a lot of wine lovers couldn’t find it on a map.
Given how good some of these wines are — rich reds, earthy, herbaceous and complex, usually made entirely from tinto fino, the local variation of tempranillo — the question is: why has this been so slow? Partly it’s the problem of having Rioja, which is far better known, 100-odd miles away. Then the Duero River that the region fringes ( ribera means riverbank) flows west into Portugal, where it is known as the Douro, and there the steep slopes are famous for a different style of rich red — a fortified one, historically, that was shipped downriver to Porto and across the Atlantic to thirsty England. Port on one side, Rioja on the other is surely the vinous equivalent of nuisance neighbours.
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