Galicia's dramatic river gorge vineyards — terraced Mencía vines on 60-degree slate canyon walls, river boat wine tours, and the most spectacular viticulture in Spain
Ribeira Sacra (Sacred Riverside) is a wine region in southern Galicia spanning the river gorges where the Sil and Miño rivers cut through the ancient pre-Cambrian slate and granite of the Galician massif — the canyon walls in places reach 300–400m above the river, with gradients of 50–80 degrees on which the Galician farmers, over centuries, have carved terraced vineyards called 'heroic viticulture' by the EU wine authorities (the designation applied to slopes steeper than 30 degrees where mechanisation is impossible). The Mencía grape variety grown in these gorges — brought here by pilgrim m…
The monasteries of Ribeira Sacra — including the Santo Estevo de Ribas de Sil (7th century), the San Vicente del Pino (10th century Benedictine foundation), and more than 20 smaller Romanesque church buildings along the gorge — were the reason for the wine. The monastic communities required wine for the Eucharist and for provisioning; the monks developed the terracing system, cleared the canyon slopes, and maintained the vineyards for centuries. After the monastic disentailment of 1835 (the Spanish government's secularisation and privatisation of church property), the vineyards passed to farm…