Grapevine together with fig tree was one of the first plants to be cultivated. There is knowledge about his cultivation since year 6,000 B.C. After Persians and Egyptians, Greeks were the ones who, thanks to his cultural and economic exchange, developed vine growing and wine commerce, giving and special value to Rhodos wine due to his high quality. It was such and such the relevance they gave grapevine, that a divine origin was assigned to it, being the legendary Dionysius the one who symbolized it.
This wine arrived in the Iberian Peninsula from Greek colony in the Mediterranean Sea. Romans were the ones who, through river commerce, bring near to our lands wine and his cultivation. Thanks to this rapprochement, we do not only received wine culture, but it also begun the exploitation of our famous thermal spring, both outstanding elements part of a refined life style. |
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The fall of Roman Empire opened a big gap about wine cultivation because Barbarians and Arabs didn’t give importance to it. It wouldn’t be until Middle Age (at the beginning of the 12th century) when Fitero’s plot turn to be the link of three important kingdoms: Castilla (current province of La Rioja), Navarra and Aragón, moment in which the first community from the Cister was set up in the Iberian Peninsule, fact that made reappear wine culture. Our lands were labelled as optimum for grapevine cultivation, for which purpose the newest methods for his elaboration were imported as they were used in the place where they came from, the French Burgundy. |
At the end of 15th century Fitero’s village arise round the monastery that named it and from whose monks the traditions and centenary secrets about their vineyard cultivation were learned, just as the appropriate methods for manufacturing their delicious stocks. It’s hardly surprising that grapevine is nowadays part of the coat of arms of this Navarre village and that his wines are these days one of the most appreciated in the Denominación de Origen Navarra. |
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