Known for producing austere, floral wines made from mencía, Ribeira Sacra is probably Galicia’s second-best known wine region—but it remains a mystery to a lot of people. With river valley vineyards just as amazing as the Mosel or Douro, it deserves to be recognized for its stunning scenery and amazing wines.
So what exactly is this place, and what sets Ribeira Sacra apart from Spain's other wine regions?
The Sacred Riverbank
In Galician, Ribeira Sacra translates to “Sacred Riverbank.”
The typical story is that the name comes from the monasteries along the banks of the Miño and Sil rivers.
Medieval monks climbed the region’s steep slopes in their search for isolated places to pray. In 1124, Doña Teresa of Portugal donated land near the modern-day Ribeira Sacra to the monastery of Montederramo.
The document she signed supposedly mentioned a place called the Rivoyra Sacrata, or the “Sacred Riverbank” in Latin. Historians later collected this tale, and the name fit so perfectly with the idiosyncrasy of the area that it stuck around as “Ribeira Sacra.”
There’s only one issue with this origin story: it probably isn’t true.
In 1987, a Galician linguist revealed that rivoyra was the result of a faulty transcription of revoyra—a name that doesn’t allude to any sacred riverbank at all, but rather to a sacred oak. (Revoyra = reboiro, a kind of oak in proto-Galician.) Unfortunately, his scholarship was quickly forgotten.
A few years later, one of the founders of the Denominación de Origen Ribeira Sacra was leafing through an old guide to Galicia when he suddenly realized he had found the perfect name for the new wine region. It didn’t favor any particular subzone over another, and paid tribute to the region’s monastic heritage. They changed the Latin to Galician, substituting “Rivoyra” for “Ribeira” and “Sacrata” for “Sacra.”
The name proved to be just the thing for the fledgling wine region, evoking sweeping views, hidden monasteries, and most importantly, lots of vines. Some people theorize that the anonymous vowel-swapping monk did it on purpose, because you have to admit that “Ribeira Sacra” does perfectly describe the area’s mystique.
Whatever its origins, ‘Ribeira Sacra’ provides a strong identity for a region spread out over twenty-one towns and two provinces, and unifies a wine appellation under a name befitting its history.
What Makes Ribeira Sacra Special?
A picture is worth a thousand words, and that’s true here too. This question is best answered with images rather than words. To know the Ribeira Sacra is to see it.
Plunging, impossibly steep slopes covered by terraced vineyards descend from the tops of the canyons to the rivers below. Dirt paths zig-zag up and down the hills, passing stone huts built centuries ago to guard tools from the elements.
The terraces seem as though they’ve always been there, as if the same tectonic forces that wrenched plates apart and created the canyons now filled by the Miño and Sil rivers somehow created thousands of tiny stone walls teeming with grapevines.
There’s a sense of timelessness in the Ribeira Sacra: perched high up on a mountain, looking down at the river canyon below, it’s easy to pretend that you’ve been transported back in time and that at any moment a monk could come trudging up the road, shake the dirt from his sandals, and offer you a glug from his wineskin.
And it’s not just the scenery, but the way in which people live and work and interact with it—making wine in an unforgiving environment and reshaping the very rock around them.
Definitely a heroic feat… but more on that later.
So where is Ribeira Sacra?
A Little Geography
The Ribeira Sacra wine region is located in central Galicia. It straddles the provinces of Lugo and Ourense along the banks of the Miño and Sil rivers. Its 1,276 hectares of vineyards cover the steep slopes of the river canyons, as well as flat land above the canyons and parts of the Quiroga and Bibei valleys.
The Subzones
Ribeira Sacra has five subzones: Amandi, Chantada, Ribeiras do Miño, Ribeiras do Sil, and Quiroga-Bibei.
Chantada is on the right bank (west side) of the Miño and Ribeiras do Miño is across from it on the left bank (east side). Both subzones have more of an Atlantic influence, and get slightly more rain than the other subzones.
Likewise, Amandi is on the northern bank of the Sil river and Ribeiras do Sil is on the southern bank. Amandi is the most famous subzone of the Ribeira Sacra, and houses some of the first producers to get international attention. Amandi has mostly south- and east-facing orientations, while Ribeiras do Sil has mostly north- and southwest-facing orientations.
Quiroga-Bibei is the easternmost subzone and shares a border with Valdeorras. It has a Mediterranean sub-humid climate, with mountainous terrain that surrounds the Sil and Bibei river valleys. It has dry, hot summers, cold winters, and a higher average altitude than the rest of the subzones.
Ribeira Sacra's Rivers
The Miño and the Sil rivers flow through deep canyons created millions of years ago through tectonic action. The Miño flows north to south through the western part of Ribeira Sacra, and the Sil enters the region from the west and flows east until it meets the Miño in Os Peares.
The Miño is Galicia’s longest and largest river, but the Sil is actually bigger when they meet. Despite this, geographers still classify the Sil is a tributary of the Miño. This is the origin of the Spanish saying “El Miño lleva la fama y el Sil le da el agua” or “The Miño is the famous one, but the Sil gives it water.”
The Ribeira Sacra also has other rivers, like the Bibei, Navea, and Quiroga.
Ribeira Sacra's Climate
If Ribeiro is Galicia’s climatic middle ground, Ribeira Sacra finds itself squarely in continental-Mediterranean territory. Its location in and around steep river valleys gives it different climatic conditions from the surrounding territory marked by very high temperatures in summer, very low temperatures in winter and little rainfall.
The absence of the moderating influence of the sea like in Rías Baixas or the protection of the mountains like in Ribeiro are essential to defining the climate here. The climate in Ribeira Sacra is more continental than Atlantic, with bigger swings in temperature from day to night as well as lower precipitation.
The region’s winters are marked by cool temperatures around 8-10º C (46-50º F) on average, with a few days of intense cold. It often sees fog and frost as well. It also has hot summers with temperatures well above 20º C or 68º F on average, sometimes reaching as high as 40º C (104º F).
The level of rainfall in the Ribeira Sacra is one of the lowest in Galicia, with averages between 600 and 1,000 mm per year. The Miño River Valley receives an average rainfall of around 900 mm per year and has an average temperature of 14ºC (57º F) while the Sil River Valley is slightly cooler at 13ºC (55º F) with rainfall around 700 mm per year.
Ribeira Sacra's Soils
Ribeira Sacra’s bedrock is made up of granitic rocks, schist, and slate.
Amandi and Ribeiras do Sil have mostly the same geological makeup of granitic and slate soils, with some schist and quartzite elements as well. Among its metamorphic rocks is a type of gneiss known as Ollo de Sapo, or “toad’s eye” in Galician, named for its distinctive whorls.
Chantada and Ribeiras do Miño also have predominantly granitic soils with some areas of schist, slate and gneiss.
In Quiroga-Bibei, the majority of the soils are slate, with pockets of quartzite, gneiss, schist and some granite areas.
All soils in the Ribeira Sacra tend to be loose with little structure and high permeability, meaning they absorb water easily but don’t retain it.
This can cause problems in the summer months if there’s no rain for long periods of time. On the slopes, the terraces themselves act as drainage channels as water runs through the gaps that appear between the stones.
The terraced stone walls and stones on the ground in many vineyards can also create microclimates.
They act as heat accumulators, storing warmth from the sun during the day and radiating heat at night, which favors ripening. The soils, on the other hand, heat up rapidly during the day and lose heat at night, which can help grapes to get as much sugar as possible while keeping their acidity.
Wines from Ribeira Sacra
Ribeira Sacra is mainly known for its red wines, but it also makes white wines.
Red wines from Ribeira Sacra are mostly made from Mencía, but more and more growers are using other traditional Galician grapes like Brancellao or Merenzao. They have high acidity, with delicate floral notes of crushed violet floating over ripe red cherry, raspberry, and blackberry aromas. Some wines have notable “mineral” aromas like graphite.
White wines from Ribeira Sacra tend to be Godello or Albariño. They fall in Galicia’s middle ground: neither as acidic as wines in Rías Baixas nor as ripe and fuller-bodied as wines from Valdeorras. This is still new territory, so it remains to be seen how winemakers can pull out the best expressions of white grapes in this terroir.
What exactly is heroic viticulture?
Ribeira Sacra is one of the best examples of what’s known as heroic viticulture. Here, the term refers to the precarious conditions that complicate grape-growing and the terrain that makes growers and winemakers work at dizzying heights on the terraces.
The region’s steep slopes that can reach near-vertical in some places generally prevent mechanization in the vineyard.
This means that all the work is done by the hands, arms and backs of the winegrowers and winemakers—especially at harvest time. Workers pluck bunches of grapes off the vines and put them into plastic boxes, which are then taken up the slopes into waiting vehicles. If growers are lucky or can afford it, they can install a type of elevator on rails to help with this task. If not, the boxes go up on shoulders.
The CERVIM (Centre of Research, Studies, Safeguarding, Coordination and Valorization of Mountain Viticulture) is an international Organization created in 1987 by the Organization Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin. Since 2011, CERVIM has awarded regions a specific seal for heroic viticulture if they meet certain criteria, such as cultivating vines at altitudes of 500 meters or more, having vines on slopes above 30% gradient, and having vines on terraces.
Elsewhere in Europe, regions like Valtellina and Trentino Alto-Adige in Italy and France’s Côte Rôtie hold this distinction. In Spain, Ribeira Sacra is one of only a few of DOs that can use the seal.