Rioja: The land that awakened the titans
“ Before wine had a name, the land already had memory. ”
This year, as Rioja celebrates the centenary of its Denominación de Origen (DO), it's a good time to look beyond the last century. Because although the DO was born in 1925, the history of this land—geological, mythological, and spiritual—goes back much further. From the Titans to the Celtic gods, from medieval monks to new winemakers challenging the system, Rioja is, above all, a land that speaks.
The mythical origin: Titans and sacred land
In the beginning, there were no men. No kingdoms, no barrels, no labels. There was only the earth, rough, mineral, still warm from the fury of the Titans. When Zeus defeated them in the great Olympian War, not all were cast into Tartarus. Some—legend says—fled westward, toward the end of the known world. There, most likely in what we now call the Iberian Peninsula, the westernmost part of the European continent, their fall left folds, terraces, and valleys, as if their bodies had sculpted the landscape with pain and silence.
Their fingers tore through red and white clay. Their footprints filled with silt and limestone. And where their hands touched the stone, the earth learned to store minerals. No one knew it then, but centuries later, when humans planted the first vines on these hills, they would find in that ancient soil an inexplicable strength. The same strength that today we call terroir.
The Celtic gods and forest wine
But it wasn't just the Titans who inhabited these lands. Long before Rome imposed its order, this territory was part of the Celtic world. From Aquitaine to the Ebro highlands, ancient peoples believed that every mountain, every spring, every tree had its spirit.
Among these gods, one in particular roamed the forests with a hammer in one hand and a barrel in the other: Sucellus, the Celtic god of wine, fertility, and forests. He was worshipped in Gaul, but he also crossed the Pyrenees. Some say that wherever Sucellus struck the earth with his hammer, wild vines sprouted, and that wherever he let his barrel rest, the wine aged on its own, without the need for wood or time.
It is said that Sucellus crossed into Hispania through the mists of the Pyrenees. Where he rested his hammer, the soil became fertile. Where he drank, the people learned to honor the land. And so, before monasteries or denominations existed, there was already sacred wine in those lands.
The wine of the Romans and the language of stone
When the Romans arrived in northern Hispania, they already knew that the vine was more than a plant. It was culture, medicine, and religion. In what is now Rioja, they left clear traces of their presence: winepresses carved out of stone, broken amphorae, and rural villas near the Ebro. Wine accompanied Roman citizens like bread and oil. It was no surprise, then, that in this fertile region, warm by day and cool by night, the vine thrived.
But what surprised the Romans—and continues to surprise us today—was the mineral complexity of the soil. On alluvial terraces, limestone hills, and clayey strata with marine fossils, the vine learned to speak a profound language. One that the ancient gods understood, and one that we are only just rediscovering today.
The monks, the pilgrims and the blood of the earth
In the Middle Ages, while Christian kingdoms fought over the map of the peninsula, monasteries traced another kind of border: that of agricultural knowledge. At the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, monks copied codices... and planted vineyards. In their chalices, wine was more than food; it was liturgy. And pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago drank this dark, rustic wine with the soul of rocks.
Rioja was also a border country. Between Navarre, Castile, and Aragon, its hills witnessed wars, pacts, and legends. One of them, the Battle of Clavijo, tells of how Saint James appeared on a white horse to aid the Christian troops against the Moors. On that day, according to legend, blood and wine mingled, and from then on, Rioja was a sacred land.
The time between harvests: centuries of anonymity
For centuries, Rioja was a wine-producing region without a standard. Wine was produced, yes—rustic, local, often in stone winepresses or buried vats. It was sold to Burgos, Castile, and the north. But there was no unified identity. The wine belonged to the people, the valley, and everyday life. There was no DO, no aging rules, and no Bordeaux fame.
And yet, the land continued to speak. The roots continued to sink into the soil. The landscape was still filled with signs of the ancients: carved stone, forgotten paths, half-erased scrolls. The vine continued to learn from all of this, in silence.
The rebellion of the terroir: the Rioja of the future
In the 20th century, Rioja became synonymous with aging: Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva. Barrel, barrel, barrel. But the 21st century brought another voice. A new generation of winemakers—children of the land, and sometimes outsiders with attentive ears—began to ask:
What if we listen to the ground again?
Names like Telmo Rodríguez, Artuke, Sierra de Toloño, Olivier Rivière, Tentenublo, and many more are recovering the ancestral diversity of Rioja. They want to name their wines not by the time they spent in oak, but by the place where they were born. By the village. By the plot. By the soils.
Because there isn't just one Rioja. There are many: the one with clayey-ferrous soils in Rioja Alta, the one with limestone in Labastida, the one with sand and gypsum in Tudelilla. And each one holds the voice of a different story.
The echo of the gods
This year, Rioja celebrates 100 years since the official founding of its Denomination of Origin. A century in which the name "Rioja" was consolidated worldwide, but also in which many winemakers began to look back to the land, searching not for a brand, but for an origin. Today, in this centennial celebration, it's not just about celebrating an institution, but about honoring a land that has been speaking for thousands of years.
When you drink a wine from a specific plot in Rioja—one of those that doesn't respond to formulas, but to places—it's possible to hear something beyond the aroma: a mineral, ancient vibration, like the echo of heavy footsteps on stone. Perhaps it's the titans, still asleep underground. Or Sucellus, smiling beneath an oak tree. Or the monks, who still pray for the health of the vineyard from the cool shadows of the valley.
Perhaps it is simply the land, finally, speaking clearly.
