Toro
Continental, semi-arid
A hot, dry stretch of the Duero valley making some of Spain's darkest, most powerful reds from Tinta de Toro, a local strain of Tempranillo.
Overview
About Toro
West of Ribera del Duero, further down the same river (called the Douro once it crosses into Portugal), Toro is hotter, drier and lower in altitude than its more famous neighbour. Its Tempranillo strain, Tinta de Toro, has thicker skins and smaller berries, giving deeply coloured, high-alcohol, powerfully structured wine even before oak.
Some of the region's vines, ungrafted and pre-phylloxera, are among the oldest in Spain, planted as sprawling bush vines that growers have increasingly recognised as a serious asset rather than a curiosity.
Toro is marked on the map.
Spain
Shaded: Zamora. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Continental, semi-arid
Hot, dry summers and cold winters, with less altitude-driven relief than Ribera del Duero, giving riper, higher-alcohol wine as a rule.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Sandy and alluvial soils along the Duero, with some ancient, ungrafted bush vines surviving in sandier plots phylloxera never reached.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Numanthia
A leading modern estate for concentrated, old-vine Tinta de Toro.
Pintia
Vega Sicilia's Toro project, from some of the region's oldest vines.
San Román
Mariano García's (ex-Vega Sicilia) family estate in Toro.