history
Already some 2,000 years ago, quotations from Pliny the Elder and Strabo refers to the existence of...
history
Already some 2,000 years ago, quotations from Pliny the Elder and Strabo refers to the existence of vines in the current region of Bierzo, which is originally derived from the pre-Roman city Bergidum. Furthermore, we know that the Romans drove dramatically agriculture of the land, introducing new crops such as vine-specific Vitis vinifera, native to the Caucasus and Armenia- and new techniques such as the Roman plow. However, further expansion of vineyards in Bierzo, was linked to the development of medieval monasteries, especially Cistercian, as the wine first, essential to the cult item and also because it was considered basic for food .
Therefore, it is not surprising that wine and occupy for ten centuries a very prominent in the economic life of the region and very steadily acquiring an increasingly important development as we go walking through the medieval centuries, under the frequented pilgrimage route in search of the tomb of St. James. They forged new monasteries, villages and hamlets emerged. And around him were spreading vines.
The wine is particularly important.
After centuries of production and having achieved some popularity in markets of Galicia and Asturias, the wines of Bierzo suffered a terrible blow in the late nineteenth century, when phylloxera vines virtually ended, causing a severe economic crisis that caused including, migration of large numbers of people.
The production was restored during the first half of the twentieth century through grafts performed with American vines, and the wine regained important role he played in the economy of the area. In the era of the sixties a new phenomenon, the cooperative movement, which play since and is now playing an important role in producing wines whose quality was fully recognized in 1989, arose when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food granted Protected Designation of Origin wines of Bierzo.
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