HISTORY AND CULTURE
ARLANZA WINE ROUTE
Heritage and History are the essence of this land full of beauty in its noble houses, which date back to the fifteenth century and that you will find in every town you visit.
Its history is the history of the Romans, who settled down the shores of Arlanza leaving their mark. It is also the history of the “Reconquista” which sowed this land with a chain of fortresses and people coming from the north of the Iberican Peninsula, germ of the Castilian kingdom and the essence of the current Castilla.
LOCATION AND CONTACT
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DISCOVER OUR ROUTE
THE WINE
Discover the taste of this land
The variety of grape Tempranillo or Tinta del Pais, adapted to the area since ancient times, gives the wines of the Route Arlanza its own personality. Other varieties such as Grenache grape, Mencía, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Albillo or Viura, are also varieties approved by the Control Board DO Arlanza.
The wines that you will find along the route will make you discover the taste of this land. Enjoy drinking the fruit of a vineyard that suffers a climate with great contrasts of temperature and that, as a result, gives thick and tough skin grapes full of aroma and colour.
Strong wines that you can taste alone or as a perfect accompaniment to varied and tasty food grown in this land: peppers from Torquemada, cherries from Covarrubias, special thanks to their size and exquisite flavour; onions from Palenzuela or the famous cheese from Cerrato.
RESOURCES
Nature and wine
Nature and wine, always linked in this land, make up 2,000 km2 of landscape in the Arlanza Wine Route. A landscape that goes along the banks of river Arlanza, from the pinewoods of Quintanar de la Sierra, where its waters flow from east to west, to the border with Palencia, where it meets the Pisuerga river, near Torquemada.
The Arlanza Wine Route is made up of three colourful natural regions: Cerrato, Arlanza and Sierra de la Demanda.
The Cerrato valleys have the typical Castilian agricultural countryside with large fields used for cereal growing. This area goes on as you get in the province of Burgos, in moorlands near Los Balbases.
The region of Arlanza is crossed by rivers and streams whose banks give life to big forests of oak trees and junipers. Places where you can enjoy a hard countryside where erosion and time have created a folded relief, caves carved in rocks, waterfalls and rough cliffs.
The Arlanza wine route has lots of attractive elements that explain its millenary technology and culture: from some wineyards, planted at the beginning of the twentieth century and ancient vine cellar neighbourhoods, that survive nowadays, to the most modern wineries.
HERITAGE
The essence of Castilla
Arlanza Wine Route offers you the possibility to walk around and know the genuineness of its architecture: the townhouses constrained inside villages surrounded by walls, locking their history and clustered around the church, forming a compact net of narrow streets following the town planning of the Middle Ages and the popular neighbourhoods of wine cellars, reminiscent of a wine tradition dating back to the seventh century.
These cellars, which were dug underground and where wine laid down and was kept for family consumption, are still a meeting place to share with family and friends.
On your way through the Arlanza Wine Route, you’ll see the landscape, mute witness of the importance that cattle raising had across the Castilian “Cerrato”, dotted with lots of dovecots, used in the past for breeding pigeons, and mills, in another time the best exponent of the economic prosperity of a town or village.
You can also see the typical “candonga”, a conical chimney crowning the roof of many houses and connected to a fireplace traditionally used to cure pig meat.
The great monastic ensembles are another hallmark of this route, providing this area with a silence, respect and spirit that transport you to a time when the wine was a very important part of everyday life.
FESTIVALS
Many festivals and cultural activities throughout the year
Enjoy many and varied festivals and cultural activities which take place every year along the wine route’s towns and cities.
It stands out some good examples such as the medieval and cherry festival with its medieval market or Wines with history D.O. Arlanza Festival, held annually at Covarrubias. Arlanza’s Product exhibition at Puentedura, along with Wine Harvest Festival and The Local Products Flea Market at Quintanilla del Agua. Not to forget Los Santos Fair at Lerma, among many others.
GASTRONOMY
The gastronomic destination you were looking for
The gastronomy of the Wine Route Arlanza is mostly based on pig products: morcilla, chorizo, picadillo…If you get into this land, you will be delighted with many different products offered by the very nature, such as trout, crabs, snails and a big variety of mushrooms. You can also taste the typical stews of hare, rabbit, partridge or pigeon flavoured with spices such as lavender, thyme or sage.
If you are looking for tasting the most typical food wherever you go, You can eat the best “sopas de ajo”, “setas”, “cocido” and “olla podrida”.
Do not leave without tasting the flagship of the kitchen in the route: the lamb. Order it roasted in a wood oven or grilled in chops, but always accompanied by excellent wines from this DO.
If you look for the local colour wherever you go, do not forget that here you can taste the best soup of garlic, mushrooms, cooked or rotten pot, typical examples of the varied menu of Arlanza Wine Route.
And don’t forget to buy some of the rich sweets produced in the monasteries and convents, using traditional methods and which are able to sweeten and delight the most demanding palates: pastries, “pastas”, cakes, truffles and herbal liqueurs.
Definitely, in Arlanza Wine Route, you are in the gastronomic destination you were looking for.
ACTIVITIES
A world of sensations
Come to feel the essence of Castile. Discover a world of sensations. Join us at the heart of a land where wine history and culture travel through time.
Live the experience of going across suspended foot bridges to walk above a deep and narrow gorge, in an exclusive natural area where you can find the biggest and best preserved junipers in our planet.
In the south of Burgos, get into La Sierra de la Demanda, passing Covarrubias and Santo Domingo de Silos. There you can watch some singular birds flying through the sky in a protected area.
Breathe the Nature in the Arlanza Wine Route, where you will find lots of places named as sites of community importance: the banks of rivers Arlanza, Arlanzón and their tributaries, the forests of junipers of Arlanza, the mountains of Cerrato and the moors of Torquemada. All of them are ideal places for hiking and outdoor activities.
We invite you to follow the paths through the three natural regions that touch the river Arlanza: The Cerrato, Arlanza and Sierra de la Demanda. Each of them gives to the territory of the DO Arlanza its own landscape and natural resources.
HOW TO GET THERE
Between Burgos and Palencia
The Arlanza Wine Route is situated in the south of the city of Burgos and in the east of Palencia along the Castilian provinces of Palencia and Burgos, where the river that gets its name flows through wineyards, junipers, cereals and sunflowers. 2,000 km², with more than 450 hectares of vineyards, located between the middle and lower valley Arlanza, the Sierra de Covarrubias and Cerrato moors, protected by the Denomination of Origin Wine Arlanza.
This area is crossed from north to south by the Madrid–Irún highway. From east to west, the 122 National road follows the course of Arlanza river, connecting to an extensive net of country roads that take you to the heart of this route.
CONTACT:
Telephone: 947 177 016
Email: info@rutadelvinoarlanza.com
