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About 40 years ago, Rueda had a near-death experience. There was no blinding flash of white light to report. In fact, the decline had been long and gradual and not altogether unpleasant, a cascade of melancholy sweetness. If the wines of Rueda had disappeared then, few would have noticed or cared. But it was not to happen. Rueda is one of four traditional Spanish wine regions that almost touch noses near the city of Valladolid along the Duero River northwest of Madrid. To the east, Ribera del Duero, which pro- duces elegant red wines, stretches out for miles along the river like a lazy giant. To the north, there is Cigales, long famous for its rosés. To the west is Toro, increasingly known for its powerful, old-vine reds. To the south is Rueda, which has produced white wine for centuries. Most of the vineyards are on a high plateau with rolling hills south of the Duero River as it flows west to become the Douro in Portugal. This is a continental climate with very hot, dry summers and cold winters, but also with welcome fluctuations in day and nighttime temperatures during the growing season. The soils are typically gravelly and well-drained, with lots of calcium and magnesium. Although Rueda is a large region with 74 towns and villages, most of its 62 wineries and vineyards are located just south of the river. Rueda has long made table wines, but Spanish drinkers traditionally placed its wines in the same category as, if not always on a par with, Jerez and Málaga. That was because its most highly-prized product was a high-alcohol, barrel-aged white wine called "Dorado," mainly from the Palomino grape. Its white table wines were considered rustic and were seldom exported. Rueda does have a fascinating winemaking lore from this era. Workers used supporting straps around their heads to tote sacks of ripe grapes to the crushers, gypsum sulfate was added to the must to lower the juice's pH, grapes were macerated a couple of days before going into a long-cooled fermentation in underground cellars, the outsides of wine-filled barrels were pounded with sticks to upset the carbonic balance, the fermented juice was clarified with clay or bulls' blood and a small hole in the barrel was stoppered with a chicken feather, which, when withdrawn, would allow the winemaker to check the small stream of wine for clarity. But as the 20th century entered its closing quarter, a life-changing event took place in sleepy Rueda. The Rioja-based giant, Marqués de Riscal, determined it needed "a white wine that could reach the height of prestige and reputation" of it reds, says Francisco Hurtado de Amézaga, a descendant of the founder of Riscal and its director. Riscal was dissatisfied with whites made in its native Rioja, so it brought the noted French enologist Émile Peynaud to help solve the problem. "Following two years of tests and trials in various regions of Spain with quality white wine producers, it was decided that [we] would install a modern winery with all the high-spec equipment of the day in Rueda," Hurtado says. The area, he adds, had only one cooperative and a few small producers. "Nobody had shown any interest in Rueda until then." The wine world was caught by surprise. "As [Riscal's] importers in Britain, we were astonished to be advised that there would be no more Riscal white from Rioja," English wine merchant Jeremy Watson remembered in his book The New & Classical Wines of Spain. "We had never heard of Rueda." At the same time, a small producer, Angel Rodríguez of Martínsancho, is credited for championing what has today become Rueda's signature grape—Verdejo—very popular in wine bars from Madrid to New York to San Francisco. Rodriguez owned a plot of old-vine Verdejo which he had for years refused to uproot in favor of the more-popular Viura and Palomino. Instead, his advocacy of the indigenous Verdejo in the 1970s was so successful that he was given a special citation for his work by King Juan Carlos. Aided by these two events, Rueda quickly awakened from its torpor as new winegrowers rushed in, and Verdejo was rediscovered. By 1980, Rueda was given D.O. status, and today it has about 20,000 acres of vines in production. Verdejo is the dominant grape—in fact, supply cannot keep up with current demand due to its popularity in Spain, the United States and elsewhere. The other primary white grapes are Sauvignon Blanc, used both as a varietal and in blending, the native Viura, the white grape of Rioja, and Palomino. Gretchen Thomas, Wine and Spirits Director for Connecticut-based Barteca restaurants, finds Verdejo "very easy to sell." PHOTO: ROBERT CURTIS Somm Journal June/July.indd 82 5/9/14 12:11 PM