The Association for Overall Rural Development (A.D.R.I., from the Spanish acronym) in Ribera del Duero Burgalesa is a regional non-profit organisation that was created in 1996 to serve as a nucleus for all types of local actors to come together and be represented: this includes individuals and public and private entities interested in overall development in Ribera del Duero, in the province of Burgos.

Its most noteworthy objectives include serving as a driving force for internal and sustained development in the region, avoiding depopulation in rural areas, and increasing incomes and the social welfare of the region’s inhabitants, ensuring the conservation of the area and its natural resources. Other objectives include mobilising the population and raising its awareness so that it can take responsibility for its own development, as well as doing the same at the Community, Central, Autonomous, and Local levels of government in order to garner more financial support that will help put into action and manage regional development plans.

Our territory is located in the south of Burgos Province and is bordered to the southwest by Segovia Province, to the east by Soria Province, and to the west by Valladolid and Palencia Provinces. It is a region rich in river resources, with the River Duero crossing it from east to west and constituting an essential resource that gives this land its wealth and diversity of landscapes and animal life. All of the Duero’s tributaries are worth listing: Arandilla, Aranzuelo, Bañuelos, Gromejón, and Riaza, which, together with streams and the River Esguera, give us a very beautiful and characteristic riverside landscape and forest that contain a significant wealth of bird life.

The Duero and Esgueva River Valleys run parallel to each other and form a territory with numerous similar characteristics, fertile lowland formed by plains, rolling hillocks, hills, and slopes that superimpose themselves among irrigation systems, grains, vineyards and woodlands. It is this uninhabited vegetation that gives a special greenness to the landscape, woods, riverside vegetation that accompanies the flowing rivers, streams, springs…we should always keep in mind that the Ribera del Duero Burgalesa region is predominantly agricultural and has been exploited in this way since ancient times, from the fertile irrigated lowlands to the vast grain-producing highlands, and of course passing through the extensive vineyards that dot the landscape.

Winemaking was and still is a highly productive economic activity, but it has gone through several phases, with the approval of the Ribera del Duero Designation of Origin in July 1982 being crucial for its boom.

Of the different jobs that make up the winemaking process, the most popular is the grape harvest, which, although it depends on annual weather patterns, usually takes place in October, at a time when the vineyard becomes full of purple and ruby colours. Wineries prepare to receive the carefully handled fruit which, over a period of one year of hard work, will be submitted to rigorous quality controls in order to obtain an excellent vintage. At the individual level, there are those that revive the old wine press to produce wine for family consumption, an experience that never goes unnoticed.

The combination of wine from Ribera del Duero and lamb from Castilla y León is unseparable because together they make for a dining experience like no other. The meal can be enjoyed in the area’s most famous restaurants, where diners enjoy careful and detailed service, or, as is customary for people that live in Ribera, they can get together with friends and family in old wineries that have been transformed into outdoor bars, to experience some roasted lamb chops and a light red wine from that year’s production.

Visitors can’t leave without touring the rich historical and cultural heritage that our ancestors have left us, and it will make them understand the reason for our Castilian identity and character; this heritage includes prehistoric settlements, Roman archaeological sites, border castles, palaces; religious buildings such as convents, collegiate churches, churches, and hermitages of all architectural styles together with a wide variety of popular architecture and folklore rich in picturesque dances, traditional music linked to farmwork, religious and popular festivals, and pilgrimages that allow travellers to become involved in the community and be taken in as the community’s own. That is the moment in which they will know the friendliness and simplicity of the people of Ribera del Duero Burgalesa.

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