Vatan Wineries

For a long time, the town of Toro was known in Spain for producing an excellent red wine, even being mentioned in the literary works of Alfonso IX (King of León, 12th century), Juan Ruiz “El Arcipreste de Hita”, Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, and Miguel de Cervantes. In 14th-century Seville, the sale of any foreign wine except Toro wines was prohibited. These were wines that even accompanied Spanish explorers to the New World.

The legendary Duero River plays an important role in the history of the Toro Designation of Origin. It was the Duero that deposited the characteristic sandy substrate of this designation in this region thousands of years ago. These sandy soils allowed the Toro D.O. to resist the phylloxera plague, being the only Spanish region to do so, becoming the area with the highest concentration of ungrafted vines in Spain.

Jorge Ordóñez is the leading promoter of Toro today. When he first traveled to Toro in 1991, he discovered no more than five wine cooperatives. However, he found hectares of fantastic pre-phylloxera vineyards, planted with their original vines. In 1995, Jorge takes the Eguren family from Rioja to Toro, hoping to found a winery with them. And thus Bodegas Numanthia was born in 1997, becoming an icon for this historic region and for the production of genuine world-class wines. In 2007, when Jorge and his partners sold Numanthia to LVMH, there were already 85 other wineries in the Toro D.O. trying to emulate Numanthia's success.