PowerPoint Presentation - Navigating the Wines of Spain and Portugal

A Brief Wine-History of Spain

•Wine-growing Phoenicians arrive in Cádiz around 1100 B.C., and the Carthaginians and the Romans after them. Many empires and wars follow.

•Rome pacifies the whole peninsula under Augustus. Political stability furthers wine trade. Spanish wine is being sold in Rome and England in the 2nd century.

•The Roman Empire disintegrates, the Visigoths have their day.

•By 711 Iberia is in the hands of Islamic rulers who tolerate, rather than encourage, wine production and trade.

•Christians largely succeed in the re-conquest of Spain by the 12th century, including many important wine-growing areas.

•The wine industry grows around monasteries in Rioja, and the country’s first wine laws are written.