TRADITION

Fragment of the inaugural proclamation of the Feasts of San Agustín, Toro, by Don José Navarro Talegón, historian and former Commissioner of Heritage.

The name of Toro entered the scene of the history of Spain a thousand years ago, relating it to the strategic role that it then played as a stronghold on the border of the Asturian kingdom against the Muslim territory. None of the many important events of his dense historical trajectory later contributed to the citizen a fame superior to that given by the vineyards, his main source of wealth.

For the author of the "Rhymed Chronicle of Alfonso the Onceno", "Toro is the source of wine". Already previously the red of this land had prestige, with which Alfonso IX granted plantations and exports in 1225 to various monasteries in Spain, so that our wines did not find a serious competition with those of La Rioja until S. XVIII .

Already the prudent Queen María de Molina regulated with tariffs the sale of wine in Seville ordering "that no tavern or taverna or any other that sell wine, not sell wine from Sierra or Aljarafe or other wine, if it is not white Castilian or tinto de Toro ".

Similarly, in 1352 Pedro I "el Cruel", imposed a punishment for those who committed fraud for selling another wine that was not Toro red "cheating customers, they must seize the wine, and the car and the animals that carry it. "

He was recognized healthy and medicinal effects. From Seville, mid s. XVI, Dr. Monardes records that "the best wine that has passed through here is Tinto de Toro", and Carlos V's famous doctor, Francisco de Villalobos, prescribed it as medicine. Before that, the Archpriest of Hita had praised his strength by saying "those who drink wine from Toro do not drink anything" in the work of Rojas, the old Celestina.

So celebrated red is the "that gives good juice to the pitch" in the words of Quevedo, or the phrase "in rich glasses of gold, Toro reds" or the ruby ​​that Gongora unleashed in gold to cure melancholy and the one Lope de Vega tracked on the banks of the Duero in "the heavy cluster / with green threads to the attached branch." With plenty of reasons, Toro wine "the king of wines" has been said.

The colonization of America increased the demand for Toresan wines, full of prestige that, unlike other weaker wines that could expire, converged several years and resisted the passage of the Atlantic without difficulties. That is why Christopher Columbus took him by naming one of the "la Pinta" caravels, because it was called a measure of drinking at the time.

At the beginning of the 16th century, due to the fame of Toro wine, the cultivation areas of the grapevine extend at the expense of the mountains, increasing its price by almost 360%. The splendid architectural promotions and the intense creative activity of the artistic workshops then based in this city, which today densify and exalt the Historic-Artistic Ensemble of the city of Toro, are testimonies of that expansion and of the wealth that it generated.