Toro obtained official DO status in 1987 and has boomed since 1999 when there were just nine wineries in the region. Today there are 63 and they export up to 35% of their wines. However, the region was also famous in Roman times, as some vestiges found in the region demonstrate. It was also a well-known wine production centre in the Middle Ages when King Alfonso IX of León wrote, ‘I have got a bull that gives me wine and a lion that drinks it’, referring to the trade between Toro (the bull) and the León area (the lion).
In...