Numanthia: a Toro game-changer

The sun sets over Numanthia's old-vine vineyards in Toro, Spain.

Bodega Numanthia offers a fresh, elegant take on Toro.

I will never look at a Toro wine in quite the same way again. My first thoughts about this region of north-east Spain used to be about all the alcoholic, weighty, oaky and tannic wines produced under torridly hot, arid summer conditions. But a recent tasting of the wines of Bodega Numanthia changed my mind.

Bodega Numanthia is in Valdefinjas, in the Toro DO, which sits between Ribera del Duero to the east and Portugal’s Douro region to the west. (See map here.) In this region the climate is brutal...