Bodegas Vitheras S.L.

Viticultores Heroicos Asturianos S.L. (Vitheras S.L.) is a winery located in western Asturias, which began its activities in the summer of 2014, as the continuation of a centuries-old tradition.

The last generation of the house of Don Juan (the grandchildren): Carlos Ron Martínez, Laura Ron Martínez, Miguel Lomba Martínez and Pablo Lomba Martínez have taken the baton from their grandparents, who during their 80 years have tended the vines in these sharp valleys of the Cibea River no more than 10 km from the Villa de Cangas de Narcea.

Viticulture in this type of difficult terrain (such as steep slopes, high altitude or islands) is what is known worldwide as heroic viticulture. However, the history of this winery dates back to the 16th century, specifically to the year 1556, when the oldest document that speaks of the existence of the family's vineyards and their commercialisation (the same vineyard that is now in production and being replanted up to 7 ha).

Specifically, at the end of the 19th century, the wines of this region won international prizes in Bordeaux, Angers, Ruan and Lugo and gained a certain international reputation. People such as Jovellanos spoke with admiration of these wines and the Count of Toreno, Suarez Cantón or the musician Anselmo González del Valle, cultivated extensive vineyards in the area with notable success during the 19th century. Although the arrival of powdery mildew, phylloxera, mildew and black rot diseases in the late 19th and early 20th centuries affected these vineyards, like those throughout Europe, they were rebuilt and continued for many years to produce outstanding wines of similar quality to those produced at that time in many other European regions.

With the arrival of mining, industrialisation and the abandonment of rural areas in the 50s and 60s (20th century), viticulture gradually disappeared, until it was reduced to just small plots of land cared for by the old winegrowers of the area, who were reluctant to abandon them.

Since 1986, Mª del Carmen Martínez, a CSIC scientist, undertook the recovery of this wine-growing area which had been completely forgotten at that time, rescuing, describing, conserving and reintroducing to the market, after many years of research, the native varieties of the area such as Albarín Blanco, Verdejo Negro, Albarín Negro or Carrasquín and other foreign varieties, but which had been cultivated in this area for centuries before and which showed, some of them, a high level of adaptation, producing wines of great quality. This is the case of the Moscatel de Grano Menudo Blanco, or the Moscatel de Grano Menudo Rojo, the latter of which has practically disappeared worldwide, Asturias being the only place in Spain where it is still cultivated in a minority form.

This is where Vitheras S.L. comes into play, using the best of these recovered varieties for the production of its wines, the ones that produce the most original and high quality wines, under the special climate and soil conditions of Asturian viticulture, combining the family and regional tradition of more than 500 years to produce a wine of exceptional quality based on the concept of "terroir" in its broadest sense.