New landscapes and new forms of production: the expansion of services companies and employees in the Douro wine-growing areas

Abstract

The Douro Valley in Spain is undergoing a vigorous process of viticultural and winemaking expansion without precedents. Its wines, increasingly valued in the national and international market, are added, in prestige, to the Portuguese Douro wines. Together, they make up a wine‑growing area of great vineyards and wines, of extraordinary dynamism and value. The Douro viñateiro has expanded its recognition and appreciation from its mouth in Porto to its source in Soria. The whole valley has acquired world‑wide fame for its wines, which are becoming more and more prized, and also for its increasingly well‑care vineyards, with investments from all over Europe and America. In this context, traditional viticulture is changing radically; the old vineyards fields, divided into very numerous plots, are reorganized into medium‑sized wine‑growing holdings, There has been a spectacular expansion of the vineyard, mainly in Rueda and the Tierra de Medina del Campo, as well as in some areas of La Ribera del Duero and Toro. In this new model of viticulture, many winegrowers are more like managers than workers in their vineyards. It is the model of viticulture in 21st century, which has generated a new landscape, with design wineries surrounded by vineyards, perfectly aligned, forming large wine‑growing plots. For its tillage, the work is outsourced, with workers, mostly immigrants, organized in viticulture service companies. All this happens thanks to the employment capacity of modern viticulture, which has been able to change the regressive course of rural areas in the Douro Valley.