The "valley of gold" earned its name literally: Rome drove the Via Nova through here toward the vast gold workings of Las Médulas, and wine followed the road. The slate and granite terraces above the river Sil have carried vines since Roman times, at the inland edge of Galicia where Atlantic rain gives way to Castilian sun.
The region's modern founding story is a rescue. Godello, its great white grape, had dwindled to near extinction by the mid-twentieth century, kept alive in scattered old parcels; the replanting campaign begun in 1974, known as REVIVAL, rebuilt the variety vine by vine. Today godello dominates the valley and stands among Spain's most admired whites — a grape that owes its existence to a deliberate act of recovery.