Ribera Baja

Location

Set in the south of Navarre, in the Ebro valley between Aragón and La Rioja. Main town: Tudela.

Landscape

Great plain, very flat with little vegetation, dominated by the imposing presence of the Sierra del Moncayo. There is much market gardening in the most fertile areas.

Surface area

5,165 hectares.

Main varieties grown

Amongst the red wine varieties, the Tempranillo is the dominant grape (40%) followed by the Garnacha (30%). As far as the whites are concerned, the zone boasts the largest concentration of Viura and Moscatel in the region.

Soils

Many of the vineyards are on soils located on different levels of quaternary terraces and glacis formed by the river Ebro and its tributaries on the right bank. Most of the sediments come from the Iberian system. This is flat land with deep, loamy soils which are often stony. At a shallow depth beneath the surface, limestone crusts are frequent on the higher terraces, such as the Montes de Cierzo. In the southern most part, on the gentle slopes of the zone dominated by the Moncayo, the soils are of varying thickness and stoniness, with fine or silty loam textures on alternate marl and sand layers of the continental tertiary conglomerate of the Ebro valley.

Climate

This is quite a homogeneous zone as far as climatic conditions are concerned, and is right in the semi-arid zone. Considering the thermal regime and the mean annual precipitations of between 361 and 384 mm, the vineyard water deficit is considered to be more than 300 mm per annum. The most favourable vegetation periods for the vineyard, and the longest in the D.O. Navarre, range from 227 days in Fitero to 255 in Tudela, and all the grape growing bioclimatic indexes achieve their highest values in this zone.

Municipal districts and councils

Ablitas, Arguedas, Barillas, Cascante, Castejón, Cintruénigo, Corella, Fitero, Monteagudo, Murchante, Tudela, Tulebras and Valtierra.