Galicia on path to recovery from ‘Australia-like’ wildfires
Galician producers are recovering from some of the worst fires in the region’s history, with flames licking areas of up to 1,700 hectares. Andrew Neather reports.
Jesús Varela is standing in a vineyard to break any winemaker’s heart. The first few rows in this plot in Galicia are charred stumps. Behind him, a blackened stand of zarza undergrowth shows where the wildfire last August jumped from. This summer saw the worst wildfires in this wine-producing region for many years. And they have raised troubling questions about future risks.
Varela’s Trasdovento winery was one of the worst affected in the small denominación de origen of Monterrei. Nearby at producer Tapias Mariñan, rows of unpicked grapes, shrivelled black by the fire’s heat, stand unpicked. The winery lost six hectares of Godello grapes, as well as some red.
Other producers feel lucky to have escaped. At Gargalo, in Monterrei, General Manager Eduardo Rodriguez points to trees at the edge of a plot of vines just behind the winery: “The fire was right here – we were lucky not to be touched,” he says. “The wind carried the fire away from us.”
Growing problem
The problem is growing. Galicia is nicknamed “España Verde” – Green Spain – for its damp, Atlantic climate, yet parts of the region do nowadays get very hot in summer, with temperatures over 40℃. There have been fires for a number of years. What made this year especially bad was a wet winter followed by an early growing season and then a very hot, dry summer, both encouraging undergrowth and drying it out.
This fire risk is added to by the growing patches of abandoned agricultural land: the region has suffered significant rural depopulation over the past 50 years. In many places where there are still vineyards, they act as firebreaks, protecting houses and buildings. This was also the pattern in the much bigger white-wine-dominated region of Valdeorras, to the east. As you drive into Valdeorras from León province, at the point you cross the Muiño viaduct, a vista of blackened hillsides spreads before you.
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“It was hellish – we were lucky,” says Teresa López of Adega o Cabalín, in Vilamartín, Valdeorras. “These were Australian-style fires.”
Whereas Galician wildfires routinely cover up to around 30 ha, this year some raged for days over areas of up to 1700 ha. It has hit wine volumes for the 2025 vintage: at leading producer Valdesil, in Valdeorras, production is down by around a third, in part due to the fires.
Smoke taint
But even vineyards not directly damaged by the flames face a further hazard: smoke taint. “We were surrounded by smoke for three days,” says Trasdovento’s Varela. Tank samples of three parcels of red wine from his Mencía grapes showed clear signs of smoke damage, the worst-affected tank having an acrid, burnt note.
Thus in both Monterrei and Valdeorras, many growers are sending their grapes for analysis. White wines are generally at lower risk, since they do not macerate on skins like reds, though it seems likely that some will emerge tainted.
“This fire was the worst yet, and the first time for us where there has been a risk of taint,” said David Pascual, winemaker at Pago de los Capellanes’s O Luar do Sil winery. He has sent their Godello grapes for testing. In the future, he says, “We need to adapt.”
The worst-hit producers will have to replant. But in the coming years, fires are a worry for the region. Climate change has already worsened the problem – and bigger fires are more likely in future. Galician wine businesses want to avoid the annual uncertainty over fires that plagues parts of California. But with current patterns of settlement, they will be at the mercy of the summer weather.
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