There is evidence that Romans made wine in the Ebro Valley, and even as early as the 15th century the name Rioja was in use. (The name derives from the river Oja, or Rio Oja, which is a tributary to the Ebro.) The wine industry itself remained focused around the region’s monasteries, little known to outsiders due to Rioja’s physical isolation.
The anonymity began to peel away in the 1700s when Bilbao became a trading center, but it wasn’t until 1850 that Luciano de Murrieta founded the region’s first commercial bodega. Rioja’s emergence in terms of recognition came in the second half of the 19th century, when Bordeaux wine merchants—responding to the devastation of their own vineyards by phylloxera—crossed the Pyrenees in search of wine. The French brought vital vinification techniques and, more important, 225-liter oak barrels that became the backbone of red-wine production in Rioja (today, American oak is generally favored over French). The new ideas and demand for wine helped spur Rioja into a boom period. Even when phylloxera eventually took hold, the reputation of the wine held fast as the vineyards were replanted with phylloxera-resistant rootstock.