It has been a long road that went through several phases, some very complex, but it is getting closer and closer. It was more than five years ago when the La Orotava City Council proposed that braided cord, a cultivation technique unique in the world and characteristic of the La Orotava Valley, be declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) with the category of intangible cultural heritage of ancestral character, an initiative that was joined shortly afterwards by the other two municipalities of the Valley, Los Realejos and Puerto de la Cruz.
From that moment on, they began to work together to draft the corresponding file to present to the Cabildo of Tenerife and obtain this declaration after the necessary plenary agreements of the three institutions and the support of the sector.
The document was announced yesterday at the town hall by the three mayors, Francisco Linares, Adolfo González and Marco González; the councilor for agriculture, Alexis Pacheco; the Historical Heritage technician of the Consistory and the person responsible for coordinating the file and its elevation, Pablo Torres; the president of the Regulatory Council of the Denomination of Origin (DO) Valle de La Orotava, Jesús Corvo, and as a guest, his counterpart of the Regulatory Council of the Denomination of Origin Ribeira Sacra (Lugo), José Manuel Rodríguez.
This cultivation technique allows the vineyard to adapt to the orography of the land and take advantage of the space and this, in turn, means that the wines of the area maintain such a characteristic and special uniqueness without needing to touch the soil.
It is an ancestral tradition that has been transmitted from generation to generation for more than 500 years and is preserved despite the agrarian changes in recent times and hence the need to protect it so that it is not lost and the agricultural landscape is maintained in the region, explained Torres.
“Achieving this declaration will create an economic incentive to maintain the wine sector and this differentiating technique in the world,” declared Pacheco.
Jesús Corvo specified that within the DO there are 188 hectares of braided cord cultivation but estimated that this amount is half of the planted area in the Valley, which may be around 400 hectares. While Puerto de la Cruz barely has a thousand square meters, Los Realejos and La Orotava rise to 52 and 136 hectares, respectively.
In this sense, Marco González stressed that the tourist city is where production becomes important. “The DO is increasingly present in restaurant services and tourist establishments, which also serve as a stage for the evaluation of the harvest,” he said.
Adolfo González alluded to the fact that José de Viera y Clavijo, the most illustrious real estate owner, already referred in the 18th century to this particular aspect of this vineyard system “which continues to be a hallmark of the municipality” and the third most important crop behind of potatoes and cereals.
For this reason, he promised that actions to support the sector will continue, such as technical and educational conferences; guided routes through the landscapes of the vine and wineries; gastronomic and wine promotion events, and the regional and local Manuel Grillo Oliva wine competition within the framework of the May Festival.
Finally, Francisco Linares valued the unity of the three city councils together with the Regulatory Council to defend this tradition, which is unique in the world, and dignify the wine sector, which faces a generational problem.
The president also recognized that the BIC declaration would contribute to the recognition of La Orotava as a UNESCO World Heritage city with the category of Cultural Landscape and Mixed Property, a file that the local government intends to resume next year.
