The Ruta del Vino Somontano (or Somontano Wine Route) territorial project concerns the area of Barbastro (Huesca), identified as the county of “Somontano de Barbastro” in the region of Aragón, Spain. It is an exemplary process of diversification of the local rural economy. The intervention leverages the socio-economic and cultural assets of the area by promoting linkages between civil society and businesses, the individual and the collective spheres, as well as harnessing the potential arising from the alliance between public and private actions. The binding element used by the Somontano Wine Route development project is wine, which has become an identifier (or identificador) of the area, bringing together several productive and cultural sectors.
For this reason, the wine industry under the Somontano Designation of Origin, together with the Barbastro City Council and the County of Somontano, created the Ruta del Vino Somontano in 2006. The Ruta takes advantage of the territory’s resources and considers wine as an “active agent”, something well internalized and identified by the local community. The Somontano Wine Route initiative is not only a tourism product, but also a high-quality strategy managed within the Wine Routes of Spain project, led by the Spanish Association of Wine Cities (ACEVIN).
Two dedicated websites, “rutadelvinosomontano.com” and “dosomontano.com”, publicise the project’s mission and proposed experiences. The websites tell the history of the territory and recommend a multitude of eligible experiences offered by the Ruta. Wineries, urban spaces, festivals, locally-sourced food, restaurants, natural parks, hiking and sports activities, religious tourism, cultural parks, are all available with one simple click. Moreover, with the special Somontano wine bus, visitors can easily reach rural destinations from urban centres such as Zaragoza, Barbastro and Huesca, thereby enjoying a touristic programme that offers different seasonal itineraries. The wine bus also helps bypass the structural transport barriers that characterise rural areas and widens the project’s impact by involving another economic sector in the development strategy.
Finally, the strong promotional campaigns put in place throughout the territory and on the Internet contributed to making the Somontano Wine Route the ninth (out of twenty-nine) preferred enotourism destination in the country. According to a 2019 study carried out by ACEVIN, 16.8 % of the enotourists around Spain would like to visit the route in the future.