Cuadernos de Turismo, 32, (2013), 307-309 Cuadernos de Turismo, nº 32, (2013); pp. 307-309 Universidad de Murcia ISSN: 1139-7861 RAILROAD, HERITAGE AND WINE CULTURE IN THE RIBERA DEL DUERO IN VALLADOLID (CASTILE AND LEON, SPAIN) Julio Fernández Portela Carlos Hugo Soria Cáceres Universidad de Valladolid jfportela@geo.uva.es, chsoriacaceres@gmail.com In recent years, the wine tourism has found an important market share in the economic activity in areas associated with the production of wine, whether long established or newly created. The new culture of tourism and the opening of markets have discovered the importance of this activity, generally understood as a set of resources related to the wine culture, cuisine and heritage of a territory. The expansion has been seen in various places, both in Spain and in the rest of the world, mainly due to the diversification of activities, an important asset when it is especially related to local economies. In this sense, local players are increasingly considering wine tourism as a dynamic force for the economy, since on the one hand, for the wine business, diversification and combination of the wine industry with tourism offers significant alternative business opportunities through the direct sale of wine, while representing a new way of generating brand awareness and visitor loyalty to the values, principles and products of a winery. Moreover, for tourism entrepreneurs, wine tourism is an important opportunity to generate additional demand for its traditional tourist product, in this case, rural tourism, a tourist typology which suffers a strong seasonal component concentrated on weekends, long weekends and summer time and an increasingly fierce competition between destinations and establishments to attract demand flows. Finally, for the territory, wine tourism can become a spur to the development of new business opportunities, creating synergies of collaboration between local agents to launch a new product although strongly dependent on the wine sector. In Spain it is possible to see wine tourism development projects implemented in different Denominations of Origin. For example, through an initiative promoted by the Association of Wine Cities of Spain (ACEVIN) and the General Secretariat of Tourism they have developed the draft of the Wine Routes in Spain, which aims to promote these routes through 22 different locations throughout the country. Some of the main destinations of this project are La Rioja, Jerez and El Penedès, which together receive nearly half a million tourists in their wineries. Each on of them responds to a different model, and so, while in La Rioja we can really talk about wine tourism, where the primary motivation