Rioja trip report

I posted in the travel forum, but wanted to also post some impressions here in Wine Talk as well. I am in Spain and spent last weekend in Rioja. I didn’t take any formal notes, as this trip was all about having fun and spending time with my daughter, who is studying this semester in Madrid.

I had booked appointments at a few wineries ahead of time, and in addition to the tours, most of the wineries’ tasting rooms were open. It was harvest, so the wineries were buzzing with activity of seasonal workers carting and sorting grapes, pumping the fermentation tanks, etc. Also, the roads around Haro were clogged up by slow moving tractors carrying loads of grapes from the vineyards, and workers could be seen from the road all day, picking.

We did tours at Roda, Cvne, Muga and Remirez de Ganuza, and we spent time in the tasting rooms of Lopez de Heredia and Gomez Cruzado. Cvne and Muga were generic, large group tours (although since we booked English language tours, they were significantly smaller than the Spanish ones), and we tasted their entry level wines. The experiences at Roda and Remirez de Ganuza were fabulous.

At Roda, it was only my daughter, me, and one other person in an essentially private tour and tasting. Our host was friendly and warm, and we had a truly enjoyable visit. We toured the entire facility, which was very busy with workers dumping crates of grapes into a big destemming machine and pumping over the oak fermentation tanks. They use 100% new French oak in the barrels, and have a modern style barrel room. We tasted the 2014 Riserva (mostly Tempranillo with some Graciano blended in) and 2015 Sela (less tempranillo than the Riserva, also blended with graciano and garnacha), both quite tasty and surprisingly approachable (both had been opened for a while before we tasted). The Sela is not labeled crianza, but i believe it meets the DOC requirements. I did not take notes, but I recall that we all noticed licorice on the Riserva flavor profile and preferred it to the Sela. We also tasted 2 olive oils that were amazing!
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Muga was a similar large tour as Cvne (and just down the road). The thing that was most remarkable about Muga is that they are the only winery in Spain that produces their own barrels. We visited the cooperage room and they explained the barrel making process, which I knew very little about. The other thing that stood out at Muga is that the barrel storage room was very overcorded! The had barrels in every possible crevice. We tasted 2 wines at the end of the tour: 2017 Muga white which is 90% viura, 10% malvasía and white garnacha, and 2015 Muga crianza, which is 70 & Tempranillo, 20% Grenache , and 10% mazuelo and graciano. The white was simple and easy drinking, with pineapple and citrus aromas and flavors, and the crianza was ok, nothing great. Again, would have been interested to taste the higher level wines, but we had to get to our appointment at Remirez and didn’t have extra time to spend in the tasting room. Like Cvne, they gave us the glass we used.
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Remirez de Ganuza is only 29 years old but was built to blend into the old village (Samaniego) it inhabits and looks much older. This was the only winery we visited that used steel fermentation tanks and emphasized cleanliness. They had a very modern “assembly line” for sorting and destemming - they made a big point that they cut off the bottom portion of the grape clusters and separated those for the “young” wine and only the top part (“shoulders”) went into their top wines. They had us taste a grape from the top of the cluster and compare it to one from the bottom to illustrate why they separate them (top was definitely sweeter). They use both French and American oak in their barrels. We tasted the 2013 Fincas de Ganuza Riserva (90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano but made from vines that are 25-40 years old) and 2008 Vina Coqueta (90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano also but only the top part of the grape clusters - the “shoulders” - go into this blend). I never had either of these wines before, and while I definitely enjoyed them, I prefer the yellow label flagship reserva wine that is 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Viura and Malvasia that I have had many times previously.
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Our visit at Cvne was a pretty standard large group tour, followed by a tasting of 2 of their entry level wines. They did let us keep our glass, though! Cvne is a HUGE operation! The history of the winery was interesting, and we were taken to the “cemetery” where library wines are stored, and creepy mold covers many of the bins. We tasted the 2017 Monopole, a white wine made of 100% viura that was unremarkable, and 2014 Reserva Rioja, which is a blend of 85% Tempranillo, with 15% Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo. I enjoyed the Reserva, but wish I had the chance to taste some of their other wines. The tasting room was unpleasantly packed, because it was Spain’s National Day the day I was there, so I left without trying to taste any wines besides the ones from the tour.
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At the end of our second day, we walked over to Gomez Cruzado. It was a beautiful day, so we sat outside and leisurely tasted the current releases. I had never tasted the Gomez Cruzado wines before, but really enjoyed the lineup. We tasted the 2016 Coseche white wine (85% Viura and 15% Tempranillo blanco), the 2014 Honarable “field blend” (Mostly Tempranillo blended with Garnacha, Graciano, Mazuelo and Viura of over 50 year old vines), the 2011 Reserva rioja, 2014 Cerro las cuevas (95 %Tempranillo from vines around 80 years old, blended with 5% Graciano) and the 2016 Pancrudo (100% old vine garnacha) I really enjoyed these wines, but for me, the Pancrudo was the standout and I bought a few bottles and am bringing them home in my suitcase!
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We then walked across the street to Lopez de Heredia. I am very familiar with - and love - these wines. They were pouring 3 current releases (2 of which I have had previously) - 2009 Vina Cubillo, 2006 Vina Tondonia and 2006 Vina Bosconia. I liked the Tondonia the best, and surprisingly, I preferred the Cubillo to the Bosconia, which I had never had before. (Side note: I ordered the 2005 Tondonia at a restaurant in Madrid the following night, and it was incredible, and to me, better than any of the current releases.)
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. I asked at each winery whether they had any posters for sale, and Ldh was the only one that had anything like that. The woman who was our host in the tasting room showed me a brochure, but they only 2 were available, and she gave them to me. There were 2 others I had really wanted, and to my surprise, later that day when I was back in my hotel in Haro, she called me to tell me she found them in another building! She said she would take them home with her, and I stopped by her apartment on my way back to Madrid to pick them up. Unbelievable hospitality! She would not accept anything from me when I picked them up, and was simply happy that she made me so happy.

Fun trip! Would have loved to have tasted deeper into the lineups of some of the wineries, but I really can’t complain about a wonderful weekend in Rioja. Cheers!
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3 Likes

Great write up. Not only is Muga not the only producer to cooper their own barrels in Spain, they aren’t even the only one in Rioja. Plenty of other do. Lopez, Vega Sicilia (RdD) and so many others.

Thanks for the report! We hope to visit and taste in Spain one day. (Missed opportunity when our daughter studied there 12 years ago!)

When we visited Lopez, they were hard to work making barrels. The cooperage was one of the more interesting parts of the tour!

Sounds like it was a wonderful trip. Great notes and photos too. Especially enjoyed reading about (and vicariously experiencing) your leisurely outdoor tasting at Gomez Cruzado (that’s my style too!). And what a treat and memory on getting those posters! Thanks for posting.

That’s funny - they made a big point about this on the tour! I did not get to take a tour at LdH, only a tasting.

On their website, LdH makes similar claim about being the only winery with own cooperage.

We saw cooperage at many wineries in Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

Great wrote up, Sherri. We went to Spain many years ago with my wife’s parents, so it does not count for much wine wise. I want to go back in the next few years.

Actually I never heard any of them claim they’re the “only” ones who do their own barrels, just that they make their own barrels. Seems weird to make the claim as being the only bodega doing it since they’re next to each other and all know each other well.

Nice trip Sherri!

Awesome stuff Sherri, thx!!

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I have no idea of the facts, but maybe LdH is linking “only” with “all” in the above.

More of the same right next door.

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sounds like a great trip Sherri!

Did you spend your entire time in spain only in Rioja? a small group of friends and I are looking at booking a trip to Spain this coming spring, I’d love to hear if you were anywhere else as well!

An area I’d really like to visit some day. Interesting, lots of photos of barrels, no photos of vineyards?

Not to pile on but, La Rioja Alta also claim to have their own cooperage. Great report Sherri, thank you…

David - at some point in the past, your family must have been in the trade!

From Muga’s website:

Following traditional methods, Bodegas Muga uses oak throughout all the wine-making process (fermentation, ageing and store). As a matter of fact, Bodegas Muga is one of the very few Spanish wineries that employ three coopers plus a “cubero” (who specializes in the big casks). They are in charge of working with the oak wood that will finally give that unique and personal touch to our wines.

As I said, I’ve never heard any of them say that they were the “only” ones making their own barrels, but then I never checked their websites. I would have surely asked about it because these folks are right next to each other and I’ve seen the coopers in all of them. Maybe, as mentioned, they’re parsing it very finely - “making all of their barrels”, vs some of them, etc. But that seems like word games and kind of petty.

Vega Sicilia produces its own barrels too, but less than half. They also have their own cork trees because they got burned on cork in the 1990s, and they have some of the most rigorous cork-testing of any winery in the world these days.

Great write-up and photos, Sherri. Made me want to visit! Thanks for taking the time to put that together.

Hi Matt - I posted in the travel forum and there are a lot of great threads there with lots of info to help plan your trip. We had done a family trip to Spain a few years ago where we spent 12 days and travelled to several cities, but not to any of the wine regions. This time, my daughter is spending the semester in Madrid, so I met her there and then rented a car and drove about 3 hours north to Rioja. We spent the rest of the time in Madrid.