Spain · Rioja

Bodegas Martinez Lacuesta

An old Haro house founded in 1895 by a lawyer-journalist, making the full Rioja red range from 60 estate-owned hectares of Tempranillo, with a vermouth program born during the Spanish Civil War from a Catalan winemaker's formula.

The producer

Félix Martínez Lacuesta arrived at winemaking from journalism and law. He founded the bodega in Haro in 1895, a deliberate choice: the town had the railway, the Estación Enológica, and the infrastructure that serious wine production required in nineteenth-century Rioja. His five brothers joined over the following years, the company grew, and the house became a supplier to Spain's Royal Household. Around 60 shareholders hold stakes today, five family members remain actively involved, and the bodega still operates from the same Haro address after more than 130 years.

The red wine range covers every tier of Rioja's maturity ladder, from Joven through Gran Reserva, drawn from roughly 110 hectares of vineyard, 60 of which are estate-owned around the town. What makes this house editorially unusual is not the red wine programme but what runs alongside it: a vermouth produced since 1937, made from the bodega's finest wines rather than surplus stock, built on a formula developed with Catalan winemaker José María Jové during the Spanish Civil War and unchanged since.

Known for

Tempranillo across the full Rioja maturity ladder; Haro vermouth with French oak aging from a 1937 formula.

Notable facts

The story

The Wartime Formula

In 1937, with the Spanish Civil War at its height, Martinez Lacuesta began making vermouth. The project started because of a working relationship with José María Jové, a Catalan winemaker who brought a formula built around aromatic herbs and plants macerated into white wine. What made the arrangement unusual was the bodega's decision about which wine to use: instead of directing surplus or lower-quality stock into the vermouth, as most producers of the period did, Martinez Lacuesta used its finest wines as the base. The formula Jové delivered has not changed. The vermouth is still in production, the same herbs, the same white wine base, the same French oak casks. In 2005, nearly seventy years after that wartime arrangement, the bodega released its first Vermut Reserva, cask-aged for seven months, an extension of the original commitment rather than a departure from it.

From the atlas

Bodegas Martinez Lacuesta

At A Glance

The Producer

Félix Martínez Lacuesta was a lawyer and journalist before he was a winemaker. He founded the bodega in Haro in 1895, and over the following years his five brothers joined him to form a company. The house became a supplier to Spain's Royal Household. More than 130 years later, around 60 shareholders hold stakes in the operation, five family members remain actively involved, and the bodega still sits in Haro, the town that the railway made into Rioja's wine capital in the nineteenth century.

The range covers every tier of Rioja's maturity ladder. The facilities, rebuilt and inaugurated in 2011, span more than 16,000 square metres with underground cellars integrated into the vineyard slope for natural temperature regulation. What makes Martinez Lacuesta editorially unusual is not the red wine programme but what sits alongside it: a vermouth that has been produced since 1937, made from the bodega's finest wines rather than its surplus, and still sold under the same formula today.

Place

Haro is Rioja Alta's commercial and winemaking centre, built up around a railway junction that allowed Bordeaux merchants and Spanish producers to move wine efficiently north into France. The town sits at the western end of the Rioja Alta sub-zone, where the Atlantic weather system from the Cantabrian mountains moderates what would otherwise be a hotter, drier inland climate. That moderation keeps acidity higher and slows ripening, which is why Rioja Alta producers have historically aged their wines longer before release: the fruit comes in with more acid to support the barrel time.

DOCa Rioja, the appellation that covers the region, sets the framework for Martinez Lacuesta's range: four red maturity tiers defined by minimum ageing periods, a classification that appears on the label and tells how much barrel and bottle time the wine has seen before it left the cellar. Haro's vineyards sit on a mix of clay-limestone and alluvial soils, both common across Rioja Alta, and both capable of producing Tempranillo with the grip and acidity that the Crianza and Reserva tiers require.

Soil And Site

The 60 estate-owned hectares are planted around Haro on clay-limestone soils typical of Rioja Alta. The Lacuesta Selecto Crianza draws from 30-year-old Tempranillo vines in these surrounding vineyards, old enough to produce concentrated fruit and reduce yields naturally without irrigation pressure. The 2011 winery integrates underground sections into the terrain, using the earth itself as insulation to hold cellar temperature stable across seasons without mechanical climate control.

Story

Félix Martínez Lacuesta arrived in the wine business from journalism and law, not from a winemaking family. He planted the bodega in Haro in 1895, a deliberate choice: the town had the Estación Enológica, the railway, and the infrastructure that serious wine production required. His brothers joined, the company grew, and the house eventually earned the Royal Household supplier designation that placed it among the credentialed addresses of nineteenth-century Spanish wine.

The bodega's most unexpected chapter came in 1937, when Spain was in the middle of a civil war. Martinez Lacuesta began making vermouth that year, not as an afterthought but as a deliberate programme developed with a Catalan winemaker named José María Jové. What Jové contributed was the formula: a proprietary blend of aromatic herbs and plants macerated into white wine, then aged in French oak casks. What the bodega contributed was the decision to use its finest wines as the base, not the surplus stock that most vermouth producers of that era considered adequate. The Reserva vermouth, launched in 2005 and cask-aged for seven months, extended the same principle into a premium tier.

In 2004 the bodega released La Sucursal to mark 125 years of operation, naming the wine for the Madrid branch office the family had opened in 1904. The bottle is a direct acknowledgement that the house has always operated across more than one city.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 30-year-old Tempranillo vines around Haro that supply the Selecto Crianza are old enough to produce fruit with natural concentration. During barrel ageing, the Crianza uses a manual gravity-racking system, a labour-intensive method that moves wine between barrels by hand and gravity rather than pumping it. Pumping exerts pressure on wine in motion and can strip texture; gravity racking allows transfer with minimal mechanical intervention, preserving what the barrel has built. The vermouth line is made from the same quality tier of wine as the table wine programme, then aged in French oak casks after the herb and plant maceration is complete.

Wines

The range follows Rioja's maturity architecture from the ground up. The Joven is the unoaked or lightly treated entry level, fruit-led and intended for early drinking. The Lacuesta Selecto Crianza, 100 percent Tempranillo from 30-year-old vines, sits at the range's working heart: barrel-aged with gravity racking, it carries the grip of older Tempranillo vines and the roundness that barrel contact brings to the variety's cherry and dried herb character. The Reserva and Gran Reserva extend the ageing arc further, drawing on the DOCa Rioja minimum requirements for additional time in wood and bottle, though their specific blends beyond Tempranillo are not confirmed. White and rosé wines round out the table wine programme.

La Sucursal is a limited anniversary bottling, released to mark the 125th year of operation and named for the Madrid branch the family ran from 1904. The vermouth line is the range's outlier: a standard expression and a Reserva aged seven months in French oak casks, both built from a formula of aromatic herbs and plants macerated into white wine. The Reserva vermouth, launched in 2005, uses the same quality-first base as the original 1937 recipe.

In The Glass

The Selecto Crianza, built on 100 percent Tempranillo from 30-year-old Haro vines, opens with the variety's characteristic dark cherry and dried herb aromas, which is the baseline for old-vine Tempranillo grown on clay-limestone in Rioja Alta. In the mouth, the gravity-racked barrel ageing adds a rounded mid-palate texture without stripping the fruit, and the vine age contributes concentration that younger Tempranillo parcels do not reach. Finish is warm and spiced in the way that oak-aged Rioja Alta reds typically close.

The Reserva and Gran Reserva, which spend longer in wood and bottle under DOCa Rioja minimum rules, will carry more dried fruit and leather character as the Tempranillo integrates further with time. The vermouth carries the aromatic lift of the herb and plant macerate alongside the cedar and vanilla that French oak imparts, with the seven-month cask time in the Reserva expression adding weight to what is otherwise a herb-bright drink.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Lacuesta Selecto Crianza. It is 100 percent Tempranillo from 30-year-old vines grown in the vineyards directly surrounding Haro, aged in barrel using a manual gravity-racking process that the bodega has maintained as a deliberate production choice. It is a Rioja Crianza with rounded mid-palate texture, cherry and dried herb fruit, and the concentration that older Tempranillo vines produce without over-ripening in Rioja Alta's moderate Atlantic-influenced climate. It is an honest Haro red at the maturity level where the bodega's vineyard age and barrel work are clearest, and it costs less than the Reserva and Gran Reserva tiers that require additional cellaring time to fully open.

Anecdote

In 1937, with the Spanish Civil War at its height, Martinez Lacuesta began making vermouth. The project started because of a working relationship with José María Jové, a Catalan winemaker who brought a formula built around aromatic herbs and plants macerated into white wine. What made the arrangement unusual was the bodega's decision about which wine to use: instead of directing surplus or lower-quality stock into the vermouth, as most producers of the period did, Martinez Lacuesta used its finest wines as the base. The formula Jové delivered has not changed. The vermouth is still in production, the same herbs, the same white wine base, the same French oak casks. In 2005, nearly seventy years after that wartime arrangement, the bodega released its first Vermut Reserva, cask-aged for seven months, an extension of the original commitment to quality rather than a departure from it.

Final Word

Martinez Lacuesta is one of Haro's older continuous addresses: founded by a non-winemaker in 1895, expanded by his brothers, credentialed by a Royal Household supplier designation, and still running from the same town. The red wine range covers every tier of Rioja's maturity ladder on 60 estate-owned hectares of Tempranillo around Haro. The vermouth programme, born from a wartime collaboration and still made from the bodega's best wines rather than its leftovers, is the detail that separates this house from a straightforward Rioja volume producer. The Selecto Crianza is where to begin.

Sources

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