From the atlas
Bodegas y Viñedos Quiroga de Pablo
At A Glance
Producer: Bodegas y Viñedos Quiroga de Pablo Village: Azofra, Rioja Alta Designation: DOCa Rioja Grapes: Tempranillo, Tempranillo Blanco Range: Tinto Joven, Rosado, Tempranillo Blanco, Crianza (two lines), Reserva Cellar anchor: Hand-dug stone calado, 8 to 10 metres underground
The Producer
Azofra is a small village on the Camino Francés, the main pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela, and Bodegas y Viñedos Quiroga de Pablo is the only winery there. Six generations of the Quiroga de Pablo family have grown grapes and made wine in Rioja Alta from this address, and the cellar beneath the building is older than the modern bodega above it: a stone-arched calado cut eight to ten metres into the earth, where the temperature holds steady and the masonry absorbs a century of harvests.
The three current principals are siblings Juan Luis, Diego, and Maite. They work the same underground cellar their predecessors did, now alongside temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks upstairs and a modern pressing and bottling line added after 2000. The approach they have settled on is deliberate: oak ages the wines but does not define them. Both Crianza lines finish their maturation not in barrel but in the calado's subterranean concrete tanks, where the oak character integrates rather than amplifies.
Place
Rioja Alta sits in the western portion of the DOCa Rioja zone, where the Sierra de Cantabria deflects Atlantic weather from the north and rainfall arrives more reliably than in the drier, warmer Rioja Oriental to the east. At these altitudes and latitudes, Tempranillo ripens with firmer acidity and cooler-toned fruit than it produces in the lower, hotter subzones. The practical consequence is red wines that lean toward fresh cherry rather than plum, and Crianza wines that carry enough acidity to absorb their oak ageing without becoming heavy.
Azofra itself is small, lying in the Najerilla valley corridor that connects the higher ground of Rioja Alta to the Ebro plain. The DOCa Rioja designation covers the full production range here: reds, rosé, and, since 2009, white wines made from Tempranillo Blanco.
Soil And Site
The Najerilla valley around Azofra carries clay-limestone soils typical of Rioja Alta's interior, with good water retention through dry summers and enough drainage on sloped parcels to keep the vines working rather than waterlogged. Limestone in the subsoil encourages Tempranillo to ripen without pushing excessive sugar accumulation, and the Atlantic-influenced climate moderates the growing season with cooler nights that preserve grape acidity into harvest. The calado beneath the bodega is cut directly into this geology: the stone walls and earthen mass surrounding the underground tanks hold a natural cool temperature year-round, extending the maturation environment from the barrel hall into a slower, quieter phase of refinement.
Story
The Quiroga de Pablo family has worked this village through changes that would have ended most small estates. The calado predates the formal bodega, which means the family was pressing and storing wine underground before they had the means to label or sell it as a named estate. For much of the twentieth century, small Rioja Alta producers sold their wine in bulk to négociant houses rather than bottling under their own name. That the Quiroga de Pablo family eventually chose to bottle and sell under their own label, building out the modern facility around the ancient cellar, rather than consolidating into a larger cooperative or selling their holdings, reflects a set of decisions made generation by generation.
The naming of the premium range carries this history forward. Both the Lagar de Cayo line and the Abuelo CAYO Colección Familiar tier carry the name Cayo, referencing an ancestor central enough to the family's sense of itself that the name appears on two separate labels across the range.
Vineyards And Cellar
The bodega sources grapes exclusively from its own holdings. The vineyards extend through the Najerilla valley, planted primarily to Tempranillo, with a separate planting of Tempranillo Blanco, the white-fruited genetic mutation of the region's red variety.
In the cellar, the Crianza reds follow a two-phase path. Quirus Crianza is fermented in destemmed form in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks with daily remontage, the pump-over work that pushes juice up through the cap of grape skins to extract colour and build mid-palate weight. The maceration is extended beyond the standard fermentation window to deepen the extract before the wine moves to oak. Lagar de Cayo Crianza spends twelve to eighteen months in American and French oak barrels, with a transfer every six months to introduce measured oxygen exposure and keep the wine moving. After barrel ageing, both Crianza wines move into the calado's subterranean concrete tanks for the final phase of maturation. The stone walls and stable cool temperature of the underground environment slow the last integration of oak tannin and fruit, producing wines where the wood sits behind the fruit rather than in front of it.
The Quirus Tempranillo Blanco takes a different route entirely: cold maceration on skins before pressing extracts aromatic compounds from the white-fruited grape without colour, followed by a gentle press, settling, and cool fermentation to preserve the delicate fruit register.
Wines
The range divides cleanly into two families. The fresh tier covers the Quirus Tinto Joven, Quirus Rosado, and Quirus Tempranillo Blanco: wines made to be opened young, without oak ageing, and built for fruit and lift rather than development.
The Quirus Tempranillo Blanco is the most unusual bottle in the range. Tempranillo Blanco is a natural mutation of Rioja's red Tempranillo that produces white-skinned fruit; it was formally permitted in DOCa Rioja from 2009 and remains a minority style in a region whose white wine production is vastly outweighed by red. Cold maceration on skins before fermentation pulls aromatic compounds out of the white grape skins. The resulting wine is straw-yellow with green tints and shows tropical and citric aromas alongside white fruit and floral notes.
The oak-aged tier centres on two Crianza wines. Quirus Crianza is the more accessible expression: cherry-red with ruby highlights, its nose assembled from fruit with vanilla, spice, and dark chocolate wood notes well-integrated after its time in barrel and concrete. On the palate it is savoury and balanced, with persistent length. Lagar de Cayo Crianza carries the senior Cayo name and a slightly longer cellar programme: cherry-red with ruby tones, complex and expressive on the nose with mature fruit and wood nuance, well-balanced and very persistent on the palate.
Above these sits the Reserva and the Abuelo CAYO Colección Familiar, the premium tier named for a founding ancestor. Both draw from the same calado but carry longer ageing requirements under DOCa Rioja rules.
In The Glass
From the Quirus Tempranillo Blanco, the glass gives tropical fruit forward: pineapple and citrus first, then white peach and a faint floral note from the cold maceration work on the skins. The wine is light-bodied and aromatic, designed for freshness rather than weight.
The Crianza reds open on cherry-red fruit with the wood character already folded in rather than sitting separately. Both the Quirus Crianza and the Lagar de Cayo Crianza show vanilla and spice from their oak time, with a dark chocolate quality in the Quirus that signals the extended maceration and its deeper extract. On the palate, both wines are savoury first: the fruit sits behind a savoury, almost earthy mid-palate that carries through to a persistent finish. The acidity from Rioja Alta's cooler growing conditions keeps both wines from feeling heavy despite their year or more of barrel and concrete ageing. The calado finish softens the oak edge so that what remains on the finish is fruit persistence and a dry, composed exit rather than a woody aftertaste.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with Lagar de Cayo Crianza. It is the bottle where every element of this bodega's approach converges: Rioja Alta Tempranillo, twelve to eighteen months of oak ageing in American and French barrels, and a final slow maturation in the stone-arched underground tanks of the calado. The colour is deep cherry-red with ruby tones. The nose is complex and expressive, with mature red fruit and well-integrated wood nuance. The palate is savoury, full-flavoured, and long, with the balance that comes from a wine whose oak and fruit have had time to settle into each other. It is not an oak-forward wine; the calado maturation sees to that. It is Tempranillo from a cool Rioja Alta vintage, shaped by an underground cellar that has been in continuous use for generations.
Anecdote
Every harvest, the grapes that will become Lagar de Cayo Crianza pass through a cellar that carries the same ancestor's name on two separate labels. Cayo, the forebear the Quiroga de Pablo family chose to memorialise across their premium tier, lent his name first to the Lagar de Cayo Crianza and then to the Abuelo CAYO Colección Familiar range, a premium family-collection tier added as the sixth generation expanded the offer. The underground stone lagar itself, the pressing vessel cut into the earth beneath the bodega, bears the name too. When Juan Luis, Diego, and Maite took over from the previous generation, they kept both names: the calado with its hand-cut stone arches, the Cayo reference across the labels, and the village address their family had held alone for generations. Azofra has never had a second winery. The pilgrims who walk the Camino road through the village pass one bodega, the same family, the same cellar, and a range of wines where an ancestor's name appears on the bottles at every tier of the range worth ageing.
Final Word
Bodegas y Viñedos Quiroga de Pablo is not a large or famous name in Rioja, and it does not need to be. Six generations in one village, a cellar older than the modern facility above it, and a clear house decision to let the calado do the last work on every Crianza wine: the Lagar de Cayo is the bottle to reach for, and the underground stone room it aged in is the reason it tastes the way it does.
Sources
- https://www.bodegasquiroga.com/
- https://riojawine.com/en-us/bodegas-rioja/quiroga-de-pablo/
- https://bodegasderioja.com/en/winery/bodegas-quiroga-de-pablo/
- https://www.bodegasquiroga.com/la-bodega/
- https://www.bodegasquiroga.com/lagar-de-cayo-crianza/
- https://www.bodegasquiroga.com/quirus-crianza/
- https://www.bodegasquiroga.com/quirus-tempranillo-blanco/