At A Glance
Producer: Viña Real Country: Spain Region: Rioja Alavesa Base: Laguardia Parent house: CVNE Founded: 1920s Core grape: Tempranillo Range: Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, Barrel Fermented Blanco
The Producer
On the plateau above Laguardia, a building shaped like an enormous barrel cap sits flush with the hillside. From the road below, it almost disappears into the landscape. That is intentional. When CVNE commissioned architect Philippe Mazières to design a new home for Viña Real, the brief was to make something that belonged there, in the high limestone country of Rioja Alavesa, rather than announce itself against it.
Viña Real was launched by CVNE in the 1920s, and it was from the beginning a project about oak-aged Tempranillo in Rioja Alavesa, the sub-region that runs along the southern slopes of the Cantabrian mountains and into the Basque country. The brand built its early reputation on wines that could age: Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, each tier defined by how long the wine spent in barrel and bottle before it was released.
Place
Rioja Alavesa is the northernmost of Rioja's three sub-regions. It sits in the province of Álava, above the Ebro river, with the Cantabrian range to the north cutting the Atlantic weather before it reaches the vineyards. It has calcareous clay soils on sloped terrain above the valley floor.
Laguardia is the administrative and geographical centre of Rioja Alavesa, a walled medieval village perched on a ridge. Viña Real's 2004 winery sits on the plateau just outside it, at an elevation where the plateau edge drops sharply toward the Ebro plain. That position shapes the wines: the altitude and the calcareous subsoil together slow ripening and hold acidity, which is why Tempranillo from Rioja Alavesa tends toward a firmer, more mineral character than the fruit-forward style common in warmer parts of the appellation.
Soil And Site
The vineyards around Laguardia sit on calcareous clay over limestone bedrock. Elevation across the plateau runs between 450 and 600 metres. At that height, nights stay cool through the growing season, which preserves aromatic lift and prevents the grape sugars from racing ahead of phenolic ripeness. The limestone component of the soil holds moisture through the dry summer months and contributes to the firm, chalky quality that runs through the Viña Real reds.
Story
CVNE produced the early Viña Real wines in Haro, the railway hub of Rioja Alta that had been the commercial centre of the region since the nineteenth century. In 1943, they built a dedicated winery in Elciego, a village in Rioja Alavesa then already known as the home of Marqués de Riscal. Moving from Haro to Elciego was a declaration: Viña Real belonged to Rioja Alavesa, not to the Alta heartland, and the wines would be made where the grapes grew.
That Elciego base served the house for sixty years. Then, in 2004, CVNE opened the Mazières-designed winery outside Laguardia. Spain's King Juan Carlos I came to inaugurate it, and the occasion also marked CVNE's 125th year as a company. The wines continued without a change in grape or appellation, but the production base moved again, uphill, to where the vineyards lay.
Vineyards And Cellar
Fermentation for the Crianza happens in stainless steel at a controlled 26 to 28 degrees Celsius. That temperature band is warm enough to extract colour and ripe tannin from Tempranillo, cool enough to preserve aromatic freshness. After alcoholic fermentation, the wine goes through malolactic fermentation, which softens the malic acidity and rounds the mid-palate before barrel ageing begins.
For the Crianza, ageing runs 13 to 14 months in a combination of French and American oak barrels. The wine is racked every 5 to 6 months during that period, a schedule that introduces gentle oxygen contact without excessive extraction, helping the wood and wine integrate rather than the oak overwhelming the fruit.
The Gran Reserva takes a different approach entirely. New single-use barrels replace the mixed cooperage. Ageing extends to 24 months, with manual racking every 4 months through the first year and a less frequent schedule in the second. After barrel ageing, the wine spends a minimum of 3 years in bottle before release. New wood at that concentration leaves a deeper oak signature, and the extended bottle time allows the wine to absorb and settle it.
Wines
The red range moves in three distinct steps. Crianza is 90% Tempranillo with 10% other permitted Rioja varieties, aged the regulation minimum and then some: 13 to 14 months in mixed French and American oak, with structured racking intervals. It comes out with enough barrel character to register as a classic Rioja red but not so much that the Tempranillo fruit disappears. The Reserva occupies the middle ground, with longer ageing and greater selection of raw material, though the precise breakdown is not detailed here.
Gran Reserva is 95% Tempranillo with 5% Graciano, the latter a grape that contributes acidity and aromatic lift to what would otherwise be a deeply structured, oak-heavy wine. The new-barrel programme and the three-plus years of bottle ageing mean this is a wine built for time: when it releases, it carries the marks of serious maturation but needs more years in bottle to fully open.
Outside the reds, Barrel Fermented Blanco offers a modern white Rioja, fermented in barrel in the style of a village-level Burgundy white rather than the fresh, unoaked whites that dominate the region's white wine output.
In The Glass
The Crianza opens with dark cherry, dried plum and a cedar note that comes directly from the American oak in the barrel mix. American oak gives vanilla and coconut alongside that cedar; French oak adds more spice and grip. Together, the blend produces a softer wood character than a straight American-oak Rioja and more aromatic complexity than straight French. In the mouth, the tannins are rounded from the malolactic fermentation, the acidity is present but not sharp, and the mid-palate has enough ripe Tempranillo fruit to carry the oak rather than compete with it. The finish is moderately long with a dry, lightly smoky close.
The Gran Reserva at release is a different proposition: the new-barrel ageing gives an initial oak dominance of dark spice, graphite and leather over the fruit, and the tannins, softened by years in bottle, are still present as a firm grip on the finish. Graciano's contribution is harder to isolate but shows in the aromatic lift and in the freshness that keeps the wine from collapsing under its own weight.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with the Crianza. It is 90% Tempranillo, aged in the French and American oak combination that defines classic Rioja style, and it costs enough less than the upper tiers to drink without occasion anxiety. In the glass it gives cherry and dried plum up front, a cedar and vanilla mid-palate from the mixed cooperage, and a dry finish with firm but not grippy tannins. The malolactic fermentation rounds the texture so it drinks well on release but holds for three to five years without difficulty. It is the bottle where the Viña Real house style, Rioja Alavesa Tempranillo, traditional barrel ageing, and the Laguardia address, comes together most accessibly.
Anecdote
The 2004 inauguration was already a significant occasion: a new winery, a major architectural commission, CVNE's 125th year. Then Spain's King Juan Carlos I agreed to open it. The circular building Philippe Mazières had designed sat on the plateau outside Laguardia, its form echoing a barrel end, its roofline flush enough with the hillside that it seemed to sink into the landscape from below rather than rise above it. On the day of the inauguration, the king arrived in Rioja Alavesa for a ceremony that was, depending on your view of such things, either a milestone for a family wine company marking its first 125 years or an unusually formal opening for a building designed to store Tempranillo. The winery has been producing across the full Viña Real range from that site ever since.
Final Word
Viña Real is Rioja Alavesa Tempranillo worked through the classical tier system, with cellar decisions that distinguish each level. The Crianza is the honest entry point, mixed cooperage, controlled fermentation, classic Rioja character. The Gran Reserva is the long game, new oak and years of bottle time, built to be opened a decade after the vintage rather than immediately. The Mazières winery above Laguardia is, physically, the most visible thing about the producer. The wines it makes are the argument for why that address and that investment matter.