LOPEZ DE HEREDIA

Lopez de Heredia, the history of Rioja

Bodega López de Heredia, among Spain's most revered producers, offers traditional and long-lived Rioja wines. Their labels are legendary and still crafted as they were over 130 years ago, following a tradition passed down through generations.

Their wines are released to the market at least 5-10 years after the harvest, ensuring additional complexity and elegance to their Crianzas and Gran Reservas.

Unique in the Rioja landscape, López de Heredia uses only fruit from their prestigious vineyards - Tondonia, Cubillo, Bosconia, and Zaconia - believing that the best way to obtain the finest fruit is by caring for the vines themselves. The Tondonia vineyard, their most famous, spans over 100 hectares situated in a shell-shaped depression on the right bank of the Ebro River, where the most typical Rioja wines are produced.

The soil is alluvial clay with a high proportion of limestone. The average vine age is 45 years, and organic farming practices and natural fermentations are implemented, creating wines that express the unique terroir. Grapes from Viña Tondonia are always used to make their highest quality wines, with truly exceptional vintages becoming Gran Reservas. The first Reserva was bottled by the founder in 1890; some bottles of this are still kept in the family museum.

The winery itself is an extraordinary structure. When D. Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta began building the bodega in the late 1800s, he likely didn't realize that his masterpiece would one day be recognized as an example to the rest of the industry of the most perfect combination of buildings and vineyards. Like many medieval masterpieces, it is still incomplete. The buildings stand below and above ground and are a veritable "cathedral of wine."

Moving through the vaulted underground corridors and staircases, one finds themselves traveling back in time, and the founder's touch can still be sensed in the very stones and fabric of the building.