Why it matters
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 and vineyards
Where the wines begin
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.
In the cellar
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.
Wines to know
The range in view
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.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
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.