Bodegas de la Marquesa

Our business project came into being in the second half of the 19th century when Francisco Javier Solano y Eulate,

“Marqués de la Solana”, owner of a large area of vineyards in Villabuena, on the advice of the famous Bordeaux winemaker of the time, M. Pineau, decided to start making and ageing his wines according to methods imported from the Médoc and to sell the wine in bottles after completing the ageing process, under the label “Marqués de la Solana”.

His wines soon began to win recognition, with significant prizes such as the Silver Medal at the 1898 Logroño Exhibition and a Gold Medal at the 1929 Universal Exhibition in Barcelona.

At the present time the winery may have changed its name, but not its philosophy. It is still a family business, now in the hands of Juan Pablo de Simón and his sisters (great grandchildren of the founder) and even the 5th generation Pablo, Jaime and Maria de Simón (the children of Juan Pablo), who have gradually taken on their various responsibilities in the firm, preparing to take over the reins one day.

The people change, bringing new ideas and a modern approach to the business, but always faithful to the concepts we have stuck to since its foundation: family, estate vineyards, respect for quality and work well done.

In Bodegas de la Marquesa we process around 400,000 kilos of grapes each year, grown in 65 hectares of family-owned vineyards.

All our plots are situated within the boundaries of Villabuena, a short distance from the wine cellar, on sun-kissed slopes which descend from the Sierra de Cantabria, protecting them to the north, towards the banks of the River Ebro in the South- Southwest.

With the prime goal of preserving the character and quality of our wines, we still maintain very old, low-yielding vines, at the same time as new plantations start to bear fruit. The average age of the vines is over 25 years.

TEMPRANILLO: this is the black grape variety which forms the basis of any good Rioja wine. In this area of Rioja Alavesa the finest quality can be found. It makes up 80% of our vine plants and is the main variety used in all our red wines. It gives good alcoholic strength, colour, fruitiness and a round character. And it is highly suited to cask ageing.

In order to give our wines “distinctive characteristics”, we grow significant percentages of other less widely cultivated Rioja varieties, blended in the various “coupages” for Crianza, Reserva or Gran Reserva and which in Excellent Vintages are bottled as 100% monovarietal wines.

MAZUELO: Similar to the French Carignan grape, it produces musts with good colour and acidity, rich in tannins and with characteristic aromas of hay and aromatic herbs.

GARNACHA: This is the most “Mediterranean” of the varieties grown in Rioja. It provides freshness and characteristic red-berry aromas.

GRACIANO: An indigenous Rioja grape, low-yielding, highly aromatic and very well suited to long ageing processes thanks to its high acidity and stable colour.

VIURA: A white grape only grown in the highest plots and poorest soils of our vineyards, exclusively to be used to make our cask-fermented, cask-aged white wines.

The group of buildings which make up Bodegas de la Marquesa consists of an old part, with the century-old underground “cellars”, carved out of the rock at a depth of 10 metres, which maintain constant conditions of temperature and humidity throughout the year in a natural way.

In contrast, we have a series of modern, air conditioned facilities where these days all the processes of making, ageing and bottling the wines can take place easily and hygienically.

For fermentation we use stainless steel vats with automatic temperature control, with a low capacity (8,000 to 30,000 l.), which permit the different varieties to be vinified separately and to make a better selection by plot, quality, variety, etc.

Our stock of casks amounts to 2,500 units, 50% American and 50% French oak from different forests made by the best Bordeaux and Burgundy coopers.

Every year a significant proportion of them is replaced, with the purchase of French or American oak depending on which best suits the particular characteristics of the harvest and the wine we ultimately hope to achieve Always with the aim of making the most of the ageing process and subsequent evolution of our wines.

Since 2004, the winery applies a Quality Management System accredited by the ISO 9001 and BRC Global Standard Food certifications, ensuring maximum quality in all the processes and products.