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Wine Description
The Story
The Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España (CVNE), launched the Viña Real brand in the 1920s becoming one of the pioneering wineries in making crianza wines in oak barrels in this area. A careful balance between tradition and modernity has defined the form and content of Viña Real.
Made with high quality grapes harvested by hand from our better plots in Rioja Alavesa. The fermentation takes place in stainless steel vats at controlled temperatures with a frequent dropping of the juice over the skins in order to maximise extraction. Malolactic Fermentation is carried out in French and American oak barrels, and then, the wine is manually racked to stabilise and get rid of deposits. After the cask ageing for 2 years, the wine is clarified with white of egg to achieve the silkiness and shiny final colour. Aging in bottle 36 months.
The Viña Real winery in Laguardia, designed by French architect Philippe Mazières, is composed of three buildings. The main one is constructed with red cedar in the form of a fermenting vat. The natural light, the caves dug to store the wine and the leading-edge technology - with the use of gravity, the installation of the first vertical hopper in Spain - define this monumental work.
Vintage 2012
SPAIN 2012 VINTAGE REPORT
The Control Board has given the 2012 Rioja vintage the official rating of ‘VERY GOOD’. The global rating reflects the heterogeneous nature of the vintage. The drought affected both grape volume and grape quality in some vineyards but also resulted in a significant quantity of wine of extremely high quality, in line with the wines of the two previous vintages, both rated ‘excellent’.
In general, Rioja’s vineyards showed good canopy growth and health throughout the growing season. Phenological development was normal in terms of dates compared to the average of the last few years. Although fertility rates were lower than those of the last two seasons, they were still within normal values for the grape varieties of the D.O.Ca. Rioja. The continuing drought that has affected the Region in the past two years curtailed the production of part of those vineyards located in drylands. In late August grape ripening was normal, with average values for hat time of the year.
After a growing cycle beset by drought, the late September rains had a significant impact, with a very positive effect on ripening, improving final berry balance and raising hopes about final production figures for a large part of Rioja vineyards. Most of the harvested grapes were in excellent health with a great balance between alcohol content and polyphenols, leading to wines of superb quality, with good polyphenolic structure , particularly suited for ageing in barrels and laying down for a long time.
Another reason behind the positive outcome of the 2012 vintage was the professionalism of growers and wineries in scheduling the harvest, given the uneven ripening found among different plots, which required selective harvesting to ensure the best quality was obtained from each vineyard. The total production volume of the 2012 harvest in Rioja came to 354.9 million kg of grapes —one of the lowest yields per hectare of the last two decades (5,710 kg/ha) and a significant drop compared to the 387 million kg harvested the previous year.