History
In 1970, Enrique Forner founded Marqués de Cáceres, Unión Vitivinícola, S.A., a historic Alliance between a region (Cenicero, La Rioja Alta), an enterprising family that has been devoted to the wine trade for five generations, the best vine growers and vineyards in La Rioja and a Bordeaux concept which revolutionised the production and business model with a single objective: the quality to obtain the best wines, an obsession that today continues to be the leitmotif of Cristina Forner, the fifth generation of this distinguished wine family.
In 1975, Marqués de Cáceres started selling its first red wines, the 1970 Crianza and the 1975 Gran Reserva. Compared with the classic Riojas dominated by woody notes and on the verge of oxidation, Enrique Forner offered lively Riojas in which the fruit stood out over the oak, but respecting both the traditional multi-varietal composition dominated by the tempranillo grape and the preference for storing the world’s great wines for long periods. He also updated the whites and rosés which he moved away from the wood in order to offer the full sensations of youth, aromas and fruits. In 1980, he reorganised the commercial distribution network in Spain and Marqués de Cáceres arrived on the tables of every corner of the country.
In the 1990s, a trend for innovation prevailed in La Rioja. Young enologists and wine-producers took inspiration from Bordeaux, just as Enrique Forner had done twenty years previously, and worked the ‘terroir’, the vineyard, to obtain profiles that were different to the traditional Riojas. Marqués de Cáceres, advised by Michel Rolland, the most influential enologist in Bordeaux at the time, were united by a great obsession: the quality of the wines. In 1996, the third vinification unit was opened, to be used exclusively for top wines, and in 1999, Gaudium was launched from the 1994 vintage, which opened a new line of Marqués de Cáceres wines, using the oldest vines in Cenicero, from the original suppliers in 1970 who set out on the adventure with Enrique Forner and the majority of which, or their descendants, are still with us today.
A further demonstration of the work, dedication, respect for the practices of a hundred-year-old agriculture, of the constant support for these very limited plots of La Rioja which only businesses with criteria and history still maintain in order to obtain wines like Gaudium.