La Rioja Alta S.A. Group | Wines and vineyards

The Group La Rioja Alta, S.A. comprises five wineries located in the country’s most renowned Designations of Origin.

Our history started in 1890, in the emblematic Haro Station District, where La Rioja Alta, SA. was born. Encouraged by our entrepreneurial spirit, we grew in Rías Baixas with Lagar de Cervera. With the same enthusiasm, we started to operate in Rioja Alavesa with Barón de Oña and in Ribera del Duero with Áster.

The wines from each of our wineries attempt to respect the essential characteristics of the DO to which they belong. We like to make them with the area’s varieties and typical style.

The wines from our parent winery (La Rioja Alta, SA) where their wines are made entirely from grapes from the surrounding vineyards, the latter’s special characteristics are essential; these are chateau or terroir wines. They should freely express the land on which they grow, the characteristics of each vintage and the grape variety.

In the Group’s other wineries (Torre de Oña, Lagar de Fornelos y Áster), cuyos vinos se elaboran íntegramente con las uvas de las fincas que las rodean, las especiales características del viñedo están muy presentes, constituyendo vinos de pago o de “terroir”. Buscamos que en ellos se exprese libremente el terruño, las características de cada añada y la variedad de la uva.

In all our wineries, we make wines with a great personality, pleasant and ready to be enjoyed in a versatile manner, providing the perfect accompaniment for a meal without being overpowering.

We make wines which age well; they are made to improve over time. Because wines, like people, have different appeals at different ages, although their complacency, attraction and seduction come from experience.

The vineyard is the heart of our wineries.

Although our subsidiary wineries supply all their own grapes, the La Rioja Alta, SA winery, over a hundred years old, is immersed in an ambitious investment plan to buy and plant new estates, enabling it to supply 80% of its production by 2010.

Our top priority is to care for and improve our vineyards. In our desire for them to express all their potential and personality, we apply a non-aggressive sustainable vine-growing system, using neither irrigation nor fertilisers and with as few treatments as possible. We insist on quality fruit rather than large production figures.

The Group owns a total of 710 hectares in the most renowned wine-making areas of Spain: Rioja Alta, Rioja Baja, Rioja Alavesa, Rías Baixas and Ribera del Duero.

La Rioja Alta SA, owns 473 hectares, 360 of which are planted. Sixty-three of them are found in Rioja Baja, on the magnificent La Pedriza estate, where we only grow the Garnacha variety required to make Viña Ardanza. The Tempranillo variety is predominant on the rest of the land, although we also grow local Graciano grapes (20 hectares).

Lagar de Fornelos SA has 75 hectares of Albariño vineyards in the boroughs of O Rosal (60 hectares) and Cambados (15).

The 65 hectares of Tempranillo, Mazuelo and Graciano of Torre de Oña SA ,are found in Páganos-Laguardia, in the heart of Rioja Alavesa, at an altitude of 1,890 ft. Many of the vines are 90 years old.

Finally, our youngest yet mature winery, Bodegas y Viñedos Áster SL, owns 97 hectares of Tinto del Pais tempranillo in Anguix (Burgos), belonging to the Ribera del Duero DO.