As Spain’s most best-known wine region, Rioja is a fascinating study of wine and culture. Situated in northern Spain, this region of great natural beauty has a long viticultural heritage dating back to the first Phoenician settlers in 11th century BC. Today, its 65,000+ hectares of vineyards and 600+ wineries, scattered across rolling green hills, are an integral part of the landscape.

Rioja’s wine production area is divided into three sub-regions that straddle the upper Ebro River: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Orientale (formerly called Rioja Baja). The three zones are well known for their complex barrel-aged red wines made from Tempranillo, yet thanks to a wide array of microclimates, elevations and soils, many younger, fresher types of wine are also made here, both red and white.

Bodegas Muriel is located in the Rioja Alavesa sub-region, lying within the quaint, historic village of Elciego. Rioja Alavesa, a tapestry of small plots of vineyards, is known to produce some of the best wines of the region due to its high elevation landscape, warm climate and clay and chalky limestone soils.

The town of Elciego, with vineyard and mountain views. All photos courtesy of Bodegas Muriel. — The town of Elciego, with vineyard and mountain views. *All photos courtesy of Bodegas Muriel.*

Julián Murúa Entrena founded Bodegas Muriel in 1986 when he revived his father’s winery which dated back to 1926. With a philosophy that the best wines are a reflection of the lands and the families who inhabit them, Julián formed the name Muriel by combining the family name (Murúa), with the region name (Rioja) and the village name (Elciego).

**The historic Conde de los Andes in Rioja includes its remarkable mile-long cellars which hold a collection of about 450,00 bottles of Rioja wines, the oldest dating back to 1892.**

Today, under the Muriel umbrella you will find a number of successful wineries: four in Rioja: Bodegas Muriel, Viña Eguía, Marqués de Elciego, and Conde de los Andes, one in Rías Baixas: Pazo Cilleiro, and another whose grapes come from all over Spain: Real Compañía de Vinos.

Julián and his son Javier, the Managing Director, run the wineries with the mission to make expressive wines that reflect the the best qualities of the vast Rioja lands. Javier Murúa joined me on a zoom call to talk about the beautiful landscape and culture of Rioja, and the impressive wines of Bodegas Muriel.

Following is our conversation, in both video and written form.

The wines are readily available online, or at your local restaurants and retailers.

Lisa Denning: Good morning Javier. Thank you for joining me.

Javier Murua: Afternoon for me. I just had lunch.

LD: Oh right, you’re coming from Rioja—nice. How’s the weather in Rioja?

JM: This week is actually quite sunny. We’re having very mild temperatures for February. So after a snowy January, it’s been quite mild. And it’s been two weeks since we have the restaurants open again—after five weeks—so we are coming through an exciting weekend I think.

LD: People are probably thrilled to be out and about. That’s great! So, tell me a little bit about Bodegas Muriel and its history, including how it got its name.

JM: Muriel comes from a joining together of the initials of Murua which is our last name and ri for Rioja and el from Elciego which is the village we are based in. Historically it goes back to the 1920s when my grandfather started in the wine trade in Rioja, mainly by vinifying. He came from the Basque country so he didn’t inherit any vineyards so he was buying grapes and making the wine and selling it in bulk to bars and restaurants in the Basque region, San Sebastian and Vilau in the 1970s.
When he decided to sell the company, which was called Murua, our last name, my grandfather was 77 and my father was 27 so the gap in age was quite big. Also in the 70s the wine industry in Spain didn’t have the brand awareness that it has today. People were consuming wine as a commodity and mainly the reason to choose one wine or another was the person or producer behind it. It was very specifically to the name behind the wine or the person making it or selling it, not the brand. So for that reason my grandfather sold his business and my father who was trained as a winemaker continued working as a winemaker for other companies.
In the 80s my father started the business as it continues to be today, Muriel, as my grandfather had sold the name Murua. Muriel bit by bit started to be successful in the local areas and expanded through the Basque regions again, then to the rest of Spain and at the end of the ‘90s we did a big bet by going into the export markets.
Basically because we were a bit late into building the brand in the Spanish market but in the export market we thought there was a gap and everyone was competing with the same weapons because there were no exceptionally well-recognized brands in the market. So at the end of the ‘90s that became our main focus and today we are exporting 85% of our wine.
And it’s not only Muriel anymore, we’ve been adding and creating more business with Cilleiro, our Albariño production in Rias Baixas, Viña Eguía which allows us to do a very consistent, easy-drinking wine from Rioja, Real Compañía where we produce varietal-driven wines from around Spain and Conde de los Andes which is a historic cellar; we don’t know exactly the foundation date, sometime in the 14th or 13th century, but we do know that they’ve been making wine in that place since 1705 when the Paternina family owned it. We have documents that’s when they decided to invest in and expand the business. They were probably making wine there a generation or two prior but we don’t have any documents.
So in very little time, 35 years, and starting only with the reputation that my grandfather built, we have created one of the most successful wineries in Rioja I think, but that’s for others to judge.

LD: When you were growing up, did you think you would one day be a part of the family business or was there a time you thought about doing other things?

JM: We’ve never had the pressure, and actually my sisters are not working in the company. I have been kind of linked in some way because of traveling and tasting wines with my father and visiting grape and wine suppliers with him. So I thought that I would join the business. There was a point in my life when I thought I wanted to be a pilot too, but I think the fact that I would be here has always been in my mind.

LD: Let’s talk about Rioja and its natural environment. It’s divided into three zones, and your winery is in Alavesa. Tell us a little bit about Alavesa and what distinguishes it from the other areas.

**In the vineyards with Julián and Javier Murual**

JM: To talk about Alavesa we need to talk about Rioja in general. It’s divided into three areas which are different geographic locations. The valley of Rioja—there’s a river that runs through the middle of it like most valleys—but it goes from northwest to southeast, and the latitude variation is not very big so basically from west to east, and Rioja Alavesa is situated on the north of the river.
Climate-wise Rioja Baja is mostly a Mediterranean climate and therefore Rioja is mainly a Mediterranean climate and then when we go towards the west we have a more Atlantic or Continental influence. Continental will be dry and cold in the winters and Atlantic will be wet and cold in the winter and both climates are cooler than the Mediterranean in the summer, but still the temperatures are warm. The main difference in terms of climate from Rioja Baja to Rioja Alta in the summer will be the cooler nights. Nights are much cooler in the western areas.
And then the difference of Rioja Alavesa from the others is in the soils, which are clay and a little bit of limestone with a bit of potassium content which are not present in the other regions and that’s why there’s a little less acidity in the wines. And then because it’s in the north, in the slopes of the Sierra de Cantabria Mountains, most of the vineyards are south-facing so we get a lot of sun exposure.
And then a very important distinction between Rioja Alavesa and the other two areas are the size of the vineyards. The average size of the vineyards in Rioja Alavesa is one acre. So that’s why the blending concept in Rioja has been very important throughout its history. Historically we’ve never had much focus on single vineyards or wine coming from one specific plot or one area, it’s been a blending region because Rioja historically has been thinking about continuity and consistency of each wine. And in Rioja you need the blending because you can have such a big diversity of wines with an atomization of different plots and so many growers involved in the industry here.

LD: So in Alavesa the plots are much smaller than the rest of the region?

JM: Yes, In Rioja Baja, I don’t have the figure to talk about, but it’s easy to find plots that are 20, 50 or 100 acres. In Rioja Alta there’s an area which is kind of similar to Rioja Alavesa where the plots belong to many people and are very small, but it’s not rare to find plots that are 50 or 75 acres there.

LD: Let’s talk about traditional versus modern ways of winemaking in Rioja. Can you explain the difference between the two and where your winemaking style falls?

JM: Once I had a comment from an architect about buildings who said, what is classic today was very modern when they built it.
I think modern and traditional is a concept that I don’t like very much because wine trends and years move very quickly and I would say that in Rioja traditional was a quality commodity, a style of wine that was very drinkable and very consistent through vintages; easy-drinking and soft wines, quite fruit-driven but depending on the category, there could be more oxidation in the Gran Reservas.
For me the modernity of Rioja would be giving space to the diversity that we have. And that I think is the success of the wine industry today because consumers, including me, are not expecting to always drink or taste the same styles of wine. We like the diversity. I would think that modernity gives that space to try new things, so identifying vineyards, identifying new villages, identifying sub-areas, and within Rioja that’s very easy because there’s huge diversity.
For us, we’re in the moment with so many wineries and vineyards—we own around 600 acres now—but we work with 700 different growers with different plots. We’re trying to make wine for each moment, and depending on the brand, we do one thing or the other. Muriel is much more connected to the area, to the village, to Rioja Alavesa, to our vineyards and those people my father has known for 50 years, and 20 years for me.
I would say that for us at Muriel, we’re trying to link a sense of roots, of areas, very linked with where we’ve been born, and I would say that it’s a modern concept, but with all the traditions that we’ve been learning, because in the end what you’re doing today is based on tradition from your parents or from the past generations that you’ve adapted.
With Eguia, for instance, we use that really traditional concept of Rioja: creating the Joven, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva which is based on a different aging of the wines. But also for us with Eguia, it’s very important that there’s not much change from vintage to vintage so we’re always blending wine from Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Baja and Rioja Alta, depending on what nature gives us each year.
And then there’s Conde de Los Andes which I would say is quite traditional with very modern winemaking and viticultural techniques so the concept of modern and traditional can be very wide but I think we’re comfortable in any of them.

LD: It sounds like you take the best, or what is needed, from both concepts.

JM: Yes.

LD: Let’s talk about sustainability. What’s going on in Rioja? Are there a lot of organic or biodynamic producers? What are you doing?

JM: I don’t think Rioja is one of the regions that is getting very involved yet with organics. We, as a region, do very little organic wine at the moment, maybe 1% of the production from Rioja. We do a lot of organic throughout the rest of Spain and for us as a country organic wines from Spain is a hugely growing category.
In Rioja, it’s not happening yet because 85% of the land is owned by growers and the average property of a grower is maybe 20 acres and the growers are not feeling comfortable or secure that the harvest is going to be all that they need it to be.
On the other hand, we now own 600 acres and 2 years ago we started the process of transforming 40 acres into organics and from then, it’s been 40 acres in 2019 and 2020 and another 40 acres this year, 2021. We started in Rioja Orientale (formerly known as Baja) which is a drier area with much more Mediterranean influence so it’s safer to do organics there because there’s less risk of diseases.
Then last year we tested a big plot in Rioja Alavesa, but it was a disaster for organic last year because there was mildew that affected vines all around Spain, but this year we are taking the risk and going for another 40 acres in Rioja Alavesa. We can do it because we have a diversity of markets, we control our markets and our production, and we started with a small percentage in comparison to our total property.
We’re testing and we’ll get there, as it’s a global demand and something that will progressively happen, but I think in Rioja we are so dependent on the growers who need the security that they are going to get their income every year.

LD: Do you own vineyards in all three of the sub-regions? Are they predominantly in Alavesa or are they spread out equally?

JM: No they’re not equal. We have a little less than 400 acres in Rioja Baja, it’s one vineyard, and we own 115 acres in Rioja Alavesa and the rest is in Rioja Alta.

LD: You also make a white wine made from Albariño. Can you tell us about that?

JM: The winery is called Paso Cilleiro. In Galicia they’re quite complex. Cilleiro was the name given to the person in charge of the wine back when the monks were making the wine in monasteries. Cilleiro comes from the word “cellar.”

LD: When I tasted the wine, it brought me to the beach, in my mind anyways, and I was wishing I had a plate of oysters and sand between my toes. It was amazing how it smells of the ocean; it’s a beautiful wine.

JM: It’s not surprising. We don’t own any vineyards in Rias Baixas where this wine is from, but we work with more than 300 growers. And the land there is not further than about 5 kilometers from the sea. It’s the best known seafood region in Spain so that explains your interest in oysters.
Rias Baixas is a very wet area and Albariño is a very specific grape variety that grows there. Most of the summers can be dry in August, rainy in June or July. Climate change is changing everything but still it’s an area where the biggest difference is the granite soils. Most of the regions in Spain are clay or limestone but in Galicia the wine gets its freshness, weight and, for me, the most important characteristic of Albariño, the saltiness from the granite. When you taste it, you always taste that sea character that Albariño has that no other white wine in Spain shares that quality.

LD: I love that and it makes it go great with so many different types of food because it’s like a sprinkle of salt on whatever you’re eating.

JM: The first vintage we made of Albariño was 2014 and a month ago, for the first time, I tasted a vertical of all of the vintages that we made and it’s surprisingly good how Albariño ages. It keeps its great body, it integrates the saltiness but still keeps the saltiness and the length in the mouth.

LD: Let’s talk about your Viña Eguia brand.

JM: The word Eguia comes from the word for truth in the Basque dialect. What we wanted to achieve with this brand is the consistency that we were talking about before. I think truth is linked with expectations, and so in the case of the Tempranillo, it’s a very fruit-driven wine, round and easy-drinking. But also, even though it’s blended with Rioja Alta and Rioja Baja, it’s blended to achieve the consistency, but I feel that the main characteristic of the Viña Eguia wines is the softness and the roundness of the Tempranillo on the palate. It still is very aromatic and is obviously Tempranillo; it has that red fruit aromatic character with a little bit of licorice but it’s very soft.

LD: Yes, it was a nice blend of fruit and savory notes. Now let’s move on to Muriel Reserva 2016.

JM: The wines in general for Rioja Alavesa in 2016 are extremely elegant because of the weather during harvest. It was an extremely, extremely hot summer and . . . just before what we expected would be a very, very early harvest, we had some rain that delayed harvest by almost a month but it really allowed the grapes to mature.
And for me the 2016 Rioja Alavesa I prefer to the 2015 or any other vintages. They’re very elegant wines. The grapes all come from the village of Elciego, so therefore it’s very distinctive from any other wines that we make or any other Reservas in the market. Our goal is that we always want to be better than the rest, but obviously taste is very subjective. We want to make a style of our own and the best way to do that is to be very specific to the origins of the grapes. When you smell the wine, it’s still very young, with a lot of fruit. It’s a combination of red fruit and a little bit of black fruit, just a hint of it which comes from the longer aging allowing darker fruits to come along more.
There’s also some vanilla and spicy notes from the barrel aging. The aging is in American and French oak barrels, fifty-fifty, and around 30% is new. The new barrels you do feel in the mouth, the new French barrels, are more obvious. It’s very pleasant, quite fresh, but we have that sweet tannin that comes from the new oak. We don’t want to go further than 30% of new barrels because otherwise we feel it needs much more aging in the bottle in order not to get those tannins too dry. Most important for most wines we make, they have a lot of length and the aftertaste is very long.

LD: I don’t typically like a lot of oaky flavors in wine, and I was impressed by this one; somehow it really worked. It blended well with the fruit and wasn’t overpowering, it just added a nice note. Also, I notice with a lot of Rioja wines that the tannins have a chalkiness. They leave a dusty, chalky feeling in your mouth that’s really pleasant. What does that come from?

JM: In Rioja, we release the wines when they are ready to drink after at least two or three years in the bottle and so it’s not the same as when a wine is released to the market right after it is bottled. The hard tannins you get in concentrated wines therefore have time to be rounded out. We need to keep the tradition.

LD: Let’s talk about the Conde de los Andes, a beautiful wine. When did you acquire the winery?

JM: We got this winery in 2014 and the first wine we made was the 2015 vintage that we made in that cellar. When we acquired the winery, its function was aging the best Reservas, or the best wines from the previous owners. The Paternina family moved wine production from that cellar to another cellar that they owned in Haro, three kilometers away.
2015 is the first harvest we made there, but it was the first harvest made in that cellar since 1926. They had been making wine previous to 1926 for almost 250 years, but then they stopped and when we acquired the winery we decided to have very specific vineyards, vinification and barrel maturation there, so we actually gave Conde de los Andes a unique identity.

LD: What does Conde de los Andes mean?

JM: Conde is a noble title, count, and Andes is the mountains. There was a time in Spain when the wines were linked to a noble title and Conde de los Andes—he was the last viceroy of Peru when Spain lost their colonies. When he came back to Spain in 1805 to stay, they gave him the title of Conde de los Andes. But the winery was originally making wine under the Paternina brand, the name of the family, since sometime in the 17th century. The brand Conde de los Andes was created to name their best cuvees in the 1960s, so there’s a lot of history there.

LD: How come on the label of this wine it doesn’t say a classification like Crianza or Reserva?

JM: We want to break the rules! (laughter) That’s the area where we’re being traditional in the style of wine. We want to release a wine that has aged for a long period of time before it’s released, but we don’t want to be attached to any rules.
So basically what’s happening with that wine, to be called Reserva the wine has to be aged in 225 liter barrels and we’re using only new oak or second use oak in Conde de los Andes. But we’re aging for now in 225 liter barrels, aging in 500 liter barrels, and combining it with wine aged in concrete eggs and we are combining it with aging in bigger wooden vats, like the ones in Italy, like 5 or 6,000 liters.
So when we combine all the different methods of aging, we’re not allowed to call it Crianza, Reserva or Gran Reserva anymore. And towards the future, we’re seeing the development of the wines and we are moving exclusively towards concrete eggs and 500 liter barrels so we will keep them longer in barrels and concrete eggs, bigger formats.

LD: Is your goal to decrease that oak presence?

JM: It’s not actually a goal because each year needs a different vinification and different aging periods and structures. Some years need more new oak, some need more second oak or wooden vats or concrete eggs.
There is a general trend of having wines with less oak influence but these trends come and go. Actually what we’re seeing now is almost the opposite to what we were expecting for quality ten years ago. So basically we want to make the best wines possible to our palates every year. It’s not giving more or less oak. It depends on the year, but it’s not a goal to use less.
My feeling is that with Conde de los Andes, using longer aging in bigger formats gives a better result for the style of wine we want to make than by using smaller barrels with new oak and shorter aging.

LD: Can you tell us about the historic cellars at Conde de los Andes. I hear they are quite amazing.

JM: Yes, we don’t know exactly the year they were built, sometime around the 14th century. It’s a mile of underground cellars, but through its history they’ve been split and put back together because of heritage or of expanding or selling of property. So it’s not actually a one mile long tunnel, there are sixteen different caves, all connected together that make a mile long and they’re full of bottles of wine dating back to 1892. So it’s actually an underground treasure.

LD: It sounds like it! Wine tourism has become very popular in Rioja. What do you offer visitors?

JM: We keep it simple because Conde de los Andes is such a distinctive site. It’s a tour of the cellars, including the vinification area with a tasting in one of them with very small size groups. Now obviously with Covid we keep it down to a maximum of six, but on a normal basis, it’s a maximum of twelve. It's a very familiar and personal tour through the wineries which takes about an hour and a half by going through the different caves and explaining part of the history. And then at the end of the visit we share some wines and some time to spend in the winery and people can stay there as long as they want.

LD: Sounds great! Next time I’m in Rioja, I know where I’ll be spending time.