Marqués de Murrieta
The story of Marqués de Murrieta is strongly intertwined with the entire history of Rioja, as Don Luciano Murrieta produced the first wine of the Rioja region in 1852 with the technical lessons he received from Bordeaux. Murrieta decided to establish a farm and acquired 160 hectares of land for himself. His vision was crystal clear right from the start: to make an elegant and long-maturing wine from Rioja, which would make the region well-known in the rest of the world. This wine from the legendary first vintage ended up in many corners of the world, including Mexico and Cuba, and is the first Rioja wine to enter the export market in the history books.
Murrieta wines come from the Ygay farm, a 300-hectare area located in the southern part of Rioja Alta. The team led by María Vargas, chosen by Tim Atkin MW as the best winemaker in the world in 2017, meticulously produces Rioja wines that are both personal and classic at the same time. The vineyard areas are divided into a total of 30 different parts, and the origin of each produced wine can be traced back to a single vine. All the grapes in the orchards are picked by hand and a self-developed and patented sorting table is used to select the grapes. Since 1991, all vinifications have taken place in steel tanks, while large cement tanks were previously used. The grapes from each vineyard area are vinified separately and the wine batches are mixed only after about 8 months of maturation. The wines are allowed to mature and mature in peace, and are not released to the market until they are ready to drink, although all the estate's wines are also ideal for long cellaring. The farm itself also keeps around 1,000 bottles of each vintage in its valuable cellar for the future.
Since 1983, the Cebrián-Sagarriga family of Madrid-Galician origin has piloted the classic farm founded by the Murrieta family into new waves without forgetting the noble tradition of the farm. When the father of the family died of a heart attack at a young age, the siblings Vicente and Cristina, under 30, took over the farm. The modernization of the winery next to the old Castillo de Ygay estate was completed in 2021, and now the 25,000 m2 space has the latest possible technology. The old premises were completed in 2019 as a museum, where the spirit of the past is palpable. Everything is surrounded by 50,000 m2 of carefully maintained garden, which covers most of the premises of the winery, creating idyllic conditions for winemaking, also in terms of underground temperature.
Known as the estate's crown jewel, Castillo Ygay, one of the world's best wines, has only been produced for 53 years so far. The 2010 wine vintage was chosen as the world's best wine in 2021. At the beginning of 2022, the farm's winemaker was again chosen as the world's best enologist, and the Murrieta farm as the world's best winery in 2015. At the end of 2022, G reat Wine Capitals Global Network gave the estate the international title of Best Of 2023, for which it competed to the last meters together with Penfolds, Sandemans, Château Guiraud and Krug.
Due to the Galician background of the owner family, Murrieta is also produced in Rías Baixas Albariño at Pazo de Barrantes estate.
The combined annual production of both farms is about 1.5 million bottles.
