You approach Elciego - as with most Riojan villages - across a corduroy patchwork of vines. Pilgrims travelling across this holy trail were once lured by the soaring sandstone towers of the village’s mighty church. But a new type of wayfarer is now arriving to pay homage at the most ambitious of Spain’s new ‘Temples of Wine.’
 Marqués de Riscal, one of Rioja’s oldest and most traditional wineries has embarked on a project which it hopes will constitute the flag-ship in the bright and shiny future of the region’s wine industry.
Canadian architect Frank O. Gehry has taken the billowing style of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum to new extremes in Marqués de Riscal’s ‘City of Wine.’ The sandstone bulk mimics the glowing stonework of the winery’s 19th century residence and the grand old cellars but shimmering titanium sheets seem to flutter like battle-standards above the sea of vines. The titanium is stained to reflect the colours of a bottle of Marqués de Riscal wine: silver represents the capsule that tops the bottle; gold for the netting that covers it (traditionally to foil ‘counterfeiters’ who would refill the bottle with inferior wine); and, of course, pink for the wine itself. Under the scudding Riojan clouds, the red shimmers, shifting from deep scarlet to pink and back again - an effect which Gehry has likened to wine swirling in a glass.
A decade ago Spanish bodegas and French chateaux alike were facing what looked to be impossibly stiff competition from New World wineries, with their aggressive marketing campaigns and fruity flavours. Now a few of Spain’s most celebrated vineyards are determined to boost their image into the third millennium while maintaining the characteristic complexity and time-proven aromas of their wine.
 “We certainly don’t see the ‘City of Wine’ as a huge change of tack as far as our image goes,” says Alejandro Aznar, chairman of Marqués de Riscal. “It’s true that we are one of the oldest, and best established, wine-makers in Rioja but we’ve always had a reputation as pioneers. In 1862 we bottled the first barrel-aged wine here and we’ve spear-headed the industry since that time. Far from a break in tradition, Frank Gehry’s super-modern design is, in fact, thoroughly in-keeping with our history as one of the great pioneering bodegas of the region. This building serves as an example of one of the pillars of Marqués de Riscal’s philosophy: the perfect integration of tradition and innovation.”
The ‘City of Wine’ offers 43 luxury hotel rooms, a restaurant, a museum and a vinotherapy spa where guests can benefit from the ancient rejuvenating and invigorating properties of products derived from wine and grape extracts. There is no doubt that this €60 million project is one of the most ambitious ever carried out by a Spanish winery and it is hoped that it will boost the wine-tourism industry that is becoming increasingly important in Rioja. But, apart from the fact that the City of Wine’s foundations (metaphorical and actual) are imbedded in the heart of a winery with almost 150 years of history, the building has nothing do with actual wine production.
The wine is made in the huge fermentation building that currently turns out around 4.5 million bottles a year and the ancient cellars are still used for barrel-aging. Samples of the best of the vintages finally end up behind a series of locked wrought iron doors in cobweb-draped, gothic catacombs. Visitors are guided around these areas in carefully regulated numbers since even the body-heat of a large group could have a detrimental effect on the precious wine. In these chambers you catch a real sense of the soul of Rioja. Here there is indeed something that the vineyards of the New World can never hope to match.
Gravity-flow winemaking, where the grapes start at a height and work their way downward through the winemaking processes (rather than suffering the stress of pumping or pushing), has long been accepted as the gentlest way of treating the precious berries.
At Viña Real’s new ‘Temple of Wine’ the gravity-flow philosophy comes as close to technical perfection as possible. From the outside, the immense red cedar cylinder of the fermentation plant resembles a giant oak barrel, stained red with age. But inside, architect Philippe Mazières has created a space-age working area where huge silver capsules (known to the workers here as ‘UFOs’) float out of the reception area in the grip of a giant crane which flies the newly harvested grapes to their assigned fermentation tank.
 Below this computerised chamber is another circular cavity with what Mazières calls a ‘light well’ in the centre. Here the wine is barrel-fermented before being moved on for aging, forty metres below the mountain. Two tunnels have been cut 125 metres into solid rock to create chambers in which the famous Gran Reserva will rest - unaffected by fluctuations in temperature or light - for up to 5 more years. The aging chambers at Viña Real may be one of the most awe-inspiring sights to be seen at any vineyard in the world.
The theme of timelessness and of distance is one that many architects have employed to give an idea of the aging process that is inherent in the production of fine wine. It is an image that Santiago Calatrava (architect of Valencia’s ‘City of Arts and Sciences’) has used to great effect at the new Ysios winery. This is probably the most iconographic of all Spanish vineyards and the instantly recognisable ‘swell-lines’ of its aluminium roof can be seen from miles away, as it underscores the granite ridge of the Sierra de Cantabria. Like Riscal’s ‘City of Wine’ the building looms over the vines, seemingly determined to make a statement on the landscape - rather than to compliment it.
At Señorío de Arinzano, across the provincial border in Navarra, celebrated local architect Rafael Moneo (of LA Cathedral fame) has chosen another method to portray timelessness and the importance of tradition. He has ‘bracketed’ the Chivite family’s newest winery around the medieval tower, the 18th century residence and the beautiful 19th century neo-classical chapel. Moneo was also in charge of the renovation of these buildings and you can sense an unusual humility in the way he happily ceded centre-stage to these local treasures when he created his new building - with its sandstone-coloured brick and naturally stained copper roof - as a subtle backdrop. In the barrel room that forms the longest side of the building, a suspended catwalk allows you to inspect the ranked files of thousands of aging barrels. The struts of the 100-metre walkway are so arranged as to enhance the distance so that the barrels seem to stretch out forever.
Señorío de Arinzano has worked with the WWF to ensure that this part of the Ega valley remains a safe habitat for the region’s fauna and flora. For every acre that they use to grow grapes they have left another acre as protected wilderness. Badgers, wild boar, genet and wild cat roam the wooded valleys and there are hopes that even the endangered Spanish otter will soon return to chase fish in a river that is protected from chemicals. A mile-long dirt-track still winds between pristine woodland and cosseted vines to the ranks of polished steel drums in Arinzano’s computer-controlled fermentation areas and hi-tech barrel-rooms (carefully temperature-controlled by water-pipes set into the walls).
“Of course we resisted the temptation to tarmac the track,” smiled Luisa Díaz Morales as she walked me to the car-park under the shade of the riverside poplars, “we might have built one of Spain’s most advanced wineries here, but we don’t want people to forget that what we are at heart is a traditional country bodega.”
There are few people who are more sociable and easy-going than the bodegueros of Spain. In a business made up of short spells of intense (often round-the-clock) activity and long periods of patience, it seems that charm and hospitality have remained a central part of the character of most Spanish vineyards. At Señorío de Otazu, director Pedro Bañales invited me to ‘break bread’ (actually chistorra sausage, roast duck, and rice with foie gras) at a long table in an anteroom beside the cellar. I listened to Pedro and his friends reminiscing about Navarran wine-making, and to old-time country gossip that was as hearty as the food and as cheering as the wine.
 Otazu is as traditional as a vineyard could ever be. The property contains a 12th century Romanesque church, a 14th century watch-tower and a 16th century palace. As befits a Señorío (literally a noble estate dating back to feudal days) the bodega also has its private village, inhabited solely by estate workers and their families. From the cobbled streets of Otazu village you look down on the main winery, an old Bordeaux-style chateau and two apparently humble sand-coloured warehouses.
The fact that these premises also boast the most advanced wine-making facilities and a unique modern-art barrel-room could go totally unnoticed by the casual visitor. Buried out of sight below the lawn is the ‘Cathedral of Wine,’ a 3,600 square-metre vault dedicated to the care and perfection - one might even say the worship - of wine. Nine curving concrete pillars create a maze so that as you stand in one corner your eye gets lost among arches and the patterns of carefully directed light. To prevent the cold, stark effect of so much bare concrete the walls have been allowed to retain the wood-grain detail from the formwork that once supported them.
There is something almost spiritual about being in the presence of over 2,000 barrels of fine wine and in Otazu’s magnificent cellar the ancient link between religion and viniculture seems to have been taken to its logical conclusion.
The central aisle of this ‘cathedral’ stretches in an arrow-straight file of barrels towards a door which is open to ‘The Altar.’ This is an antique wine press which actually stands in the basement of the 19th century chateau. Otazu’s architects have managed to combine the facets of the old and the new in a way that few bodega designers have managed.
Javier Bañales, the new generation of the family which now runs Otazu, explained the bodega’s philosophy: “Apart from a wealth of history, we have one of Navarra’s last surviving oak forests and wildlife and birdlife that are hard to find elsewhere. While we want to bring the bodega into a new era as regards production and quality, we are also determined to preserve what is already precious about this place. The quality of a great wine is at least half derived from the character of the vineyard in which the grapes grow and this is something that cannot be bought or invented…it must be preserved and protected.”
The following vineyards - plus over 100 others in Rioja and Navarra - are open to public visits every day but appointments should be made in advance.
Marqués de Riscal, Calle Torrea 1, 01340 Elciego, Álava, Spain
- Tel: +34 945 60 60 00
- www.marquesderiscal.com
Bodegas Ysios, Camino de la Hoya, 01300 Laguardia, Álava, Spain
- Tel: +34 945 60 06 40
- www.bodegasysios.com
Viña Real, Ctra. Logroño, Laguardia, km.48, Álava, Spain
- Tel: +34 945 62 52 55
- www.cvne.com
Señorío de Arinzano, Carretera Estella - Tafalla, km.3, 31264 Aberin, Navarra, Spain
- Tel: +34 948 55 52 85
- www.bodegaschivite.com
Señorío de Otazu, 31174 Echauri, Navarra, Spain
- Tel: +34 948 32 92 00
- www.otazu.com |
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