In the mythical city of Haro, capital of La Rioja Alta, perhaps where the extraordinary sum of coincidences between the goodness of the climate and the severity of the land is best produced, we find the Bodegas López de Heredia, the oldest in Haro and one of the first three in La Rioja.
Back in 1877, and as a result of the concerns created in the middle of the century by the arrival of the French wine merchants (who came to La Rioja to solve the problems caused by phylloxera in their vineyards), it was when Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta, who had a profound knowledge of and was a good student of these professionals, decided to follow in their footsteps and began to plan and build what is now the winery.
So wisely and meticulously, that this kind of cathedral of wine, like the authentic ones, is still unfinished and perhaps it is from that still latent spirit of the founder that one gets the feeling, when stepping on his ships, of having travelled back in time.
Between 1913 and 1914, Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta, at the same time as he was laying the foundations of his industrial facilities, planted "Viña Tondonia", giving rise to the winery's best known product. Viña Tondonia is a beautiful vineyard of more than 100 hectares, located on the right bank of the Ebro River, where the most typical Rioja wines are grown. López de Heredia also has three other vineyards, also located in the upper part of La Rioja, called "Viña Cubillo", "Viña Bosconia" and "Viña Zaconia".
The vineyards cover a total area of 170 hectares, with an average annual production of around 800,000 kilos of grapes, which are used to make the highest quality wines. The strategic location of the vineyards, the exceptional quality of the plantations and the varieties used have their essential complement in a magnificent winery, whose creation process was similar to the planting of the vineyards, slowly, with the utmost care.
Today, these facilities are a model. Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia is located on a total surface area of 53,076 square metres, of which 19,718 are built, corresponding to 3,433 square metres of the underground cellar, with caves of up to 200 metres long, at a depth of more than 10 metres, perforated in the heart of a colossal block of sandstone, on whose sides there are endless rows of barrels (12,900 Bordeaux barrels are stored in its entrails). |
