Let me tell you about the story of a winery that goes back more than a century. The story of a tradition that is renewed day by day.
THE ORIGIN OF A TRADITION
The history of our winery goes back more than a century, to the time of my grandfather Eusebio, where agriculture was the economy of the area. It was a subsistence economy, more diversified than today’s, where cereal, olive and vine cultivation were combined. From this period, we keep a centenary cellar dug in the ground, one of the 70 subway cellars that Lapuebla de Labarca had.
These were cellars in which, during the winter days, when the vineyard was at rest and no work could be done, the winegrowers used to mine to increase their depths and make the cellars bigger.
The grapes were transported in comportones to the stone lake where they fermented. The vats in the deep cellars were used to store and improve the wines until they were sold. The method of elaboration was the carbonic maceration, in which the whole grapes fermented in the lakes. Once the rite of treading in the lake was finished, three fractions of wine were separated: Tear, Heart and Press.
OUR STORY MOVES FORWARD
Thus, we reached the 1970s, where my father, Luis, continued the tradition started by my grandfather, maintaining his dedication to agriculture and winemaking. To do so, he converted the cereal fields into vineyards and even bought the adjoining vineyards, thus enlarging the size of his plots.
Without abandoning the old winery, he built a new one according to the canons of the 70s: lakes and concrete tanks in cellars where the wines rested while they were being bottled.
Towards the 80s, my father decided to put his own brand on the bottles of wine he was already selling. Thus, in 1982, he created the brands Jaun de Alzate and Covara (Rioja Alavesa artisan winegrower) and had the courage to produce crianza wines with the great effort that it meant for a small winegrower and winemaker. And all this would not have been possible without the support and work of my mother Emi, a woman who worked miracles with just four things. A picture that is reflected in many families in the Rioja Alavesa where the couple worked together to carry on the family business, and which still remains to this day.
What can I tell about me… I have grown up playing among vines, demijohns and bottles, harvesting and bottling. For years I combined my professional work as a nurse with the support of my family and the administrative work of the winery. In 1989, my husband Jesús joined the project.
A NEW STAGE IN OUR STORY
We took the reins of the winery in 2000 after the well-deserved retirement of my parents after many years of effort and work.
The world of wine evolves very fast: more competition appears, new trends emerge, and there is more and more rush. We muzt adapt, and with the new needs we decided to complete our catalog of wines with another more daring and personal line. And to achieve that goal, we built a new winery that would allow us to experiment and innovate during the harvest with special elaborations. And so, in 2005 we created Polus, a new brand for new illusions that complements Jaun de Alzate.
But something does not change with the passing of time: respect for the vineyard, manual harvesting, selection of clusters in the vineyard, care for the environment… but best of all, is that we are not bored yet and we want to continue enjoying what we have inherited with the responsibility to improve it and pass it on.
Loli