CVNE is a company who has multiple wineries in their group. In Haro, they provide a cross-section of their products to taste: Cune, Contina, Imperial and Viña Real wineries. We did not like the Cune Gran Reserva. We were impressed with the Imperial Gran Reserva, but after seeing the high price, we thought better to avoid it. We tasted Gran Reservas from Contina & Viña Real and thought the Viña Real had some good points. We were pleasantly surprised when we visited Viña Real for a tour a few days later that their Crianza and Reserva were very good, some of the best Crianza and Reserva we tasted from 25 wineries in La Rioja. The reason for visiting Viña Real was for the tour. It was spectacular. Having been on 10 tours in La Rioja, we were pleased to have an energetic young lady present the facilities in about a 1 hour tour in English. The production operation is different than most other La Rioja wineries. With a huge crane, they lift the fruit into the tops of the fermentation tanks to avoid any pumping. They use the same method to do what is known as the "punch-down", cycling the fruit and juice from the bottom of the tank to the top of the tank as fermentation proceeds. The fermented grape juice is separated from the "must" by gravity with the must being shoveled out of the tank when cleaning is needed. Oak barrel ageing occurs on the floor below the fermentation tanks and gravity is used to fill the oak barrels. During the ageing cycle, the barrels have to be "racked" to even out the ageing process and to remove sediments that build up. We were fortunate to see the racking operation being performed on a modern piece of equipment that does the transfer from barrel to barrel and washes out the barrel. It was fascinating to see the whole operation being performed in a matter of minutes using one machine operator and one forklift operator. Since La Rioja DOC requires bottle aging, we also visited the bottle aging room. The barrel and bottle management system is a fascinating inventory challenge considering that the winemaker is involved in the process to tweak the wines that are getting "ready to drink". The tour concluded with the tasting. Viña Real Crianza is available on the West Coast (USA) for about $15 USD and on the East Coast for under $11. A real deal. The Reserva which we found to our liking is priced accordingly a bit higher, but still represents a true value in fine La Riojana Tempranillo. read more

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We had our hotel concierge call to confirm that we could visit the wine bar the afternoon of Nov 6 because they didn't have any tours available, which was understandable because it was last minute. When we showed up, the guard wouldn't let us in and turned us away because they didn't have enough staff to serve people. We were disappointed to say the least. read more