Bodegas Irache, S.L. is a winery founded in 1891, and located in Ayegui (

Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

) at the foot of Mount Montejurra, about 2 km from the medieval city of Estella.

History

The original vineyards were donated to the Monastery of Irache in 1072 by King

Sancho IV of Navarre Sancho Garcés IV (; 1039 – 4 June 1076),Sancho IV, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. nicknamed Sancho of Peñalén (, ) was King of Pamplona from 1054 until his death. He was the eldest son of García Sánchez III and his wife, Stephanie, and ...

. The monastery, which also functioned as a pilgrims' hospital on the

Way of Saint James The Camino de Santiago (, ; ), or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tr ...

, was closed in the nineteenth century, but the tradition of viticulture continues. The Wine Museum contains over 200 pieces of historical winery equipment and many bottles of wine from famous vintages.

Wine Fountain

In 1991 the company built a wine fountain in one of the walls of the winery which is right on the pilgrims' route along the Way of Saint James. This spot was already known in the 12th century as a "land of good bread and excellent wine" according to the

Codex Calixtinus The (or ''Codex Compostellus'') is a manuscript that is the main witness for the 12th-century ('Book of Saint James'), a pseudepigraph attributed to Pope Calixtus II. The principal author or compiler of the ''Liber'' is thus referred to as "Ps ...

Installations

The winery uses stainless steel vats with temperature control. It currently has twenty-three 70,000 liter vats and nine 25,000 liter vats. The bottling plant has a capacity of 6,000 bottles per hour. The 6,700 m² cathedral-like barrel room was inaugurated in 1991, and has a capacity for 10,000 oak barrels. One wall of this room is completely dedicated to holding over 3,000,000 bottles.

Vineyards and Grapes

The winery owns 150 ha of vineyards with the following red varieties:

Tempranillo Tempranillo (also known as Ull de Llebre, Cencibel, Tinto Fino and Tinta del País in Spain, Aragonez or Tinta Roriz in Portugal, and several other synonyms elsewhere) is a black grape variety widely grown to make full-bodied red wines in it ...

Grenache Grenache (; ) or Garnacha () is one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. Niels Lillelund: ''Rhône-Vinene'' p. 25, JP Bøger – JP/Politikens Forlagshus A/S, 2004. . It ripens late, so it needs hot, dry condi ...

(''Garnacha'' in Spanish),

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebano ...

Merlot Merlot ( ) is a dark-blue-colored wine grape variety that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name ''Merlot'' is thought to be a diminutive of , the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the color ...

; and the following white varieties:

Viura Macabeo, also called Viura or Macabeu (, ), is a white variety of wine grape. It is widely grown in the Rioja region of northeastern Spain, the Cava producing areas south of Barcelona, and the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. Spanis ...

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, ; ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new a ...

and

Malvasía Malvasia (), also known as Malvazia, is a group of wine grape varieties grown historically in the Mediterranean region and Macaronesia, but now grown in many of the winemaking regions of the world. In the past, the names Malvasia, Malvazia, ...

; all in the territory covered by the Navarra Denominación de Origen.

Wines

The winery makes many types of wine including the internationally recognized brands of Irache, Castillo de Irache, Prado de Irache and Fuente Cerrada. These wines are sold in 68 countries.

References

External links

* http://www.irache.com * http://www.navarrawines.com {{coord missing, Spain Wineries of Spain 1891 establishments in Spain Camino de Santiago