A book has more than one chapter, and so the Fernández Rivera family also tells their love of wine through different wineries. One of them is the Bodega Condado de Haza, which comes up with wonderful red wines from the Tempranillo grape variety.The Condado de Haza winery is the success story of a seeker. A visionary who had already found what he was looking for once before: with his first winery. But when the red wines of the now long-famous Bodega Pesquera had established themselves in the early 1980s, Alejandro Fernández, who founded the estate together with his then wife Esperanza Rivera, sensed that this was not to be his only dream. He wanted to explore the multifaceted, profound world of red wine even further, to dive deeper and even more intensively into it - and to bring his second great vision to life: a bodega with a special terroir in the style of a Bordeaux château surrounded by vineyards. However, the search for a suitable location where he and Esperanza could fulfil this unique dream turned out to be complicated and protracted. However, as is so often the case in life, perseverance is rewarded in the end. In his case, with a very special piece of land: a virtually predestined hill in the north-east of the Spanish wine-growing region Ribera del Duero between Roa and La Horra in Burgos. Alejandro was impressed: the castle-like winery, which today covers 170 hectares, is surrounded by the nourishing Duero River and vineyards whose plots, thanks to the different orientations and soil compositions between the west (Valladolid) and the northeast (Roa), are as if made for his multi-faceted play with the Tempranillo grape variety. Because here too - just two hours away from Pesquera - he wanted to do justice to his parade grape variety.
In addition to this special location, what stands out most is the way in which Familia Fernández Rivera takes care of the raw material - the exquisite grapes - from the vineyard to the bottle. Today, Alejandro and Esperanza's daughters and granddaughters, the second and third generations, are running the company and expanding it with new projects. The interplay with nature plays an essential role, as it is important to clearly capture the manifold soil profiles in the wines and translate them into the aromas and texture of the growths. "The care of the vines and the grapes, their accompaniment to the winery and there, after fermentation, the further accompaniment of the wine so that it becomes better and better until it finally reaches the lips of the consumer.... At each of these moments, we focus on quality, investing resources in the vineyards and in the production processes to maximise the quality of the product year after year and to express each vintage, its climate and its terroir with the wine", tells the team of oenologists Lucia Pascual Fernández and Rodrigo Pons, who accompany the wines on their journey with great sensitivity and ambition. They want to make traditional, original wines of the highest quality that respect the land where the grapes are grown and simply give connoisseurs pleasure. After all, they are convinced that wine is life. "Wine is our daily bread, panem nostrum - our Lord's Prayer." It is sacred and at the same time symbolises "joy, pleasure and enjoyment. Wine is life"; everything that makes life beautiful and special.
And so the family lets the different wines of the Bodega Condado de Haza speak about this special piece of earth that Alejandro Fernández once found. Wines that are full-bodied and warm with firm body and harmoniously integrated notes of the wood in which they all mature. Wines that have long since stepped out of the visionary's shadow, while telling of his dream and reflecting the family's passion for wine, its production and its origin - the land on the Duero.
We invite you to discover this great winery and its 2020 Crianza at our German-speaking wein.plus:club online tasting 'Wines you must have drunk!' in August 2023. Places available for wine professionals and private wine fans are very limited.
You can also order this wine from the online shops listed in wein.plus:find+buy.