Bodegas y Viñedos Heras Cordón

Bodegas y Viñedos Heras Cordón was born in the 1990s from the union of three brothers with a family tradition in grape production. 

The brothers, Jose Luis, Juan Carlos and Sergio, have had a company dedicated to the preparation of agricultural estates and the planting of vineyards since the early 1980s, which allowed them to acquire the necessary experience to carry out the cultivation and care of the vine in a more efficient and sustainable way.

Although it is true that the current project was born in the mid-1990s, the family's winemaking tradition dates back to the end of the 19th century, when the family began to make wine on a small scale in their cellars dug out of stone and rock in Lapuebla de Labarca, in the Rioja Alavesa region.

Thus, in 1995, they decided to start building a winery for the production of great wines in the municipality of Fuenmayor, La Rioja, in a privileged wine-growing area next to what had been their home all their lives.

Paradoxically, this work began in the early 1990s in Castilla La Mancha. The Heras Cordón brothers, in one of their vineyard planting, works in the area, and with the idea of their future construction of the winery, saw that next to those vineyard estates there were completely abandoned railway stations. 

They decided, therefore, to request the demolition and purchase of these 19th-century ashlar stones from the local municipalities, transporting each and every one of the stones to their estate in Fuenmayor for the construction of their three warehouses.

Subsequently, a door weighing 2.5 tons per leaf was recovered as the entrance door and hallmark of the winery, with two leaves, which the carpenter restored and recovered by fitting new hinges.

In these warehouses, a 10-metre underground excavation was made, where the wines destined for crianzas and reservas rest and mature, with a barrel park of around 2,000 barrels.

The construction work was completed in 2001, when the first Heras Cordón wine was made, which the Control Board described as an excellent vintage and the vintage of the century.

For the production of these great wines, the winery owns 52 hectares of vineyards, acquiring the production of another sixty hectares from farmers in the area, who are advised on how to obtain excellent grapes. All the vineyards are in two sub-areas of great prestige and quality, Rioja Alta (Cenicero, Fuenmayor and Navarrete) for 30%, and Rioja Alavesa (Laguardia, Elciego and Lapuebla de Labarca) for the remaining 70%.