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A glimpse of what the cave is like

We are inside an underground calado dug at the dawn of the 16th century, when wine was made and kept below ground, taking advantage of natural conditions that are still hard to reproduce artificially today: constant temperature, stable humidity and no light. It is not an aesthetic choice, it is pure function.

This calado is unusual for its size. Digging underground was extremely slow and costly work, so these spaces tended to be tight and very contained. Here, however, the volume is generous and, at the far end, the vault rises to more than four metres. It feels like a great underground hall, something rare for the period.

The end wall of the calado is built in carefully worked ashlar stone. According to the popular belief passed down by the oldest neighbours, this tunnel continued further on. The theory rests on a historical fact: a castle once stood directly above, and it is believed that this calado may have worked as a secondary — even emergency — entrance or exit. The height at the far end would have allowed you to ride out on horseback, according to that oral tradition. There is no documentation to confirm it, but the idea is part of the memory of the place.

There is another particularly revealing detail:
if you look closely, the far end of the calado has less mould than the rest of the cave, despite being many metres away from the small visible vent. That tells us that, somehow, the air circulates. Somewhere among the ashlar walls there is a chink of natural ventilation that keeps this area especially healthy and stable.

We do not know exactly where, but the calado breathes.
And that explains a great deal.

This natural balance —silence, darkness, humidity and an almost imperceptible ventilation— is precisely what makes this place exceptional for ageing and cellaring wines over long periods. Here time does not move at the same pace as outside. Here wines can wait.

There are places you discover.
And there are places that choose you.

When I had the chance to buy this building, its fate looked very different. The intention was clear: demolish it and build a large new house, making use of the existing foundations and the void of the calado. A logical operation from a property point of view. Irreversible from the point of view of the place.

For me it was a shock. Not so much because of the building itself, but because of what it hid underneath and everything it represented. A calado like this is not built today. And once it is gone, it is never recovered.

At that moment I was certain. I could not let this place be lost. Not in order to turn it into something else, but precisely to give it back its meaning. Buying this building was not an impulsive or romantic decision. It was a conscious, considered, almost inevitable one.

This project does not come from an abstract idea, but from a very concrete physical base: this calado, this volume, this way of understanding time. From here on, everything fitted. The building, the winery, the way of making wine and, above all, the way of living it.

It was not about making one more winery, or even a small winery. It was about creating a space coherent with a way of understanding wine that had been maturing for many years. A place where the container would not condition the content, but accompany it.

Buying this house was the first step towards giving shape to a vision that had long been waiting for the right place.

And this one, quite simply, was it.

Restoring this building was not an immediate reaction, but a long and carefully considered process. The house had been bought years earlier and, throughout that time, the project took shape calmly, almost in silence. There was no hurry. There was a clear idea of where it had to go.

The work was planned in phases. First the ground floor, the arch, the calado and the old stables: the historic core of the whole. Then the upper floors, always working to the same criterion. It was not about adding, but about taking away. About removing layers accumulated over time that had fragmented the space and hidden the original structure.

The aim was never to beautify the building or return it to some supposed ideal state. The aim was to recover its logic. To let the stone, the timber and the original volumes speak again. That is why every noble material was preserved wherever possible and, where new elements had to be introduced, it was done honestly, without trying to imitate the old.

What is new can be recognised at a glance. It does not compete with the old, it lives alongside it. A clear example is the stainless steel spiral staircase, which replaces a badly deteriorated flight of stairs. It is a contemporary element, without complexes, that converses with the stone and reminds you that this place, however many centuries of history it has, is still alive and in use.

The work was not without surprises, as is always the case in old buildings. But they were surprises that confirmed the initial reading was right. The original structure held up. Despite being abandoned, the building wanted to remain standing. One of those welcome surprises was finding, buried, the old screw of a wooden press some 300 years old, along with a pistol dating from the First Carlist War that affected this area, as well as some old coins.

More than a restoration, it was an exercise in respect. A process to give the building back its essence and prepare it for a new stage, without forcing it and without disguising it. Just enough for it to keep doing its job for many more years.

Here the building work does not set the character of the project.
It simply creates the space for everything else to happen.

For many years my work was tied to running wineries, some of them very large. Management, big teams, constant decisions and enormous technical responsibility. It was an intense and highly formative stage, which allowed me to get to know different regions, varieties, wine styles and ways of working in depth.

But over time something began to change.

The bigger the structure, the further away the origin became. The vineyard, the specific plot, the unhurried decision. Everything worked, but the pace did not always leave room for reflection or for detail. And wine, when you want to make it properly, needs precisely that: time, attention and silence.

This project was born of that moment of clarity. Not as an abrupt break, but as a mature decision. The need to return to a human scale, to a direct relationship with the vineyard and with each wine. To recover a way of working closer to the early years of my career, when the vineyard set the pace and the winery followed.

The house and the calado offered exactly what I was looking for, even though I did not fully know it yet. A place that forced me to slow down, to listen and to make decisions calmly. There was no room here for haste or for inertia. Every step had to be justified.

This change was not an escape or a romantic gesture. It was a conscious choice: to put accumulated experience at the service of a small, demanding and coherent project. A project where each wine could be conceived without compromise, and where the worst mistake would not be producing less, but producing something that made no sense.

This is where La Cueva del Castillo really begins. Not as one more winery, but as a personal way of understanding wine, time and work well done.

The vineyard is the starting point. Always.

Wine is born long before it enters a winery, and everything that happens afterwards only makes sense if it respects what the vines have been able to express that year. That is why this project is not built around a single estate or a fixed recipe, but around a deep knowledge of very specific plots.

Over the years I have had the chance to get to know and work hundreds of vineyards in Rioja. That experience allows something fundamental: telling good vines from truly singular ones. They are not always the best known or the most obvious. Sometimes they are unassuming plots, sometimes old vines, high-altitude vineyards, cooler aspects or soils that went unnoticed for years.

This project relies on growers who share that same curiosity. People who know every metre of their vines, who observe, who compare vintages and who understand that no two years are alike. It is not about producing every year, but about reading each harvest correctly.

Climate change has reinforced this way of working even further. Vineyards that were exceptional for decades now struggle in certain conditions, while others, once secondary, have become key to maintaining balance, freshness and ageing potential. That forces you to rethink decisions every year and to take nothing for granted.

Wines are not made here every year.
Wines are made when the vineyard allows it.

Each vintage is assessed separately and each plot is judged independently. Only when a specific vineyard, in a specific year, shows something truly special does that wine begin its journey. And even then there are no guarantees.

Even if a plot has been selected, even if the wine is made and aged in this calado, there is always the possibility that it will never see the light. Ageing is also a filter. Time in barrel and at rest reveals whether that wine truly represents the soil it comes from, or whether it stops halfway.

Not every wine made here is released.
Only those that, after the whole process, are able to express their origin clearly.

The wines that finally reach the bottle are, for the most part, single-plot and single-variety wines. In certain vintages a traditional blend may appear, as a nod to the history of Rioja, but always with respect for the character of the year and of the vineyard.

This project does not seek to repeat identical wines or to guarantee commercial continuity. It seeks honesty. It accepts that, sometimes, the best work is not releasing a wine at all, even when all the effort has already been made.

Because here the vineyard rules.
And time decides.

Winemaking in this project does not start from a preconceived idea, but as a natural continuation of what has happened in the vineyard. There are no fixed recipes or automatic decisions. Each wine is approached individually, according to the plot, the vintage and what the grapes have been able to give.

The harvest is done by hand, in crates, making sure the grapes arrive whole and unstressed. From there, the work in the winery aims to respect the natural rhythms of the wine. Fermentations are slow, in both whites and reds, without haste and without forcing extraction. It is not about imposing a style, but about letting the wine express itself clearly.

Once fermentation is over, the wine goes into wood. The choice of barrels does not respond to a fashion or to an aromatic profile decided in advance. Wood is a tool, never the objective. Mainly French oak barrels are used, in different volumes, adjusting times and formats to the character of each wine. Some ageing periods are shorter and others longer, but always on the same premise: the barrel should accompany without masking.

Throughout the process the wine is tasted regularly. Tasting is the main decision-making tool. There are no prior commitments or fixed calendars. Even if a wine has been made with every possible care and comes from a very interesting plot, the moment may come when we decide it does not continue. Ageing, like the vineyard, acts as a filter.

Before bottling, the wines rest in amphorae for a time. This step does not aim to mark a particular profile, but to provide stability and let the wine settle without interference. It is a calm transition before the bottle.

Bottling is not an end, but one more step. From there begins a stage that matters just as much: resting in bottle. These wines are not meant to be opened straight away. They need time to find themselves and to show everything they carry inside. They are conceived to evolve over many years, with a clear vocation for cellaring.

In this winery the calendar does not rule, nor the market, nor urgency.
The wine rules, and it is given the time it needs.

In this project time is not a consequence.
It is a decision.

After bottling, the wine is not considered finished. The bottle is not an end point, but the beginning of a phase as important as ageing in barrel. Here the wine needs silence, stability and years to find its definitive balance.

These wines are not meant to be opened as soon as they reach the market. They do not seek immediate impact or easiness. They are conceived to evolve, to change over time and to show different faces throughout their life. That is why we always work with cellaring in mind, convinced that a wine should be able to hold up for many years.

Time in bottle is also a filter. There are wines that grow, that gain depth and complexity, and others that simply hold steady. That evolution is part of the project and is accepted as such. What we are after here is not a still photograph, but a journey.

The aim is not to make wines that are understood at the first sip, but wines that are remembered years later. Wines that, when opened long afterwards, still make sense and still speak of the place they come from.

That is why time is not managed.
It is respected.

Everything above only makes sense if it shows up in the glass.

Tasting is not a technical exercise or a demonstration. It is the moment when the wine speaks for itself and puts to the test everything that has been said before: the place, the vineyard, the decisions, the waiting and the time.

We are not trying to convince anyone here. The wine is tasted in silence, observed, allowed to evolve in the glass. Everyone reads it through their own experience, but there is one thing that must be there from the first aroma to the finish: coherence.

If the project is honest, the wine shows it.
If the vineyard has ruled, you can feel it.
If time has been respected, you can tell.

The tasting is the natural close of the journey, but it is also its beginning. It is the most direct way of understanding why this place exists and why the wines born here do not aim to be easy or immediate. They aim to say something, even years later.

From here on, no more words are needed.
The wine completes the story.

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Cave visit + wine tasting

What the experience includes

Duration

CONDITIONS

Private visit + barrel tasting

What the experience includes

Duration

CONDITIONS

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A glimpse of what the cave is like