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November 30, 2023 19 mins
The Murúa of Bodegas Muriel is a venerable Rioja family. José Murúa founded his winery in 1926 in Elciego (Rioja Alavesa), an area known for exceptional terroir. His elegant, complex Rioja Reservas gained renowned. Bodegas Muriel, a compound of “ Murúa” and “Elciego,” is now run by 2nd and 3rd generations, Julian Murúa and son Javier Murúa Ganguitia. In the 2000s the family expanded, acquiring Conde de los Andes (Rioja Alta) and Luis Alegre (Rioja Alavesa). Importer: www.quintessentialwines.com

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(00:03):
Welcome to the Connected Tables SIPs oniHeartRadio. We are your insatiably curious culinary
couple Melanie Young and David Ransom.We bring you the dynamic people who were
front and center and behind the scenesin food, wine, spirits and hospitality.
Ours is a delicious life and wewant to share it with you.

(00:26):
The Marua family of Bodegas Muriel isone of Rio's venerable families. Founder Jose
Merua established his namesake winery in nineteentwenty six in El Diego, an area
in Rioha Alavesa known for its exceptionalrois. He built a reputation as a
master blender, producing elegant and complexRioha reserves. The name Bodegas Muriel is

(00:52):
a compound of Merua and El Siegoand is a nod to the family's historic
roots in this region. In thetwo thousands, the family expanded its holdings,
acquiring two more Rioja Bodegas Conde DelosAndes and Louis Allegre. Today,
Muriel Wines is overseen by Julian Muruaand his son Javier Murua. Second and

(01:18):
third generation Javier Murua joins us onthe Connected Table STIPs Today, Javier.
Let's talk about Rioja Alavesa a littlebit. Alavesa is one of the three
major avias and for the rioha productionin the region. Let's start with location
and what defines the tear war ofthis area and specifically where your winery is
located. In el Thiego, Okayso is situated in the northwestern area of

(01:48):
Rioja, so up north of theriver Evro in a way, and I
would say Alasa obviously, as mostof a Mediterranean climate the influence, but
as you move north and you doget continental and Atlantic influences. The soils
are mostly clay and limestone or soil, so there is actually an area where

(02:15):
other agricultural products are very difficult tocultivate. So for many years a vineyard
has been not only the predominant agriculturalproduct, but almost a unique source of
income in the area. In thecase of the Fero where we are based,
it's an area quite close to theriver but with with a lot of

(02:39):
small hills. So I guess themost predominant character is that within a small
village we have such a big diversitybecause of altitudes and exposure, different wind
directions, but also different soil typesbecause we have from the sandy areas to
the limestone clay, the gravels inthe top of the of the mountains.

(03:01):
So I would say within Rioja aveza which do have a unique character from
other areas in Rioha. El Ferois one of the most diverse villagious in
terms of the wars in the region. So how does this ter wah effect

(03:21):
the style of wines the podegos Murielproduces. With tears and the diversity and
also the size of Rioha, youcan you can blame in different ways,
so really depends what our achievement is. So a combination between concentration and elegance
with a very gentle as civ.And also your focus is reserves and grand

(03:47):
reservers which actually had extended aging adsto that elegance. As we say,
we focus mostly in et cetera andetcetera. So for these wines, we
source grapes from the slopes from thehigh altitude, mostly clay and limestone soils.
And with also composition of the verytop areas of Alfiero. There is

(04:10):
a plateau where we have a vineyardcalled Solariero and that is a much pressure
area. So the wines. Theyhave a huge complexity, a lot of
length, but adds a lot offreshness. So for us in the case
of the etc. We find theblending of the different the wars is what
gives the complexity to the wine.And actually what we want is not a

(04:32):
reflection of a single site, isa reflection of the potential of the diversity
of the village. You know,Melanie, I think complexity and minerality are
the two things that come to mindto me when I taste these wines.
The clay soils, the calcareous soils. There's so much minerality in the wines
as well. There's just a lotgoing on that's not your typical Reoha,

(04:56):
in my opinion, really is suchan interesting area because it has the different
sub zones and Rioa alaves in particular, the landscape is quite remarkable and diverse.
But in the early two thousands,you and your father decided to expand,
and you expanded not only in RiohaAlavesa, but in Rioha Alta.

(05:18):
Tell us about that have here ina way, we've always been dynamics searching
market opportunities in terms of potential customers, but also a potential development so in
twenty thirteen we would offer a winerywhich its actual name is Conde de Los

(05:40):
Angeles, but formerly in the seventhin the sixteen hundreds, it was the
Patternina family's wine business. It's aseller that is being carved inside the mountain
and the brown in the village inthe thirteenth fourteenth century. We don't know
exactly. And when we saw thepossible abilities of that, we were actually

(06:01):
very amazed. And Rio Halta isan area that has been very recognized for
the potential of aging of the wines. And when we were visiting the cellar,
we saw wine stairs in eighteen ninetytwo. I must say that we
didn't taste them, but we havetasted some because there's very little of it.

(06:21):
But we've tasted some wines from theforties sixties, and we found the
evidence of the potential of the Riojaldawines. Rio Halta it's an area where
the soil it's also clay, limestone, the small sandy soils, the small
gravel. But in Johlavesta soils arewhite because of the calcare and the potationum.

(06:45):
In Jojalta soils are red. They'redarker because of the iron content.
So there's two completely different profiles,and I thought that we need to explore
all the different potential in the Ohaand take advantage of the huge diversity that
we have in the region. Heavier, Let's talk about the other winery that

(07:08):
you purchased, Lewis e Legray.It's also in Rio ala Vesa. Like
I guess, Muriel tell us aboutthat winery. Okay, so Ris Legre
we actually purchased in twenty twenty two. It's a small place with three different
vineyard locations, and the one citedin the historic village of La Gardia,

(07:28):
So Lagardia. It is field surroundedby a medieval wall, and the place
it's as a touristic destination is obviouslystunning, but the main reason for investing
there was the vineyards. There isa vineyard called La Regniana. Nine actors,

(07:48):
three of them three point six actorsaround seven acres were planted in the
early nineteen twenties. Another five wereplanted in nineteen forty four, and then
there is a small parcel of almostone actor so to around two acres that
was planted in nearly two thousands ofMadura Madurana. It's an adultenous gray variety,

(08:13):
so wines with a lot of TPCP, and then another area called Ojo
del Pinto, which are kind ofterraces on a very warm area, so
huge extraction, a lot of concentrationin the wines, and that allows us
to play with different types of aging. So main point was first the potential

(08:37):
of the vineyards, but then alsothe fact that because of the area in
the Alaveza, which altitudes are betweenfive hundred and forty towards six hundred and
fifty, it presented a huge differenceto what we're doing in Moriella. It
really shows the diversity of what you'reworking with. We have three wines to
discuss in front of us. Let'sstart with the contect. Was this you

(09:00):
mentioned briefly, this historic warner hasthis, as you referenced, this amazing
network underground sellers just almost a mile. It's almost a mile. It's kind
of a maze, full of differentpaths, the half a million bottles there
of the different vintages, you know, waiting for to be open. At

(09:22):
some point, I think we justfound our next trip exactly. So this
is Conde Dell was honest. Soa couple of things about the label.
It's a white label. It's avery simple label. Condie Dell was honest
is an interesting name since the Andesare in South America. The village is
on here, which is a morerecent development. We discussed in Rioha.
It's a Vino Tinto twenty sixteen.Tell us about it. I'm gonna tell

(09:46):
you first about the brand. Thebrand Conde Loez comes from the last destroy
of Peru, so when Spain lostthe colonies and the last destroy of Peru
came back to head. Actually hewas given the title of Conde de los
Angeles. So the name as abrand was firstly used in brandy. It

(10:07):
was a pretty famous brandy in thenineteen sixties, and the brandest then was
moved to the oldest wines and themost premium couvest that the Paternina Company was
doing at the time. The winecomes from twenty actors divided in fifty three
different plots, so huge complexity there. The wines are oldest planted in nineteen

(10:31):
fourteen, the youngest planted in nineteenseventy five. It's obviously all handpicked in
fifteen kilo cases. What we wantedis with the wine was to reflect a
style which followed them the essence ofrioja, which was the wine to be

(10:52):
released when it was ready to drink, but also to have a huge aging
capacity. You know, it's interestingbecause it's a more modern style of Riohan.
There is modern techniques to make atraditional wine and it's really nicely done.
The next one that we're going totalk about is the bodegas Muriel thinks
the Las Via Reserve of twenty sixteen, which is a more traditional style of

(11:16):
rio Why dot you tell us aboutthat one? This is interesting because sixteen
we called it pinkas lavi. Lavillameans wines from the village, and we
use this name in the times wherewe were not allowed to use the name
of the village in the labels.So Briere, it's it's a wine.

(11:37):
As you say, it's more traditional. All the grapes are coming from our
village, and in a way wewanted to reflect the full potential of the
village. It's a blend of differentter wars. The idea is to reflect
the essence of the village that myfather was born. But also in a

(11:58):
way we feel in this case thatthe traditional categories really facilitate the consumer.
The recognitions of style of Riohan,and that's been one of the tools that
have made rio has so successful aroundthe world. So in a way we
explore those areas of El Fero whichhad a special tears and allowed the wines

(12:22):
to be to be aged for along time, in this case twenty four
months in French oak and American oak, and then an extra period in bottle,
which minimum is twelve months because it'swhat the law mandatory requests. But
obviously you know by now that wineis been in bottle for around four years.

(12:46):
So again, the traditional categories inRioja have been having k Each category
defines a minimum period of aging.In the case of the Reserva, it's
three years of ating between barrel andbottle, with minimums of twelve months in

(13:09):
barrel and six months in bottle,but the two of them have to make
up to thirty six months. Soin my opinion, I think the real
origion more or less created the rulesto make the wines and also facilitate the
consumer to recognize a style for eachof the categories. What we wanted to

(13:33):
do with our reservice to reflect anessence of the village and really make it
different to what everyone was doing andfor us with that is what we're doing
making a wine that's still being sixteenhas fruit concentration. It's more red fruit
than black fruit, I think,but it is quite predominant, but makes

(13:54):
a very lively style of wine withnot huge concentration, but are very easy
and gentle mouthfield. It's a lovelywine and obviously in the Spanish style,
great roast pork or lamb will beideal. Also more intense fish and Jesus,

(14:15):
really beautiful. Let's go to themurial Vinas Vahas Grand Reserve at twenty
fourteen. It's a very elegant bottlewith the signature gold wrapping. Yeah.
I mean grandre service is kind ofan icon, which you know, it
goes through different periods of time wherepeople like junger more fruit wines, but

(14:37):
these other times that people you know, develop the palettes into more complexity and
want to taste and rarties in away I think in terms of Grander Service,
obviously we use all wines mostly plantedbefore nineteen fifty. It's in a
way we wanted to define an ageof the wine to use as for Grand

(15:01):
Reserva, and we thought nineteen fiftywas my father's here of birth, so
why not, you know, defineit as that. So basically, the
wines we use for grand Sea needto have huge potential of aging. So
the quality of the grapes and thenthe transformation into wine has to be excellent

(15:22):
to achieve that aging potential. Butmore I would say that besides the quality
of the of the graves, ofthe of the barrels where we age the
wines, grand is the style ofitself. So for me, the essence
of grand is to have a releasetime where we already start to feel the

(15:48):
developed characters. So even if it'sstill the fruit is quite predominant, we
want to see the evolution of thewine. We want to see the little
bit of leather of a more matureroot, but is much more complexity.
There's much more going on in thein the mouth, and I think that's,

(16:10):
at least for us, is whatwe expect from a from a grand
e c beautiful wines. I loveit as it ages, It gets a
little cow spice and I want areally really hard heart cheese with us the
saber beautiful wines, there's a signaturefor each on the label. The film
made Shields do tell us about theshields. Yes, it's basically my grandfather's

(16:37):
crests and my grandmother's. So youknow, in Spain we use our father
last name first and our mother's lastname seconds. So when my father re
established the company, you know,instead of Murua, which was my grandfather's
founding name, he established it asJulian Murua and Trena, which was his

(16:59):
name and two last names, andtherefore he used the two family crests in
the label. It also symbolizes unityand how important it is to work with
the land, with family, withtradition and history. So it's a big
symbol that is very clearly identified onthe Murial Winds. We want to underscore

(17:22):
that Bodegas, Murial Wines and allyour wines are available in the United States.
The importer distributor is Quintessential Wins outof Napa, celebrating its twentieth anniversary
in twenty twenty three. And ofcourse you have a wonderful website Murialwines dot
com at m R I E LWines dot Com for our listeners. But

(17:44):
a lot of information on the historyof your family and the wines very elegant.
I think that you rarely represent youand your family represent the essence of
what Rioha is about, which isfamily, land, tradition, but also
progress and looking forward because you reallyare is third generation passing down a legacy
onto the next generation. Thank youvery much for your comments our pleasure.

(18:07):
Thank you again, Paviier Mura.It's been a pleasure, Perdegos Muriel,
and thank you for joining us onthe Connected Table SIPs. You've been listening
to The Connected Table SIPs with MelanieYoung and David Ransom. To listen to
more in depth features with the moversand shakers who shape the wine, food

(18:30):
spirits and hospitality industry, tune intoour companion show, The Connected Table Live.
You can tune into the live broadcaston Wednesdays at two pm Eastern Time
on W four CY Radio, easyto find at ww dot W fourcy dot
com, or listen to all ourshows anytime at iHeart dot com and on

(18:51):
the iheartapp. Connect with us onTwitter at Connected Table, and follow us
on Facebook and Instagram under the ConnectedTable. And remember always stay insatiably curious.
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