The emblematic Rioja firm Bodegas Muga from the Barrio de la Estación in Haro has decided to bet on the emerging DO Ribera del Duero, which already has a total of 349 wineries (318 companies). The Mugas have acquired 30 hectares of vineyards planted in a prestigious area, in the municipality of Moradillo de Roa (south of the province of Burgos). Its project in Ribera del Duero has started with an investment of 1.8 million euros.
There are many large Rioja wineries that, like Muga, have also opted for riverside wines. This is the case of La Rioja Alta (Áster), Roda (Corimbo), Grupo Faustino (Portia), Luis Cañas (Dominio de Cair), Cvne (Bodegas Bela), Artevino Family Wineries /Izadi-Orben (Villacreces), Bodegas Riojanas ( Hacienda Miguel Sanz), Ontañón (Altos de Ontañón), Marqués de Cáceres (Finca La Capilla), Hispanobodegas (Gormaz Vineyards and Wineries), López Moreras (Muntra Wineries) or Vintae (Bardos).
For years there have also been notable Catalan investments in the DO Ribera del Duero. This is the case of Ferrer Wines (Bodegas Valdubón), Familia Torres (Selección de Torres in Fompedraza), J
Bodegas Muga has decided to start its project in Moradillo de Roa with the vineyard. Their intention is to initially rent a winery to vinify their first harvest from this year’s harvest while waiting to develop their own winery project. If they did not find a place to vinify this year, they would end up selling their grapes to other wineries in the area. The vice president of this winery, Manu Muga, has told Comer La Vanguardia that his intention is not to make a “very big” project. They want to go “little by little.”
Muga’s commitment to the Ribera del Duero comes after “establishing” its founding project in La Rioja with significant investments, both in vineyards and in the winery or in its remarkable wine tourism business. In fact, they have doubled their vineyards in the last two decades, exceeding 400 hectares in the Rioja Alta. This allows them to obtain 60% of the grapes they need to make their 2.1 million bottles annually, of which they export 54% of the total to some 80 countries around the world.
For years, before the pandemic, Muga had been scanning the market looking to invest in a wine project in which to make great white wines in Galicia. They even had “a foot and a half” in the DO Valdeorras, according to Manu Muga. But finally this project was cut short at the last minute.
Bodegas Muga was founded in 1932 by Isaac Muga and his wife Aurora Caño. They produced young harvest wines in small, humble facilities on Calle Mayor de Haro, even though their dream was to create wines with aging. The lack of means and space, as well as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the post-war period and the Second World War, prevented this. But in 1967 they bought a mansion from 1862 in the Barrio de la Estación in Haro, where one of the most significant wineries in the Rioja Alta is today, occupying a space of 25,000 m2. They bought the mansion and its property from its then owner: Dionisio del Prado. That’s where the name of one of its most select wines comes from (Prado Enea).
It has been the second generation of the family who has made the business prosper and the third, the current one, which has internationalized the brand. They claim to be the only winery in Spain with a master cuber and three coopers of its own.
