Bodegas Marqués de Murrieta is a Spanish winery, located in the Rioja region, near Logroño. The winery was founded in 1852 by Peruvian-born Luciano de Murrieta y Garcia-Lemoine, 1st Marquess of Murrieta, and was the first Rioja estate to export its wines.[1] [2] In 1872, he purchased the Castillo Ygay estate, where the wines are produced today.[3] The firm was purchased in 1983 by Vicente Cebrián Sagarriga, and since his death has been run by his son, Vicente Dalmau Cebrián.[4] The chief winemaker is María Vargas.[5]
Jancis Robinson has described Marqués de Murrieta as belonging to "the Rioja aristocracy", along with La Rioja Alta, CVNE, López de Heredia, Muga and Marqués de Riscal.[6] Karen MacNeil described it as "one of the oldest and most prestigious bodegas in Rioja".[7]
The estate's most well-known wine is its Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial, but it is also known as one of the few Rioja producers to still make traditional oak-aged white wines.[8] Its "Dalmau" Reserva release contains a proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon and is aged in French barriques.