Reserva Especial
⏳ Drinking Window
Typically best enjoyed 8 to 20 years from the vintage release, though exceptional vintages can cellar beautifully for several decades.
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Classic roasted lamb, slow-cooked beef stews, and aged Manchego cheese.
✨ Technical Specifications
CVNE, founded in 1879 by the Real de Asúa brothers in Haro's legendary Barrio de la Estación, is a cornerstone of Rioja's winemaking history. The Reserva Especial designation represents a historic, traditional approach to Rioja blending and extended aging. Historically crafted from select parcels of Tempranillo, complemented by Graciano, Mazuelo, and Garnacha, this wine undergoes meticulous aging in oak casks—traditionally a mix of American and French oak—followed by extensive bottle refinement. The story of CVNE is rich with lore, including the famous typographical error where a scribe wrote CUNE instead of CVNE, a name that stuck. The wine itself showcases the classic Rioja Alta terroir: iron-rich clay soils under a climate moderated by the Cantabrian mountains, yielding a red of remarkable elegance, bright acidity, and complex tertiary notes of dried red fruits, leather, sweet spices, and tobacco leaf.
🍾 About the Producer
Established in 1879 in Haro's iconic Barrio de la Estación by brothers Eusebio and Raimundo Real de Asúa, Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España (CVNE) stands as an architectural and viticultural pillar of DOCa Rioja. Still stewarded by fifth-generation descendants under CEO Víctor Urrutia, the historic house commands premier vineyard parcels across Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, rooted primarily in calcareous clay and alluvial gravel under an Atlantic-moderated continental climate. CVNE has historically driven technical modernizations, incorporating gravity-flow winemaking, Eiffel-engineered cellars, and early concrete fermentation vats alongside classical oak maturation. Viticulture emphasizes environmental stewardship, evidenced by active membership in International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA). The house crafts legendary expressions, from the flagship Imperial Gran Reserva and the singular Real de Asúa to pioneering whites such as Viña Real Blanco, Monopole Clásico, and the scarce Corona Gran Reserva, reflecting balance, age-worthiness, and traditional Spanish winemaking precision.
🍇 Grapes
Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, Mazuelo