The Brothers & the 33 Parcels

The story of Azpillaga Urarte is the story of a family whose name is inseparable from the land they have farmed for generations. Emilio Pérez de Azpillaga and M. Carmen Urarte were grape growers in the traditional Rioja Alavesa mode: they cultivated vineyards, tended the vines with care, and sold their grapes to larger wineries or cooperatives — a common arrangement in a region where most families own small plots but few have the means or ambition to bottle their own wine. This was the reality until the 1960s. But in the 1970s, Emilio and M. Carmen made a decisive shift: they began making their own wines, pressing their own grapes, and keeping the fruit of their labour for themselves rather than selling it to others. By the 1980s, they had built a new winery and begun bottling their first brand — Viña El Pago — a name that would become the foundation of everything that followed.

The turning point came in 1993. Eduardo Pérez de Azpillaga Urarte, one of the sons, had just finished his studies in Viticulture and Enology in Laguardia, the capital of the Rioja Alavesa. A fateful trip to the Beaujolais had opened his eyes to the flourishing natural wine movement there — local winemakers and vignerons who farmed with respect for the soil, fermented with indigenous yeasts, and made wines that tasted of their place rather than their laboratory. When Eduardo returned home, he set a condition for joining the family winery: he would farm organically, and he would make low-intervention wines that respected and highlighted the work in the vines. His parents accepted. It was not a rejection of their legacy but a deepening of it — a recognition that the same care they had always shown the vineyard could be extended to exclude chemicals entirely.

The transition was gradual and observational. Between 1993 and 2001, the family studied, investigated, and experimented, gradually eliminating all chemical synthesis treatments until their vineyards received only natural and certified organic inputs. The results were immediate and visible: as chemicals were removed, quality in the grapes increased. A second wine — Señorío de Aztule — and a third — Fincas de Aztule — were born. Between 2004 and 2006, they tested spontaneous plant covers in their vineyards; the results were so satisfactory that they implanted them in all their plots. At the same time, they began working with decoctions and plant extracts as treatments, fully immersing themselves in agroecology. By 2010, after what they call a great apprenticeship in agrarian unlearning, they were producing almost 100% of the products with which they protected their vineyards — plant slurries, seawater extracts, hydroalcoholic plant extracts, and microbiological preparations. In 2011, Ignacio Pérez de Azpillaga Urarte, Eduardo's brother, joined the project. Today, the two brothers cultivate their 12 hectares and manage the winery together — a partnership of equals united by blood, soil, and conviction.

The cellar philosophy at Azpillaga Urarte is governed by a principle of traditional respect that was reinvigorated by Eduardo's formative trip to the Beaujolais. For both their reds and whites, the brothers honour Rioja's traditional vinification — whole-cluster, carbonic fermentation — the same method that has defined the region's wine for generations, long before the Bordeaux-influenced modernisation of destemmed fruit, controlled temperature, and homogenised blending. The grapes are hand-harvested into small containers and brought to the winery, where the whole clusters are placed in stainless steel tanks for 7 to 10 days of carbonic maceration. The berries ferment internally, releasing colour, aroma, and tannin without the aggressive extraction that comes from crushing and pumping over. The juice is then pressed and returned to stainless steel to finish fermenting with native yeasts. No commercial yeasts are added. No enzymes. No corrections. No cosmetic makeup.

The approach is deliberately anti-Bordeaux in a region that was heavily influenced by Bordeaux techniques at the turn of the twentieth century. The brothers reject high yields, destemmed fruit, controlled fermentation, and homogenous blending across terroirs — the industrial trappings that turned much of Rioja into a standardised brand rather than a collection of village wines. Instead, they find more symmetry with their friends in the Beaujolais and with the Southern Rhône than with most of their neighbours in La Rioja. The wines are not filtered. No sulfites are added, except sometimes at bottling — and always in minuscule amounts, under 20 parts per million. The result is a portfolio of wines that taste of the vineyard, the vintage, and the hand that farmed them — not of the laboratory, the consultant, or the market focus group.

The Viña El Pago is the estate's flagship — a red wine made mainly from Tempranillo, with Graciano, Garnacha, and a touch of Viura. The carbonic maceration lasts 2 to 3 weeks, after which the wine is left in tank for a few months before bottling. It is a wine of juicy red and black fruit, cherry, floral notes, and the savoury structure that carbonic maceration provides when handled with patience and clean fruit. The Señorío de Aztule and Fincas de Aztule are the estate's second and third lines — wines born from the quality improvements that followed the organic conversion, each expressing a different facet of the 33-parcel mosaic. The white wines — made from Viura (Macabeo) and Garnacha Blanca — are vinified with the same low-intervention philosophy: gentle pressing, spontaneous fermentation, and a refusal to impose oak or technology where the grape's own voice is sufficient.

The cellar itself is a corrugated tin shed — a modest, functional space that reflects the family's refusal to invest in marketing architecture rather than vineyard health. The equipment is simple: stainless steel tanks, an old vertical press, and the patience to let time do what enzymes and machines cannot. The brothers work with the conviction that the wine is already being written in the vineyard, and that the cellar's role is to protect that writing rather than to edit it. This is not a rejection of knowledge — Eduardo's enology degree is put to daily use — but a deeper application of it: the knowledge of when to do nothing, when to wait, and when to trust the indigenous yeasts that have fermented Rioja grapes for centuries.

To understand Azpillaga Urarte, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a long-distance race — a multi-generational commitment to returning the land to a state of health that predates chemical agriculture. The family describes their journey as an apprenticeship in agrarian unlearning: the process of forgetting the industrial lessons that the twentieth century imposed on farming and remembering the ecological wisdom that the nineteenth century knew instinctively. Emilio and M. Carmen began the race by growing grapes. Eduardo changed its direction by demanding organic farming. Ignacio joined by deepening the regenerative practices. And the finish line is not a specific vintage or a specific score; it is the moment when the vineyard is fully self-sufficient, when the soil microbiome is fully restored, and when the wines require nothing from the cellar except time and gravity.

The identity is also defined by the 33 parcels — a fragmentation that is the very opposite of modern wine marketing's preference for large, contiguous, photographable estates. The brothers do not own a single beautiful hillside; they own 33 tiny plots scattered across three villages, each with its own soil, its own altitude, its own exposure, its own microclimate. This is the traditional Rioja Alavesa model — the parcellated vineyard culture where every family owns a few rows here and a few rows there, and where the winemaker's skill is measured not by the size of his estate but by his ability to blend these fragments into a coherent whole. The Viña El Pago is not a single-vineyard wine; it is a 33-vineyard wine, a mosaic of limestone, clay, and alluvial soils, of 390-metre warmth and 625-metre coolness, of 90-year-old goblet vines and 4-year-old trellis plantings. This is not a weakness; it is the estate's greatest strength.

The future of Azpillaga Urarte is tied to the continued health of its regenerative vineyards, the deepening of its self-sufficiency, and the gradual evolution of a portfolio that now speaks to both the traditional Rioja drinker and the natural wine enthusiast. The Viña El Pago will continue to be the flagship — a wine that proves traditional carbonic maceration, when applied to regeneratively farmed fruit, produces a Rioja of opulence, structure, and freshness without the Bordeaux-influenced trappings of oak and technology. The Señorío de Aztule and Fincas de Aztule will continue to explore the quality improvements that emerge as the soil deepens in health. And the white wines will continue to prove that Viura and Garnacha Blanca, when handled with minimal intervention, achieve a mineral clarity that challenges the region's reputation for oak-heavy, oxidised whites. The grass will continue to grow between the rows, the cuttings will continue to decompose into fertiliser, the plant slurries will continue to replace synthetic sprays, and the indigenous yeasts will continue to ferment in the corrugated tin shed that the brothers call their cellar.

In an age of increasing industrialisation and consolidation in Rioja — of corporate bodegas, flying winemakers, and global brands — Azpillaga Urarte stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects the region's tradition but because it has embraced a deeper tradition: one that values 33 tiny parcels over a single large estate, regenerative agriculture over chemical dependence, whole-cluster carbonic maceration over destemmed controlled fermentation, indigenous yeasts over commercial inoculation, no filtration over sterile clarity, zero or minimal sulfur over standardised stability, the corrugated tin shed over the architectural showpiece, the Beaujolais connection over the Bordeaux imitation, goblet-trained old vines over trellised young clones, 3,000 vines per hectare over 10,000, self-produced plant slurries over synthetic fungicides, the long-distance race over the quarterly profit, and the specific voice of Lanciego's limestone and clay over the standardised replication of a global luxury style. Eduardo and Ignacio Pérez de Azpillaga Urarte are not merely making wine; they are proving that two brothers can farm 33 parcels without losing their minds, that a carbonic-maceration Rioja can achieve complexity without oak, that a regenerative vineyard can outproduce a chemical one in quality if not in volume, that the Basque-influenced north of Rioja can produce wines of greater freshness than the Mediterranean-influenced south, and that the simplest philosophy — exquisite wines that are respectful of the Earth that saw us born — is often the most profound. From the 33 parcels to the three brands, from the carbonic tank to the unfiltered bottle, from the limestone soil to the regenerative cover, from the parents to the brothers: all united in one bottle, one race, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, regenerative, whole-cluster, passionately honest wine from the Rioja Alavesa.