Viña Ijalba

Viña Ijalba was the first winery that turned organic in Rioja. Ijalba vinificate fine varietal wines including graciano, maturana blanca and maturana tinta. Our portfolio includes white, rosé and red wines. The company was founded in 1975 by Dionisio Ruiz Ijalba. The planting of the company’s first vineyard was in the municipality of Villamediana de Iregua (near Logroño). The primary business of Don Dionisio, a well-known businessman of La Rioja, was the extraction and commercialisation of gravel and stone. As a consequence of the open cast mining, poor land was left behind. Infertile, unuseful as agricultural soil and with a great number of stones. On these poor lands is where Don Dionisio planted his vines. After analysing quality viticulture in La Rioja, it became clear that it was always carried out on marginal land, where no other crop would grow. Land on hillsides where the soil is shallow and not very fertile, here the vines gave a limited production of high quality. It is clear that the vineyards of Bodegas Viña Ijalba are situated on soil which is very similar to that of traditional Rioja quality viticulture, something which, unfortunately, for economic reasons and because of increased mechanization, has been dying out. Today the new generation of the Ruiz Ijalba family are fully incorporated into the winery.