Vinicola Real Cueva del Monge Blanco 2018

Bodegas Vinicola Real was founded in 1989 by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez in Albelda de Iregua, a town with a remarkable history, whose roots go back beyond the medieval era.

Vinícola Real was built near the chapel of Santa Catalina, the only part that remains of the Monastery of San Martín de Albelda founded in the year 924 AD, the Monastery was destroyed due to the detachment of the Salagona rock in 1683.

Vinícola Real was born with the vocation of being a small production winery specializing in high quality wines and "vinos de pago". The idea is to produce "great wines" from a single terroir, with a differentiated method of production and aging, and with a strong personality (the new style of La Rioja).

The name "200 Monges" is a tribute to the disappeared monastery of San Martín de Albeda located in La Rioja and to all those monks who dedicated themselves to safeguarding culture.

The Cueva del Monge brand pays homage to the thousand-year-old habitat built in the Albelda rocks by the 200 monks and which today represent the set of caves of the rock scriptorium.

Cueva del Monge White Wine is made with a combination of grapes such as Viura, Malvasia and Garnacha from the D.O. Rioja is one of Vinícola Real's first projects and with it comes magic, dedication and above all the conviction that whites have great potential.

A wine with personality and elegance, soft but with structure that arises from a manual harvest, after the selection of the grapes in their optimal state of health and ripeness, in small boxes ranging from 12 to 15 kilos, to be later squeezed, executing a distinctive maceration of the squeezed grape in the tank and removing the aromatic part from inside the skin.

Fermentation begins in stainless steel tanks in order to unify the process, using only indigenous yeasts from the field and the winery that ensures the potentiation of aromas.

The alcoholic fermentation continues in new French and American oak barrels for 40 days using the batonage technique daily; to finish its aging in wood for 4 months.