The ageing of Rioja red wine in the bottle

🍷 The Evolution of Rioja Wine in the Bottle

At Bodegas Murillo Viteri, crafting exceptional Rioja red wines doesn’t stop when the barrels are emptied. There’s a quiet but powerful transformation that happens next—ageing in the bottle. This stage is essential for wines to achieve their final elegance and complexity.

🕰️ What Happens After Bottling?

Once the wine is bottled, it begins a natural evolution in a reductive environment (low in oxygen). This controlled ageing leads to:

Enhanced complexity
Refined aromas
Softer tannins
Greater harmony on the palate

Just like great stories, great wines need time to unfold.

🍇 Quality from the Start

The ability of a wine to age well depends largely on its polyphenolic composition—a result of the grape quality and vinification process. That’s why we start with the best fruit and meticulous winemaking.

Our wines then rest in silence, semi-darkness, and a stable temperature in our cellar. This quiet phase is when the wine polishes itself—becoming rounder and more nuanced with each passing month.

👃 Patience and Precision

Our expert oenologists, Iñaki and Patxi, perform ongoing tastings and chemical analyses to track the wine’s development. Only when they deem the wine perfectly matured is it released to the market.

This approach guarantees that every bottle you open is at its optimum moment of expression.

⏳ Long-Term Evolution in the Bottle

Once in your hands, the evolution continues. Depending on how it’s stored, Rioja red wine can improve over several years:

Crianza: up to 6 years
Reserva: up to 10 years

Murillo Viteri Reserva is aged for 24 months in oak barrels and at least 12 more months in the bottle. The result is a wine rich in character and balance.

🍷 The Wait Is Worth It

So next time you open a bottle of Rioja, remember—you’re not just drinking wine. You’re experiencing years of careful ageing, from vine to barrel to bottle.

Cheers to time, patience, and the beauty of wine evolution!