Bodegas Pago de Larrainzar
Bodegas Pago de Larrainzar
[Passion written into the pilgrim road, a family's story told in wine]
A hundred and fifty years ago the Larrainzar family bought a bodega in Ayegui, beside the monastery of Irache at the foot of Montejurra, on the great pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela. The founder of Pago de Larrainzar, great-grandfather Luis Larrainzar, planted Tempranillo and set up a small cellar making wine in modest quantities. It won a gold medal at the wine competition held alongside the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.
In the years that followed the family gradually drifted away from winemaking. For Miguel Canalejo, though, the memories of that time have always remained vivid, bound up with Pago de Larrainzar.
In 2001 he resolved to realise a dream he had nursed for years: to make wine on the family's own land and send something found nowhere else out into the world. His two children joined him in it. Miguel oversees the technical side, while Irene Canalejo heads marketing and sales.
Today the estate covers thirteen hectares, worked by what they call micro-management: knowing the soils intimately, managing the growth of each parcel individually, and irrigating whenever the vines require it rather than by the calendar. The fruit is picked by hand and sorted with great care.
