History -  Philosophy - Vinification - Wines -  Addresses & Links

 HISTORY
 

On July 22nd, 1859, Eloy Lecanda received this property from his father along with other assets. Five years later he went to Bordeaux and bought from the highly regarded nurseryman Monsieur Beguerié 18,000 rooting vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmènere, Malbec Merlot and Pinot Noir.  Was this highly unusual purchase of "exotic plants of recognised usefulness", as they were described by the National Organisation for Agricultural Development a whim or an attempt to create a myth? What is certain is that the estate was a mixture of artisanal and agricultural activities, chief among being were cattle-breeding, fruit trees, and the sale of plaster and pottery.

The estate seems to have suffered the biblical scourge of penury. Eloy Lecanda was reached by this fateful moment when he was unable to meet the payment of 170,000 pesestas for the hundred Banker's bonds. In 1888 a firm was set up with, as partners, Pascual Herrero Bux and Emilia Coca Aguirre, who was Eloy's wife, the former taking out more than 83% of the shares. Fifteen years later, Pascual Herrero's son, Antonio Herrero Velázquez, took over the whole firm and a year later a crucial character appeared on the scene, Domingo Garramiola.

Domingo, best known as "Txomin", worked for Cosme Palacio, owner of a bodega in Laguardia (Rioja). When the filoxera reached Rioja striking just when business was booming, the solution was to find similar replacement wines. Just like today, the similar wine was found in the valley of the River Duero in Castile, and therefore he made an offer to the sons of Antonio Herrero who had been running the estate since 1901, to hire the winery for a 10-year period. To overcome problems caused by the geographical distance between Laguardia and Vega Sicilia, he put Txomin in charge as his trusty winemaker, making him responsible for the estate as well.

So when the winery now called "sons of Antonio Herrero" really felt the need to make an exceptional wine, just after the Rioja vineyards had recovered from phylloxera, Domingo Garramiola stayed in Vega Sicilia, possibly tempted by an interesting offer from the Herreros. The worldly temperament and forceful personality of these brothers was decisive in the production of a different wine, more as a means of promoting the family image than for commercial imperatives.

There are doubts as to whether the first Vega Sicilia was 1917 or 1915, apart from the fact that the estate sold bottled wine before those dates. Nevertheless, it can be reasonably assumed that Txomin began in 1915, since he was now free of the commitment to make wines and take them to  Rioja.

The first bottles were made for Luis Herrero, a cosmopolitan bachelor, well-connected and fond of hunting. He consorted with the upper-middle class and the aristocracy. In the Clay Pigeon Shooting Club what was later to become the mythical bottle with its severe black and white label began to be well-known. Though the winery was hopeless as a business, since bottles were given away to good friends of the Herreros, the rest of the estate may have compensated for these losses. 

This unusual state of affairs was what gave rise to the legend of the most expensive wine in Spain. Perhaps if the winery had pursued an orthodox commercial policy, like the historic Rioja and Jerez firms, the wine would not have achieved such glory –a wine which could not be bought with money, but only with friendship. If someone insisted, he could buy it at the fanciful price the family might decide.

In the roaring twenties the wine had reached the peak of its fame with prizes such as that awarded at the 1929 Universal Exhibition in Barcelona, to the 1917 and 1918 vintages, even though the winery was still not in profit. Txomin died in 1933 at his Vega Sicilia home, surrounded by his family.

In 1952, when the Herreros sold the property to Prodes, a seed firm, the winery, as was to be expected in a difficult period, made slow progress, lacking Herrero's enthusiasm for staking everything on something which sold in small quantities. It was not a good business but it did give them prestige. The seeds brought with them a man who was to be all-important in Vega Sicilia's contemporary history Jesús Anadón. Manager during a long period, his personality dominated not only that of the owner who hired him, but also that of Miguel Neumann Swaton. In 1966 this entrepreneur, son of a Czech industrialist who in 1935 emigrated to Venezuela, bought the entire shareholding from Prodes, and then in 1982 the shares were acquired by the Álvarez family, with Anadón retiring. Until the Álvarez took over, the firm had rather kept its distance from the winds of change and renewal slowly blowing through the wine industry.