Luis Cañas

Four generations have written the history of the Luis Cañas winery.

For more than a century, the Luis Cañas family has been dedicated to the production and sale of traditional young wines made by the carbonic maceration method (whole bunches). These wines were made in the Cueva de los Curas, an old cellar dug out of the ground, which is still part of the local landscape today.

In the past, the wines were transported by Carlos Cañas, father of Luis Cañas (who died in December 2019 at the age of 91), in mule-drawn carts across the Sierra Cantabria and the Vitoria Mountains to areas bordering Bilbao and San Sebastián, more than 100 kilometres from Villabuena.

The founder, Luis Cañas, was born in 1928. A man of perfectionist character, hard worker like few others, whose motivation was always the pride of achieving the best quality in his vineyards and consequently in his wines in bulk, conquering the palate of the great wine merchants, who at that time were located in the Alhóndiga of Bilbao.

It was in 1970 when Luis Cañas came onto the market marketing bottled vintage wines, which until then had been sold in bulk. That same year, not far from the Cueva de los Curas, the winery that bears the family name was created, where the passion for grapes, the true architect of the highest quality wines in the Rioja Alavesa, was poured into the winery.

1989 marked a new milestone in the development of the winery when Juan Luis Cañas, son of Luis Cañas, took over the reins. At the age of 33, he brings a new air to the winery, maintaining the work philosophy and the family tradition thanks to his perfectionist and non-conformist character. This means that he is not satisfied with just making very good young wines, but also begins to make new wines, increasingly promoting crianza wines.

In 1994 a new and modern winery was inaugurated, equipped with the best production systems. Since then, Bodegas Luís Cañas has been constantly improving and extending its facilities in order to continue improving the quality of its wines.