Celebrating the greats: Finca Manzanos and their Rioja winemaking legacy

As part of our ongoing 25th anniversary celebrations throughout 2025, we’re shining our spotlight on some of the winemakers we enjoy collaborating with the most, including people we’ve known for decades as well as more recent discoveries we can’t get enough of. Finca Manzanos is a fine example of the former.

The Bodegas Manzanos winery is based in one of the world’s most iconic and popular wine regions. Rioja winemaking has made a name for itself on the global wine scene for its centuries of quality wine production. The Manzanos family has certainly played a part in that with over 130 years of winemaking experience stretching four generations.

The Manzanos approach to winemaking is a harmonious blend of abundant passion, extreme care and a huge focus on quality. However it’s their ability to both uphold tradition and stay on top of modern wine trends that makes the Manzanos family one of the greats in our eyes.

Victor Fernadez de Manzanos and winemaker Borja Ripa are the ones currently running the show at Manzanos until the next generation takes the reins. Their mission as a winery is to “accompany people in celebrating life”, which aligns so wonderfully with our own values as a wine retailer that strives to create joy from grape to glass. This shared ethos about wine, along with the winery’s globally recognised reputation, is why we’ve truly loved working with the Manzanos family for so many years.

Victor joined the business in the 1990s after obtaining a master’s degree in Viticulture and Enology at Madrid Polytechnical University. He was the first member of the family to take over the winery with both winemaking experience from growing up around it, plus extra theory and knowledge from completing a qualification in wine.

During Victor’s time at Bodegas Manzanos, the winemaking estate has grown to over 250 hectares of vineyards across the Rioja DOCa region and 11 wineries, including a super modern château-style winery boasting state-of-the-art tech and infrastructure. And yet, even with all this modern equipment, winemaker Borja and his team continue to do many things in the vineyard by hand such as harvesting grapes, striking that all-important balance between modernism and tradition.

The Finca Manzanos collection features styles to please every palate, including refreshing Rioja Rosado and some brilliant Rioja Blanco, ranging from fragrant and fruity to rich and decadent. The style they are perhaps best known for, however, is their classic Rioja Tinto (or, as we would call it in the UK, Rioja red wine). This is a type of wine that’s adored the world over, so we couldn’t be more thrilled to receive a limited-edition 25th anniversary wine from Finca Manzanos that’s made in this style.

Our 25th anniversary has been an amazing opportunity to take a moment to reflect on some of our longest-standing, most rewarding relationships with growers and winemakers, and Victor is right up there for us. We’ve created and shipped so many different wines with him over the years, much-loved by our customers, but the jewel in the crown has got to be this latest wine.

Because he likes us, Victor stashed away this 2010 Gran Reserva years ago, knowing it was an exceptional vintage and would age beautifully, with a view to releasing it at its peak and in time for our big anniversary year. We are very grateful, and very excited to get this fine Rioja wine out to our lucky customers to celebrate with us!

We’d like to say a huge, heartfelt thank you to Victor, Borja and the entire team at Finca Manzanos for creating this remarkably special wine for us and nurturing it over the years for us to one day enjoy. We can’t wait to swirl, sip and savour this one. Cheers!

Virgin Wines is 25 years young

Throughout 2025, we’ll be celebrating our silver anniversary year in style. From spring to winter, there’ll be lots of silver anniversary surprises including juicy offers, fun-filled events and experiences and, of course, plenty more brand-new, limited-edition wines that have been created for our celebrations by our favourite winemakers.

So, keep an eye on our website, your emails and our social channels for announcements and ways to join the party.