Javier Murua

The Path

Javier Murua’s work sits between cellar-level judgment and the demands of running a house. He is CEO of Bodegas Muriel, and he also remains winemaker at Conde de los Andes in Ollauri, a role he has held since 2014. That split defines the scale of his practice: one part tied to the daily decisions of winegrowing and winemaking, the other to the wider obligations of direction, continuity, and identity. His own description of that balance is plain: “We are defined by a winemaking tradition and a cosmopolitan spirit — by our roots and our innovation, by the vineyard and the world beyond.” In Javier Murua’s case, Rioja is the base of that thinking, but not its limit. The work is grounded in inheritance and built to stay in conversation with what sits beyond the region.

The Work Today

Since 2014, Murua has made the wines of Conde de los Andes in Ollauri with an emphasis on traditional, age-worthy Rioja. The point is not speed or immediate impact. It is wine built for time: structured, deep, and shaped by heritage character, with the kind of frame that asks for patience from the drinker as much as from the maker. That same discipline is clear in the whites, where the brief is exact. “In our white wines, we focus on freshness, the minerality that viura brings, and the aromatic intensity of tempranillo blanco.” The terms are practical rather than ornamental: freshness for lift, minerality for line, aromatic intensity for presence. It is a measured way of defining white Rioja, and it matches the broader register of Murua’s work at Conde de los Andes.

In Their Words “We are defined by a winemaking tradition and a cosmopolitan spirit — by our roots and our innovation, by the vineyard and the world beyond.” “In our white wines, we focus on freshness, the minerality that viura brings, and the aromatic intensity of tempranillo blanco.”

Acclaim

The clearest recognition here is in the roles themselves: Javier Murua’s current work spans both Conde de los Andes and Bodegas Muriel. One sits in Ollauri and is tied to the making of wine; the other carries the responsibility of leadership. Taken together, they describe a career shaped by production, stewardship, and scale.