The story and legend around Jovellanos' visit to Conde de los Andes

Jovellanos. Those familiar with Spanish history have probably heard this name hundreds of times. There may even be a street bearing that name near our home. And anyone who has travelled to Asturias, in northern Spain, will have seen it written in countless places. We may even be familiar with his appearance, thanks to a couple of famous portraits painted by Goya. But why was this 18th century scholar so important? And why do we talk about him here and now?

We didn?t know it three years ago, but it turns out that Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos is particularly relevant to us. After Conde de los Andes became part of Muriel Wines, we embarked on a thorough research; one day, we came across his name. Ever since then, we have been fascinated by the story we have even come up with our own Jovellanos legend. Would you like to find more about it?

Let's go back to 1795, to the Age of Enlightenment, when this intellectual movement's ideas, backed by the monarchy, spread across Spain. In those days, Jovellanos was a symbol of the Enlightenment ideas. His fame was such that his presence was constantly required in debates, studies, to provide solutions and advocate for progress.

Goya portrayed a pensive Jovellanos, immersed in his many interests, including geology

In that year, Jovellanos was invited by the region's economic society, called Real Sociedad Económica Riojano-Castellana de Amigos del País, to visit villages, fields and monuments and he left some interesting thoughts about the area. His group travelled across La Rioja following the Camino de la Sociedad, a route that was being built at that time by the Real Sociedad. This road would later become the N-232, which we use daily to drive from Elciego to Ollauri.

Jovellanos was in Ollauri on 7th May. We know that he paid a visit to the Paternina family house, then residence of Manuel Paternina and his wife Mauricia Gil Delgado, owners at the time of our Conde de los Andes cellars. The lady was superbly described by Jovellanos: "pretty, refined, modest, the best of the fairer sex I encountered on this land, which does not seem to be Venus's homeland".

With this information, written by Jovellanos in his Second Diary, we can easily imagine that he visited the Paternina family cellars on that day. There, in the heart of Churrumendi Hill, he must have marveled at the quarrymen?s craftsmanship, who excavated the gallery one century earlier.

Here's the legend. It is known that Jovellanos was one of the first authors in Spain to use the word "geology" instead of "geognosy", which was the common term in those days. In fact, geology was one of his main interests; in 1794 he founded the Asturias Royal Institute of Navigation and Mineralogy, a pioneering institution in this field.

We thus presume that he must have been particularly interested in the peculiarities of the underground cellar in Ollauri. And we like to think that it was in the depths of our Rioja Alta soils where Jovellanos found the inspiration to use the word "geology". Wouldn't it be wonderful?

Jovellanos might reach the end of the underground cellar, where the different geological strata can be observed