From Russia with love   The Arínzano Estate

La joya de la conocida familia bodeguera Chivite, una espectacular finca y bodega en tierras navarras, fue adquirida en el año 2015 por el millonario ruso, Yuri Scheffler, propietario para todo el mundo, menos Rusia, de las conocidas marcas de vodka Stolichnaya y Moskovscaya.

I first visited this extraordinary estate at the end of the 80s, shortly after it had been acquired by the Chivite family. It is a manor with a rich history, set in a spectacular 355 hectares of countryside, traversed by a winding river in a valley framed by the Pyrenees foothills. At the time it was a place of great natural beauty yet totally devoid of vineyards despite the fact that the quality of its vineyards had been documented since the 11th century. There was practically nothing left standing apart from some remains of what was once a great manor house with a chapel and a tower... a few stones, part of the neoclassical chapel, and not much else, located in a lovely setting with an exceptional microclimate and populated by oak and poplar trees.

I returned to the estate years later, at the start of the century, after it had been formally opened by the former King and Queen of Spain. It had been transformed into a spectacular new winery standing alongside the manor’s three original buildings. The neoclassical chapel, the 18th-century mansion and the 16th-century Torre Cabo de Armerías had all been completely and lovingly restored. This textbook