The origins of the go back to 1858, when the Marques de Riscal, who was resident in Bordeaux, was asked to hire a French winemaker to help the locals improve their winemaking techniques, four years later in 1862 they produced the first ever Rioja wine to be bottled. In 1895 Marques de Riscal was the first non- French wine to win the diploma of honour in the Bordeaux Exhibition. Today the company owns nearly 600 hectares of vines, across La Rioja, Rueda and Castilla y Leon regions. Since 2006 Riscal inaugurated “The City of Wine” including a state-of-the-art winery and a hotel designed by the famous architect Frank O. Gehry.