Heritage · Half a century

Fifty vendimias.
One family.

From a single bottle sealed in March 1976 to the most awarded estate in Bolivia, the work of three generations and a refusal to settle.

A beginning

One bottle, on the
thirty-first of March, 1976.

Milton Castellanos Espinoza was a tarijeño agronomic engineer trained at La Plata, with a postgraduate stint in U.S. agricultural economics and a quiet conviction that his country could grow something worth drinking. With his wife Ana Hebé Cortez Vaca Guzmán, he founded Bodegas y Viñedos Aranjuez on the 31st of March, 1976, in the Aranjuez neighborhood of Tarija, on Avenida Ángel Baldivieso 1976 — a street number that, by accident, marked the year.

Eighty-five thousand bottles of Gran Vino tinto and blanco were sealed that first season. The label is still in the portfolio today, fifty years later.

A timeline

Five turning points.

1976

The first bottle.

Aranjuez is founded on March 31. Eighty-five thousand bottles of red and white wine — Gran Vino — are produced in the first vintage.

1999

The first Tannat in Bolivia.

On November 10, in Lot 40 of Finca El Origen, Aranjuez plants Bolivia's first successful Tannat alongside Cabernet Franc and fourteen other French varieties imported with enologist Iván Bluske. Tannat will become the country's signature red. The date is now a national holiday by law.

2013

Bolivia's first Grand Gold.

Juan Cruz Grand Reserve wins the first Grand Gold medal ever awarded to a Bolivian wine, at "Tannat al Mundo" in Uruguay. Three more Grand Golds will follow.

2010

Chaguaya — a new frontier at 2,095 m.

Aranjuez consolidates a viticultural project at the highest altitude in the country. Bonarda and Zinfandel are planted for the first time in Bolivia. Years later, Pionero will become the first wine to carry the Geographical Indication "Chaguaya."

2025

Hitos — twenty-five years of varietal pioneering.

The "Hitos" collection is released. Three single-varietal wines — Tannat, Cabernet Franc, Zinfandel — celebrating the three landmark introductions Aranjuez has made to Bolivian viticulture.

2026

Medalla de Honor.

On the 50th anniversary, the Asamblea Legislativa Departamental de Tarija awards Aranjuez the Medalla de Honor Prócer Coronel Eustaquio Méndez — the highest distinction of the department — for fifty years of contribution to Tarija's viticultural, economic and cultural development.

In memoriam — Don Milton Castellanos Espinoza
Don Milton Castellanos Espinoza
1927 — 2025
In memoriam

Don Milton
Castellanos Espinoza.

An agronomic engineer, an economist by training, a tarijeño by blood. Founder of Aranjuez and a generation of Tarija agriculture.

Born in Tarija on the 28th of September, 1927, Milton Castellanos studied agronomic engineering at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina, then continued in the United States with postgraduate work in agricultural credit and economics. He returned to Tarija a man of formal training in a region where most farming was inherited rather than studied.

He founded the department's first agricultural service. He advised tarijeño growers for more than fifty years before he ever advised himself. And in 1976, with his wife Ana Hebé, he founded Aranjuez — not because Bolivia was a wine country (it wasn't, then) but because he believed it could become one.

He passed away on the 17th of March, 2025, at the age of ninety-seven, two weeks before what would have been the 49th anniversary of his winery. The Bolivian Chamber of Deputies paid tribute that same morning. The 50th anniversary, in 2026, is the first one celebrated without him present.

The family today

Three generations
at work.

Ramón Milton Castellanos Cortez, son of the founders and an enologist by training, has led Aranjuez since 1993 — over three decades. He is the President of the Board and the steward of the winemaking philosophy.

Alongside him, Mauricio Hoyos as General Manager and Ernesto Verdún as Agricultural Manager carry out the day-to-day work. The third generation is already active: nine grandchildren of Don Milton currently work at the company, with Gerardo Aguirre Castellanos leading tourism and exports, and Adriana Aguirre Castellanos as one of the family's spokespeople.

And four great-grandchildren are being raised — quietly, patiently — to continue the work.

FIFTY · VENDIMIAS ARANJUEZ · TARIJA 50 1976 · 2026
By the numbers

Seventy-plus medals.
Four Grand Golds.
One Bolivian record.

More international medals than any other Bolivian winery — and the only one with four Grand Gold honors. Tannat al Mundo, Catad'Or, Brazil Wine Challenge, Decanter, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles.

Continue to the terroir