The Ladies of Rioja
Elena Adell, winemaker at Bodegas Juan Alcorta in Logroño.
My colleague Kelly Bucher alerted me to an interesting article that appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal. Entitled “The Ladies of Spain,” the piece profiles the growing preponderance of female winemakers and bodega proprietors in Spain, particularly true in the D.O. of Rías Baixas, located along Spain’s NW coast and famous for its fish and shellfish-friendly white wines based on the Albariño grape variety. According the article, women now run over half of the region’s 198 wineries.
“In famous regions like Rioja or Ribera del Duero,” one winemaker says, “Office politics are almost as important as talent, so you have to fight the old guard. In Rías Baixas everyone is young and open to change.”
Rías Baixas indeed has a very impressive record, but the story in Rioja is not so cut and dry.
In fact, it made me think of something Jorge Muga of Bodegas Muga told me in 2006: that he and a number of other prominent Rioja winemakers often meet in a roundtable tasting group.
“María José [Lopez de Heredia, of Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia] always sits at the head of the table. She is always the boss of the tasting,” he said.
On three separate visits to the region between May 2006 and September 2007, I encountered a proportionately high number of successful and influential female winemakers and executives in Rioja. While admittedly still underrepresented at the highest levels of regional administration, among bodegueros and, especially, enologists, women make up a sizable percentage of the region’s big hitters. Here is a sampling:
Cristina Forner, chief executive at Bodegas Marqués de Cáceres. Daughter of founder Enrique Forner, Ms. Forner has presided over one of the region’s most successful export-driven success stories and has helped keep Cáceres one of the world’s most recognizable brands.
Elena Adell is the winemaker at Juan Alcorta, which produces the well known and shockingly reliable and quaffable Campo Viejo brand. A sight to behold, the Ignacio Quemada-designed, mostly-underground Juan Alcorta winery can bottle as many as 15,000 units each hour. Its 140 stainless fermenters stand at attention like a army battalion, yet Adell likes to say that she treats each one like an only child.
Loli Casado heads the Rioja Alavesa winery of the same name in the town of Lapuebla de Labarca, a relatively small operation that produces bright and fruity modern wines that hint at a judicious use of oak. Her winery’s Crianza is one of the finest i have tasted anywhere in the region, and, sadly, is not available in this country yet as far as I can tell. Apart from her work at the bodega, Ms. Casado is also one of the region’s most powerful and influential industry officials. She heads the Association of Rioja Alavesa Winemakers (ABRA) and is a senior member of the Promotions Committee of Rioja’s Consejo Regulador.
Although I have not met her, María Martínez is the well known winemaker at Bodegas Montecillo and, according to John Radford, is an outspoken pioneer of sorts, having long been a passionate advocate of lowering yields and avoiding “artificial sprays, pesticides, and fertilzers, which, she believes, are progressively poisoning the soil.”
María Pilar Ramírez de la Piscina heads Bodegas Ramírez de la Piscina and can trace her family’s lineage back to the Crusades. She presides over a medium-sized bodega that represents, in my view, one of the region’s most successful amalgams of the modern and classic styles.
María Vargas is the talented and ecumenical winemaker at Marqués de Murrieta. As I have written about before, she was the winemaker who introduced the illustrious winery’s delicious oddball white, Capellanía, and has a classic palate and a modern touch.
María José and Mercedes López de Heredia, chief executive and winemaker, respectively, at Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia in Haro are not only the stewards of the country’s most traditional bodega, they are also both fierce, charming, and forces of nature.