Rebels and renegades, they’re my absolute favorite. Oh, how I love a good rule bender who’s out there getting shit done. That goes double when said renegade’s a woman. Just can’t help but respect it. Sometimes luck smiles and I cross paths with a character like that. It usually means I’ve wandered off in the right direction.
We’d planned to meet around 11 o’clock in the morning at the parking lot by CVNE, in the historic Barrio de la Estación de Haro. A few minutes past, a black Fiat Qubo pulled up in the middle of the street, its driver’s side window rolled down. The woman behind the wheel—Barbara. She smiled at me. I smiled back. I greeted her golden retriever, Puppi, who seemed equally happy to see me. I climbed into the car. Then the three of us drove off to the outskirts of the village of San Felices, where nestled up against the Montes Obarenes sits her suelo-amarillo-rich Riscos de Bilibio vineyard.
First purchased by her grandfather, then managed by her parents, Barbara took over the Rioja Alta vineyard site in 2005. The land is picturesque, bordered by towering cliffs and the bending Ebro River. But perhaps the most notable feature is its thick bed of yellow calcareous clay soil.
That dirt is special. There’s way more to it than you might expect. It’s the foundation for the juice that winds up in Barbarot, a wine label of Barbara’s own making. A project which couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else. The moniker, a pithy mash-up of her identity and passion, morphs Barbara’s name and her all-time favorite grape, Merlot, together.
Now back to that yellow dirt. To geology nerds like me, the stuff’s pure gold. Just like it is to anyone who’s making structured, age-worthy wines. Packed with nutrients and a low pH balance that preserves acidity as grapes ripen, it’s also signature to some of the finest vineyard plots in Rioja.
Think Right Bank Bordeaux meets northern Spain, and you’ll get what I’m saying because compositionally, the minerality in Barbara’s dirt is close to the clay and limestone soils of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol; both bastions of fine red wine, recognized for the elegance and power of their Merlot production. If you know Bordeaux, you know. If you don’t, maybe you want to.
Barbara knows Bordeaux and for a good reason. A generation ago, her father, Antonio, became one of the first Spanish enologists to study winemaking there. A groundbreaking move. Once he’d completed his education, he took all the knowledge he’d acquired back home to Spain, to continue the Palacios family legacy in Rioja
Decades later, following in her father’s footsteps, Barbara moved to Bordeaux as well. There she learned a new language, earned one diploma in agriculture then another in wine, and trained in the Médoc with important Grand Cru Classé producers. In Pomerol, too. During this time Barbara’s passion for Merlot took flight, and she’s since chased that passion to wineries the world over.
Napa Valley, New Zealand, McLaren Vale, Tuscany, Argentina—that’s four continents if you’re counting. Her CV is impressive. So is her spirited independence. You can sense it in her wines, and in the laid-back way she holds a conversation. And in her larger involvements as a standing member of winemaking community groups Mujeres del Vino, Mujeres del Rioja, and Rioja n’ Roll.
Said and done, Barbara and I were out in Los Riscos for an hour or so, strolling past row upon row of meticulously pruned Tempranillo and Merlot vines. Large vultures circled overhead near the cliffs of the San Felices Hermitage, while down on the ground, Puppi ran large circles around us. There was a lot to take in. This vineyard. Three generations of winemakers. The centuries of history supporting them. And the integrity of the woman running it all.
Meanwhile, back in Logroño, day three of the citywide Actual Festival was underway, and Barbara had tickets to see a big electropop band called Ojete Calor. A hot ticket. So hot, in fact, they sold out the cavernous Sports Palace of Rioja. I’d really wanted to join Barbara, but despite my last-ditch efforts to try and get in, it didn’t happen. Oh well. Así es la vida.
Safe to say, we were on a schedule. Although we did have one last stop—Barbara’s winery in Briones for an afternoon tasting. If magic happens in the vineyard, this is where she bottles it. Barbara, Puppi, and I piled into her Fiat, and got going.
She started me off with a crisp 2023 Garnacha Blanca poured straight from the spigot of her fermentation tank. It was still young and settling into what it would become, but the wine had bright acidity and minerality for days. As interesting as it was easy to drink. Very refreshing. I liked it.
Then we moved on to Puppi rosado, a proprietary wine paying homage to Barbara’s furry, quadrupedal best friends. (As the wine’s namesake canine drifted over to the other side of the room and started gnawing away at his favorite beat-up Fila sneaker.) The 2023 Puppi was fresh and zippy, and it had a bright coral hue; whereas the 2022 drank a bit more like chilled red wine with a fruit profile that was fuller, deeper, riper. This makes sense. 2022 is the hottest growing season on record in Rioja, yet. Ask a local producer about climate change. They’ll tell you.
Next up, the reds. Puppi tinto vintages 2023 and 2020. Both, modern takes on Rioja made from an unconventional blend of 85% young-vine Tempranillo that Barbara grows in two of her vineyards, plus an additional 15% of her varietal darling Merlot. Then, last but not least, the understated Matriarch, Barbarot 2016. Made from the same Tempranillo-Merlot blend in Puppi, only this time using mature Tempranillo that’s cultivated in a quarter-century-old vineyard, which Barbara’s father planted in 1999, then later entrusted to her.
Two youthful Puppies, one wise Barbarot. Within all three, a bespoke trip into the looking glass of Barbara’s peregrinations. Brambly fruits, wild herbs, hints of balsamic, fine tannins, and a long satisfying finish, these wines are deceptively complex. As they age their backbone strengthens. They’re thinkers for sure. But they never drink pretentious or too serious in tone. Each wine is a true expression of authentic time and place. That’s all part of the new wave happening in Rioja.
By the time we’d wrapped things up it was already midafternoon, and after tasting all that wine Barbara and I had grown hungry. Ravenous, even. No world existed where it would not be time for lunch…and maybe just one more bottle of wine to share over food…then a nice long siesta. I’d planned on taking the train back to Logroño, but Barbara kindly offered me a ride, so for a third time, she and Puppi and I got back into her Fiat and headed off on our 30-minute drive home.
And that was that. Day one in Rioja wine country—check. How very extraordinary, and I still had two more weeks to go. This vinous adventure of mine had only just begun.
