Ramón Bilbao

30.10.24

Jessica Walker

Share This Page

The bodega was founded in 1927 in Haro the capital of Rioja has an international reputation for producing benchmark Rioja wines. The head winemaker Rodolfo Bastida joined the winery in 1999 with a reputation for innovation and experimentation. Since his arrival, the portfolio has been adapted to a fresher style of Rioja.

The 180ha of Ramón Bilbao-owned vineyards are at least 40 years old and situated close to mountainous slopes (450-700m elevation) across the three Rioja DOCa subzones Alta, Alavesa and Oriental. There are also 900ha of vines from contracted growers that have long-standing relationships with the bodega. In 2016 they opened a new winery in Rueda with 60ha of vines in Las Amedias run by the talented winemaker Sara Bañuelos. The DO Rueda vineyard has a 770m elevation and is predominately planted with Verdejo (on gravel soils), and Sauvignon Blanc (sandy-clay soils).

Ramón Bilbao’s approach has developed over time and now they look to create fresh, elegant and fruit driven wines. To bring this style to life involved analysing the soil differences in each of their vineyard sites, adapting precision viticulture and introducing new elements to the winemaking such as ageing in concrete vats, less heavy oak ageing (lower toast on the barrels/older barrels/larger barrels), the wine is not filtered or clarified and undergoes gentle racking to preserve varietal aromatics.

They are committed to improving sustainability practices and are part of International Wineries for Climate Action with the aim to mitigate climate change impacts in vineyard and winery operations to actively decarbonize operations. This includes building a new waste management system, a bio-mass boiler and a smart watering system.