Rodolfo Bastida

"My family has been dedicated to vinegrowing during generations, but in my case it was more of a coincidence. After I got my degree in Agricultural Engineering, the university sent me to a small bodega for my work experience. It could have been a vegetable processing factory, or a fruit farming cooperative, but thank God it was a small winery where I had to do everything: tasting, analysis, counting the staves of the oak casks, presenting the wines to potential customers, etc. And that wonderful experience taught me a lot of things...

Touch the wines / vines as little as possible. No filtering, unless necessary. I wouldn't recommend doing anything by default

As a winemaker, you should taste a lot of the wines in the market. There are many people out there making very good wines...

Hold regular tastings, and listen to what everyone has to say, as some things often go unnoticed. The more comments the better - every opinion is valuable

At the harvest, trust the taste of the grapes, and decide when they are ready for picking just by putting a grape in your mouth and chewing the skin slowly

Go to a vineyard at sunset and feel the sun on your face - a good method of deciding which land is best...

Spend many hours at the winery - you should see everything that happens

And never give up when blending wines; there is always a good blend that can out do others

Winemaking is a job I absolutely love. Trying to understand mother nature is one aspect I find interesting, but the most rewarding thing is quite simply seeing someone enjoying one of your wines. I've sat in a local restaurant once, when I saw someone on the table next to me order a Ramón Bilbao wine. They tasted it, smiled, and recommend it to the rest of the table - it was fantastic."