Above everything else, David Sampedro considers himself a vine grower. He displays an intimate knowledge of his vineyards and the soils where they lay, on the outskirts of Elvillar, one of the higher areas in Rioja Alavesa. His vineyards are organically farmed since he went solo in 2006 and he obtained the biodynamic Demeter certification in 2024. As a firm believer of these practices, yields at his vineyards range between 3,000-3,500 kg/hectare, well below the appellation limits.
After a couple of years of bureaucracy and problems to obtain the necessary permits, David managed to build a modest but highly efficient winery next to his home in the outskirts of Elvillar surrounded by vineyards and spectacular views of the Sierra Cantabria and the Rioja landscape. Powered exclusively by solar energy -apart from a diesel generator for emergencies- he has installed concrete tanks, wooden vats and French oak barrels of various sizes.
He uses horses to work his vineyards, where he only grows native varieties. He produces an interesting range of wines with undeniable personality, most of them field blends vinified with stems and gentle extractions. Bodegas Bhilar (derived from the Basque word for Elvillar) encompasses his production of village, lieu-dit and single-vineyard wines, with less than 10,000 bottles for each cuvée.
The wines
The fresh and perfumed Lágrimas de Graciano (€10) comes from young vines planted by Sampedro in Elvillar and spends 12 months in large oak vats. His main red is Bhilar (25.000 bottles, €13), a village blend where Tempranillo is the dominant variety and which is aged for 16-18 months in oak vats as well as 225- and 500-litre oak barrels. Completing the trio of village wines, Bhilar Blanco (18,000 bottles, €12) blends Viura with 20% Garnacha Blanca and ferments with its skins for around 15 days before ageing for a year in oak vessels of different sizes.
His main lieu-dit wine is Phincas (10,000 bottles, €24), an old vine Tempranillo with some Viura and Graciano, following the classic Rioja blend. It is fermented with stems and aged in barrels of different sizes for 30 months before all the varieties and origins are blended in large oak vats for a further six months. Phinca El Vedao (2,300 bottles, €23) comes from the lieu-dit of the same name in Elvillar. Like the other wines, it ferments in concrete and is aged in 500-litre barrels for 30 months. Aromatic and balsamic, it is a savoury wine with herbaceous notes.
Sampedro's lieu-dit white wine is called Phincas Thousand Mils (2,400 bottles, €25) because it blends different varieties - hence the name, although Patents and Trademarks did not allow the winery to use ‘milks’ because food names cannot be used. It comes from vineyards over 50 years old on their Abejera and Lali vineyards, and the grapes are macerated with the skins, giving it a bitter and fresh touch on the palate, which is balanced by good volume.
Sampedro has four single vineyard wines. Phinca Abejera (2,200 bottles, €54) comes from an old vineyard surrounded by cypress trees and Mediterranean shrubs. It is a blend of Tempranillo and Graciano (40% each) and Viura (20%) vines planted west-facing on calcareous soils, producing a very aromatic wine with herbal notes of lavender and rosemary and good energy on the palate. Phinca Lali (1,400 bottles, €54) comes from a vineyard planted in 1910, visible from the road leading to Elvillar. Made mainly from Tempranillo with 10% Viura, it stands out for its depth on the palate and firm tannins. In general, these are gastronomic wines with good ageing potential that stand up well in the bottle.
Phinca La Revilla Sexto Año (1,000 bottles, €78) is a single-varietal Viura from a vineyard planted in 1925 and is probably the winery's most special wine. In a tribute to the wines of Rioja's past, Phinca La Revilla spends six years in barrel without disturbance. Despite its oxidative profile, it loses none of its freshness or acidity and displays great complexity. The same 0.8-hectare plot also produces Phinca La Revilla red (1,000 bottles, €78), a concentrated and intense red that spends six years in used 225-litre barrels.
Etérea Kripan
Of the 16ha in the Bhilar project, almost half belong to Melanie Hickman, David's wife. Born in Ohio but deeply attached to Hawaii, where she lived for several years, Melanie invested her retirement savings in a handful of vineyards whose grapes are destined to five single-vineyard wines under the brand Eterea Kripan.
San Julián (1,300 bottles, €55) is a red from the property of the same name, a beautiful old half-hectare east-facing vineyard that can only be farmed with animals. The wine, fermented with stems in 500-litre barrels and then transferred to 225-litre barrels, has very pure fruit with refined, elegant notes and is a return to a more classic Rioja style. The other two wines -a red (7,200 bottles, €25) and a carbonic maceration skin-contact white (3,000 bottles, €26)- come from the Santa Engracia site, a vineyard planted in 1967 in the upper part of Elvillar, in the foothills of the Sierra Cantabria. Both are called Hapa, a tribute to Melanie's dog, who was with her for most of the years she lived in Hawaii and who died shortly before she moved to Rioja. This story and many others about her life with David Sampedro can be read in her book Struggling Vines published in 2016.
Carrakripan (2,200 bottles, €55) is a white blend of mostly Viura plus some Malvasia and Garnacha Blanca fermented with skins from a 50+ year old vineyard at over 600 metres in Kripan. Complex, fresh and saline, it was the first Demeter-certified wine in Rioja Alavesa. The latest release is Sasikume (2,500 bottles, €16), a new vineyard planted with Maturana or Bastardo (the meaning of Sasikume in Basque), which produces a savoury, fruity red aged partially on skins.
Concerned about responsible land management, Melanie recently acquired a 3.4 hectare plot of land at 900 metres elevation in Kripan where she aims to create an oasis of biodiversity with lavender, fruit trees and holm oaks and, in the near future, vineyards.
Other regions
Meanwhile, David Sampedro does not limit himself to his own vineyard in Rioja. In Sierra de Francia, in granite and slate soils in the south of Salamanca province, he makes two wines with the Rufete grape variety and fairytale names: Phinca Encanto (2,600 bottles, €20) an elegant, mineral red reminiscent of a Mediterranean Pinot Noir (it is thought that Rufete may be a mutation of this grape); and Phinca Durmiente (1,500 bottles, €30), made from the minority white Rufete, of which there are few vines left and they are scattered, so it requires considerable selection efforts. In Navarra he makes Kha Mé (€20), an old-vine Garnacha in San Martín de Unx that is vinified in amphorae.