As a member of the Palacios dynasty from Alfaro (Rioja Baja) —she is the niece of Álvaro and Rafa and the cousin of Ricardo Pérez in Bierzo— Bárbara carries viticulture and wine in her veins. But rather than her heritage, it was her desire to learn and her work in various world wine regions what spurred Bárbara to set up her own winery and make Barbarot, an unusual wine in Rioja due to the presence of Merlot —along with Tempranillo— in the blend.
Her Bordeaux education and wanderlust took her to work in legendary wineries such as Château Margaux, Château Pichon Longueville Baron in Médoc or Robert Mondavi in Napa as well as others in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Chile and Argentina.
She brought all these experiences back home to Rioja, where she started working in a vineyard purchased by her grandfather which then passed onto her father, Antonio Palacios Muro, after he left Bodegas Palacios Remondo. “There is less media interest in him”, explains Bárbara, “but all his wisdom and experience in the world of wine are of great help to me”.
The calcareous soils and low pH in this vineyard at 500 meters of elevation on the Riscos de Bilibio in Haro reminded Antonio of the soils in Pomerol where he studied. Given that Rioja’s regulatory body had allowed experimental plantings of Bordelais varieties, Antonio decided to grow Tempranillo and Merlot there in 1989. Since 2005 and with the help of her father, Bárbara takes care of the vineyard, which today extends over seven hectares in various plots worked sustainably, without herbicides and with the help of Miguel Mato, a grower from nearby San Vicente who tills the land with horses.
A considerable amount of the Tempranillo in the vineyard is planted with a clone of Tinta de Toro, which ripens earlier alongside her Merlot, but in a sheltered part of the vineyard Bárbara has Tempranillo material from Roda, the producer in Haro which has a notable collection of different clones. In the long run, her idea is to vinify all the grapes she produces, but at the moment she sells approximately 15,000 kg, which she harvests with a machine. The rest, harvested by hand, goes to her two wines.
Barbarot (10,000 bottles, €22), a blend of Tempranillo and Merlot made with destemmed grapes, is her first wine. Bárbara likes the combination of acidity and structure brought on by these two varieties which produce a wine with ripe flavours, menthol notes and silky tannins that is suitable for ageing in the cellar.
Barbarot combines her name and the word Merlot, her favourite grape and the name of her cute Golden Retriever, who is always snoozing around the winery. Vinification takes place at a winery in Briones, where Bárbara has installed stainless steel fermentation tanks for her wines —fermented with their own yeasts since 2016. Ageing takes place in used French oak barrels for 16 months.
Her second wine is called Puppi (5,000 bottles, €12.50) and it blends the youngest Tempranillo vines (85%) with Merlot (15%) from San Felices. It is a very pleasant wine with fresh red fruit aromas and a spicy, floral background. Puppi spends six months in second-use French oak barrels.
Bárbara Palacios, who is a member of the group of independent producers Rioja’n’Roll, knows that she still has plenty of work around her territory. In 2015, she planted a vineyard in Valtracones, in the vicinity of Haro, and she has just started to work a goblet-trained vineyard planted in 1932 that had been neglected for a long time. She doesn’t rule out making white wine in a not too distant future.
