José Gil

José Gil Vignerons is the project run by José Gil and his partner Vicky Fernández. José and Vicky belong to a new generation of talented, young and passionate growers that are re-shaping the historic region of La Rioja.

José comes from a vine grower family in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. Is there, at the family winery, Bodegas Olmaza, where he starts working after graduating from oenology school. While working at his family winery, the young José starts searching for singular vineyards (not easy in the popular Rioja) from where he could do his own wines and let his ideas run freely. Very inspired by Burgundy and Mosel, regions where he spent a good amount of time, José wants to create wines that can reflect specific sites around the Village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, where he is based.

In 2012 José bought and restored a medieval cellar in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, his first vintage was 2013 yet it was not until 2016 that he felt that he has reached the level he wished to begin commercializing his wines. At the start, there were two wines, a village wine from San Vicente and a single vineyard, La Cóncova, a total amount of mere 2000 bottles that soon become the talk of Spain.

Vicky Fernández, José´s partner (and wife) joined the project in 2017 and since have been working together in all aspects of the production with special focus on the vineyard work. Since 2017 José and Vicky have been carefully purchasing new parcels and today, they are working 6 hectares of mostly old vines below the mountains of Sierra Cantabria in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. All the vines are bush trained, and the use of herbicides and pesticides are eschewed from the vineyards.

Fermentation occurs in cement tanks and the wines are aged in 300L & 500L barrels.