Carlos Rodriguez's Story

"I was born in 1976 in a small rural village in Navarra (north of Spain, where the bulls run on the street in Sanfermin festival). For me the way of living close to the Nature and working in agriculture has always been something usual as it was for my forbears. One of the most important agronomic productions in my village is wine plant nursery, I have worked many hours on this job ( as my father and my grandfather used to do it) grafting, planting and tending to the vines.

I was a good boy studying and with 18 years I started Agronomic Engineering in the Public University of Navarra. When I finished I went to study to Italy (in Udine, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia). I studied one year of viticulture and enology in 2000-2001. When I came back, I started to work with an Italian company as technical supporter for their Spanish market (wine plant nursery as my first steps on viticulture!) and with a winery in La Rioja and I also started to study enology in Logroño (La Rioja, Spain). After 2 years I finished with the Prize for the best academic record in 2004. I’m still involved with the University doing my Thesis Research about saving old wine varieties, studying them to keep genetic resources but as I also like to understand it “keeping old aromas and flavors”. I started my Thesis Research on 2004 summer and I hope to finish it on 2011 (even if I’ll continue studying this new-old varieties and making wines with them in the future).

I have developed my career as freelance winemaker and I work with some small wineries when they can’t afford a “full time” winemaker. I’m still working with the Italian wine plant nursery and I’m also trying to develop some personal projects, always around grapes and wines, of course (is there anything else?.......not for me!)

Really, one of nicest things as winemaker for me is that the viticulture and winemaking give me the possibility to have a creative job where you close the production circle, in the sense that on this job I take care of planting, growing,…but I also see people enjoying my wines, I love this.

Another very nice thing is that it isn’t a work, it’s a way of living. Everyday something happens in the fields, with the weather, on the wine,… It’s easy to fall in love of this job because it becomes part of your usual life."