Basilio Izquierdo Torres (Socuéllamos, Ciudad Real, 1947) is the only Spanish graduate of the Science Institute of Vine and Wine (Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin, ISVV) of Bordeaux which was selected by its association of oenologues of Bordeaux to participate in its 50th anniversary’s booklet and being portraited in it. He is one of those great Spanish winemakers who has traveled a brilliant career since his first harvests, more than four decades ago, until lighting up, in 2007, a small family winery on the foundations of a deep knowledge of the Riojan vineyard. His wines "are the most current, singular and modern expression of a Rioja that was always there". And, perhaps for this reason, this manchego living in the North wanted to learn from the Riojan reality from the beginning. After his early French journey (Avignon, Gironde, Corsica) and his subsequent passage through Rueda (Bodegas Marqués de Riscal), he settled definitively in Rioja. He witnessed the particular transformation of the Spanish wine world. Basilio Izquierdo, barely 27 years old, agreed to the Technical Direction of the historic Bodegas CVNE, in Haro (La Rioja), a position he would hold until mid-2006 and which he would make compatible with the Technical Directorate of Viñedos del Contino in the periods 1974-1979 and 1981-1998. Basilio wineries For five years, he has lived devoted body and soul to Bodegas Basilio Izquierdo, a dream with its own name that continues to be a way of "drinking from the sources", of returning to a Rioja "that is at the beginning of everything that this Denomination of Origin is today ". Loving the tranquility that a job well done gives, Basilio Izquierdo is fond of reading nineteenth-century books that delve into the history of wine and shows his weakness for those made with character, a certain structure, finesse and maximum typicity, in addition to good aptitudes to age in bottle. Although it is always difficult for a winemaker to opt for one of the wines that he has conceived, especially if that retrospective exercise forces us to look 40 years ago, Izquierdo is especially proud of the "B de Basilio Blanco" wine, made with Rioja white Grenache and Viura, who "to this day," he says, "is still full of life and nuances." To compete in the globalized market, you do not look for shortcuts nor are you especially attracted to news. Among the varieties, he prefers "the same as always, red Grenache, Tempranillo, Graciano and Viura, white Grenache and Malvasía". Varieties, he recalls, "which have been recognized for more than a century for their quality and were worth giving long-lasting wines that, for now, only half a dozen major regions in the world have demonstrated. " (text: Pablo Díaz-Pintado)
