Itu bounds down the cellar steps like an anxious flyweight entering the ring. A little more than 5 feet tall, compact, athletic, dressed in a faded blue hoodie, grey sweatpants and dusty green trainers he pants his apologies. He is sorry for being late, for his limited English and for his small working cellar. I like Itu already.
José Luis Ruiz Bañares (Itu) is the fourth generation custodian of Bodega Teodoro Ruiz Monge, tending ten hectares of old vines in San Vicente De La Sonsierra, Rioja. Vines his great-grandparents first worked in the years before phylloxera.
Itu would not have followed in his family’s footsteps had he followed his father’s advice. Teodoro Ruiz Monge was a pioneer in Rioja. Fifty years ago he was one of the first growers to make wines under his own name. A time when it was more lucrative for farmers to sell their grapes to a large winery than to produce their own wines.
Teodoro knows how hard is the labour and how difficult the business of the small family bodega. He advised his son to follow a different path. Get a formal education and forget the sacrifices necessary of the independent wine maker.
But this is the life that Itu knows. Rather than abandon his family’s heritage he has embarked upon a personal project. To produce artisanal, single vineyard wines using the traditional winemaking techniques of Rioja.
The process begins in the small, low yielding parcels of vines he watched his family work as a boy. Hand harvested whole bunches of grapes are foot trod in 150 years old deep stone troughs. Stalks and pressed grapes turned by hand with a pitchfork as juice trickles to the bottom of the vat. The must is then transferred to old concrete tanks to settle and then to oak barrels. At the end of the process the back breaking work of emptying the vats.
Faded photographs on the cellar wall show generations of the family climbing into deep tanks to dig out the grape matter by hand. Itu bent double with a short handled shovel like a fireman on the footplate of a steam locomotive. Artisanal winemaking isn’t easy.
So why would a young man choose the hard road? What drives Itu? Tasting his wines in the cellar. Nibbling on generous portions of chorizo prepared by his mother. I want to understand what motivates the man.
Itu talks with a deep reverence of his love for this land. He is a farmer who believes that good wine is nurtured in the vineyard. There is also a deep affection for his people. To love, honour and respect the efforts of his family before him.
Itu has a passionate belief that traditional wine making makes interesting wine. Authentic wines, alive with fruit, tempered by taut tannins. He sees it as his responsibility to preserve these traditional methods. His mission is to make it relevant to the modern wine lover. His black eyes soften with sadness at the thought that this traditional way of wine making could disappear.
Time doesn’t allow for a walk in his treasured vineyards. Or to visit the caves he has restored in the Castillo de San Vicente. I have to leave.
It’s late autumn and a cold, persistent wind blows down through the foothills of the Sierra de Cantabria and rushes across the russet and gold vineyards in the plain below. The end of a year in which Rioja has suffered another hot and dry vintage. Our world is changing. In the midst of this insecurity Itu represents hope. Learning from the land. Unconcerned by what is popular. Not tempted by what is easy. Itu is true to his beliefs; loyal, hardworking, passionate and humble. Itu is an inspiration.
