NueveCuatroUno — 2026
By Leire Díez
English translation of the interview originally published in Spanish in NueveCuatroUno.
With roots in San Sebastián but settled in La Rioja for years, Rubén Provedo is committed to experimentation in winemaking, to small batches with which to try things out and discover. That is how he has worked since his beginnings in the sector, largely taking charge of defining technical models and getting fledgling projects off the ground. After cutting his teeth in appellations such as Toro and Ribera del Duero, the professional path of this chemist and winemaker brought him to Rioja two decades ago, where he passed through several wineries before setting out on his own, also advising other wineries on getting their dreams off the ground.
A path where technical curiosity still sets the pace of the work, and which has given rise to a range of wines that this year will finally see the light. With the labels just delivered, Provedo is already preparing the launch of his 2023 vintage wines.
Where do you focus when it comes to choosing the vineyards you work with?
– I move by soils and by sections within the same plot, and the vineyard also has to amaze me. Right now the areas of the Sonsierra, the Cárdenas and Najerilla valleys, the Moncalvillo area and Tudelilla are the ones I go to most, in search of acidity and aromatic power with different expressions. I make the wine at someone else’s winery in Laguardia, although the project includes fitting out a calado (a rock-cut cellar) in Labastida in the future, where I will age the wines: ageing is very important to me and here I have found the perfect humidity and temperature levels. I never wanted to make more than a barrel or two per type of wine, and that is still the case, but right now I already have eight different wines. Very small production, though, because I release between 300 and 500 bottles of each one.
How would you define your style of wine?
– I like to keep an eye on the public, because I don’t always make the wines I like myself. Besides, I also owe something to whichever company I am working with at the time and to the segment it operates in. But in general what I most enjoy is making velvety, smooth wines with the oak well integrated — but with oak. It is true that I now notice how wines are made with too much fruit and end up too young because they lack long ageing. For that you have to select and work the oak properly.
What sets Rioja apart from the other appellations you have worked in?
– Above all I would say its varietal richness, its plurality in reds as well as whites and rosés. Rioja has everything you need to work with, with different valleys and, within them, different microclimates.
What kind of wineries do you advise?
– I look for small projects that need a new design or that want something genuinely new in the way they understand wine. I combine the technical side with method, because when it is time to experiment you have to be super-methodical and have good baseline analysis. That is what I bring to the projects I advise, spread across areas of Navarra and Ribera del Duero.
How did that drive for research develop in the wineries where you spent your professional career?
– In every winery I have been in I have created a kind of microvinification cellar to run my experimental projects. What has always driven me is technical curiosity, which is also what led me to make wine in regions in the southern hemisphere, such as South Africa, Chile, Argentina and New Zealand. Those trips changed my perspective on microvinifications.
Another of those experimental projects is the ice wine which, after ten years without making it, you are producing again this winter thanks to the condition of the grapes.
– That’s right. We have had perfect conditions that have been with us since the start of the 2025 harvest. We picked the grapes on Epiphany, after some hard frosts that make it ideal to pick the bunches in optimum condition. For this style of wine, which is a kind of hybrid between an ice wine and a Tokaji, the grapes must not arrive completely raisined, but at a mid-point. This year the harvest was perfect, with quite cold, long nights, and October left us superb grapes that were able to hold on, dehydrating little by little, with very little rot. So once again we will be able to enjoy this wine, which is not sold commercially but forms part of the tasting experiences.
