The Ohio Girl, the Cypress Tree & the Man Who Ditched the Tractor
In Elvillar, Rioja Alavesa, David Sampedro Gil — a vine grower with a master's in oenology who considers himself a farmer first — and his wife Melanie Hickman, from Ohio, farm ~16 hectares biodynamically with horses, cypress trees, and solar power, making wines that made Tim Atkin name David Grower of the Year and the neighbours call him the village's worst vine grower.
Origin — 1999, the Mother's Hectare & the American Bulldog from Hawaii
David Sampedro Gil was born and raised in Elvillar — a tiny village of fewer than 500 people in Rioja Alavesa, in the Basque Country, just south of the Cantabrian mountains. His family has owned vineyards here for five generations. His grandfather planted some of the vines David now tends, in the late 1920s, without any formal training as a winemaker — just knowledge, feeling, and the patience of a man who understood that the vine knows more than the textbook. David grew up in those same vineyards. He watched his grandfather work. He absorbed something that would take decades to articulate. And then he did something his grandfather never did: he went to university.
He earned a master's degree in oenology and began working in some of the largest wineries in Rioja — the industrial giants that produce millions of bottles and define the region's global image. It was there, paradoxically, that he learned what he did not want to do. "I realised that great wine can only come out of great vineyards," he says. "That realisation made me focus on the vineyards and led to the philosophy of making wines that speak of a place." He left the big wineries. He returned to Elvillar. And in 1999, he started his own project with one hectare of vines his mother gave him.
The name Bhilar is simply Elvillar in Basque — a quiet declaration of identity in a region where the Basque language is often overshadowed by Spanish. David's first wine was called Phi — the golden ratio, the mathematical expression of natural balance that is one of the foundations of biodynamics. The Consejo Regulador rejected the name because an Australian winery already used it. So David created Phincas — preserving the Phi while expressing his commitment to single-parcel wines. The H in Bhilar, the Phi in Phincas — these are not mere branding. They are philosophy made visible.
And then came Melanie. An American from Ohio, Melanie Hickman had lived in Hawaii and Boston before meeting David in Madrid in 2008. They married in 2011. She arrived in Elvillar with WSET certification, a dog named Hapa — an American Bulldog she had adopted in Hawaii — and a determination to build a new life on the opposite side of the world. When Hapa died in Boston, Melanie was devastated. She began writing a book about their story. And she began looking at the vineyards around Elvillar with the same fierce attachment David felt. One day, walking through the village, she told a local man: "One day I'm going to buy that vineyard from you." He probably laughed. But in 2015, while David and Melanie were in the middle of building their new winery — and the banks wanted nothing to do with them — Melanie withdrew her American pension fund, paid the taxes, and bought the three-hectare parcel that would become Finca Hapa. David told her: "You have to make this profitable by making wine the way you like it." She did. And the result is Struggling Vines — Melanie's own label, her own voice, her own wines from her own land.
The Place — The Cypress, the Horse & the Village's Worst Vine Grower
Elvillar sits at just under 600 metres above sea level on the eastern foothills of the Sierra Cantabria — one of the higher areas in Rioja Alavesa, with a cool microclimate that owes everything to altitude and the mountain's protective shadow. The soils are predominantly limestone and clay — calcareous earth that gives the wines their signature mineral backbone, freshness, and capacity for ageing. David's family has farmed here for five generations. Some of the vineyards near the winery were planted by his grandfather in the late 1920s. The connection is not merely historical. It is physical — David walks the same rows his grandfather walked, tends the same vines, and makes wine from the same soil.
The Cypress Trees — Earth Connected to Sky
If you walk through Elvillar and see cypress trees growing among the vines, those are David's vineyards. He plants them deliberately — "an árbol espiritual que conecta la tierra con el cielo" — a spiritual tree that connects earth to sky. In a region where most vineyards are stripped of everything that is not grapevine, David's plots look like chaos to the untrained eye: weeds, wildflowers, insects, birds, and cypress trees standing sentinel among the rows. When he began the biodynamic conversion, the neighbours called him "the village's worst vine grower". They visited his mother to ask if he was okay — if he had lost his mind. They had never seen a vineyard where indigenous plants were not pulled or mowed down. The natural look was not in fashion. It is now.
No Tractors Since 2014 — Only Horses
In 2014, David eliminated tractors from his vineyards entirely. His mother tried to explain that tractors had been invented for a reason. The village thought he was nuts. But David brought in Alfred Ferrís and his Breton mares — horses that plough the soil the way David's grandfather did, without diesel, without compaction, without the speed that makes a farmer blind to what is happening in each row. "Horses have helped us better understand our vines," David says. "As you walk each and every line in the vineyard, you are able to see the health of the vines, the soils, the ecosystem — whereas riding inside a tractor, you can't even see the grapes and often don't even have to set foot in the vineyard. The use of horses forces us to be more thoughtful." It is not nostalgia. It is attention.
Biodynamic Certified — Demeter Since 2024
David began learning about biodynamics in 1999 and converted to organic farming in 2006. He followed the tenets of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic philosophy — not as a fashion, but as a holistic approach to restoring harmony between man, earth, vines, and cosmos. In 2024, Bodegas Bhilar became the first winery in Rioja to obtain Demeter certification — the highest standard in biodynamic agriculture. But David is not interested in badges. He is interested in results. The only treatments applied to his vines are sulphur and milk whey. Yields are kept at 3,000-3,500 kg per hectare — well below the Rioja appellation maximum of 6,500. The vineyards are alive with bees, chickens, fruit trees, olive trees, and horses. Over 2,000 native plants and trees have been planted throughout the estate. The goal is not merely to make wine. It is to leave the land in a better state than it was found.
The Solar Winery — Off the Grid Since 2016
In 2016, after years of making wine as garagistes in rented spaces across three different bodegas, David and Melanie built their own winery — partially underground, powered exclusively by solar panels, with a windmill for backup, and not connected to the electricity grid. The winery is surrounded by vineyards, with spectacular views of the Sierra Cantabria. Inside, there are concrete fermentation tanks, wooden vats, and French oak barrels of various sizes — but no stainless steel. David believes concrete and wood breathe in a way that steel cannot. The subterranean construction provides natural temperature control. The solar panels provide independence. And the absence of stainless steel is another quiet declaration that Bhilar does not do things the way everyone else does.
Winemaking — The Field Blend, the Whole Cluster & the Woman Who Loves the Rhône
David Sampedro is an oenologist who considers himself a vine grower first. He does not separate the two roles. The vineyard is the winery, and the winery is an extension of the vineyard. His philosophy is simple: work only with indigenous grapes, respect the land, make wines with soul, and share them with good people who have positive energy. The rest is detail. But the details matter enormously.
All fermentations at Bhilar are spontaneous — initiated by native yeasts, with no selected strains, no enzymes, no chaptalisation, no acidification. There is no forced malolactic fermentation. The wines are not fined or filtered. Sulphur is used, but minimally — only what is necessary to protect the wine, never enough to dominate it. David ages his wines in a combination of concrete tanks, wooden vats, and French oak barrels of various sizes — 225-litre barriques, 500-litre barrels, 600-litre foudres. There is no stainless steel. The concrete provides micro-oxygenation and temperature stability. The wood provides structure and subtle spice. And the absence of steel ensures that no wine is stripped of its natural texture.
David's most distinctive winemaking choice is his commitment to field blends and whole-cluster fermentation. In the old vineyards of Rioja Alavesa, multiple varieties were traditionally planted together — Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, Viura, Malvasía — and harvested and fermented together. The modern Rioja system separated them, creating a monoculture that David believes has erased the region's complexity. By fermenting with stems, by including white grapes in his red wines, and by vinifying each parcel separately before blending, David restores a "chaotic" authenticity to Rioja — a sense of place that no single-variety wine can replicate. "When you treat the vineyard well," he says, "the wine will have personality. If you taste one of my wines, you will recognise it two years later in a blind tasting."
And then there is Melanie. She and David work the vineyards with the same biodynamic philosophy, but their wines are completely different — because, as David says, "the personality of the owner of the finca is fundamental." Melanie loves the wines of the Rhône — oxidative, structured, savoury. David makes her wines accordingly: the Phinca Hapa Blanco — an orange wine with two months of skin contact in concrete, aged in 600-litre foudres — is silky, structured, and unmistakably Melanie's. The Phinca Hapa Tinto — whole-cluster Tempranillo with a touch of Graciano, fermented in concrete and aged in 500-litre barrels — has the same distinct and particular soul. And the Phinca San Julián — from a tiny 0.6-hectare plot on pure limestone — is a wine where you can discover the soil it comes from, the minerality, and the spirit of biodynamic farming. Three wines. One woman. One dream bought with a pension fund.
The Wines — From the Village Red to the 1910 Lali & the Six-Year Revilla
Bodegas Bhilar produces a remarkably deep and structured range from the ~16 hectares around Elvillar — all biodynamic, vegan-friendly, fermented with indigenous yeasts, and made with minimal sulphur. The wines are organised into three categories: Village wines (Bhilar, Lágrimas), Village Estate / Lieu-dit wines (Phincas, Phinca El Vedao, Phincas Thousand Mils), and Single-Vineyard wines (Phinca Abejera, Phinca Lali, Phinca La Revilla, Phinca San Julián). Additionally, Melanie Hickman's Struggling Vines label produces three wines of her own from her purchased vineyards. Across them all, one finds the same commitment to field blends, whole-cluster fermentation, and the inclusion of white grapes in red wines. Production is deliberately limited — most cuvées under 10,000 bottles, with single-vineyard wines often below 2,500.
Bhilar Tinto
Village red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaThe flagship wine — ~25,000 bottles — and the wine that defines the Bhilar style. A village blend of 85% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha, and 5% Viura, sourced from multiple biodynamic estate vineyards around Elvillar. Fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete tanks and aged for 16-18 months in a combination of oak vats, 225-litre barrels, and 500-litre barrels. The result is a solid, elegant, and deeply fresh wine — ripe fruit without jam, structure without heaviness, and a mineral backbone that speaks directly to the limestone soils. It is a crianza in the old sense — not a category defined by months in barrel, but a wine that has been given time to find its shape. ~13.5% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Bhilar Blanco
Village white — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaA village white of remarkable depth — ~18,000 bottles — blending Viura with 20% Garnacha Blanca. The grapes are fermented with their skins for around 15 days before ageing for one year in oak vessels of different sizes. The skin contact gives the wine a textured, almost tannic quality — not an orange wine, but a white with the body and presence of a red. On the nose: lemon peel, white peach, almond, and a subtle herbal note. On the palate: waxy, saline, and structured — a white that demands food and attention. It is a wine that proves David's conviction that white Rioja, when farmed biodynamically and fermented with care, can be as profound as any white in Spain. ~13% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Bhilar "Lágrimas de Graciano"
Village red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaA fresh and perfumed expression of Graciano — Spain's most difficult and seductive red grape — made from young vines planted by David in Elvillar. The wine spends 12 months in large oak vats, preserving the variety's extraordinary aromatic intensity — violets, black pepper, liquorice, and dark berries — while tempering its natural tannic power with the gentle oxygenation of large wood. It is a wine of remarkable value and genuine character — proof that Graciano does not need decades in barrel to be profound. It needs good farming and patience. David provides both. ~14% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Phincas
Village estate / Lieu-dit — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaThe main lieu-dit wine — ~10,000 bottles — and the wine that carries the Phi forward from David's first experiments. A blend of 70% Tempranillo, 15% Graciano, 10% Garnacha, and 5% Viura from a variety of biodynamic estate vineyards, hand-harvested and fermented with stems — a mixture of cluster fermentation and destemming that gives the wine herbal complexity, spice, and structural tension. Aged for 36 months in French oak barrels of different sizes, followed by six months in large oak vats where all the varieties and origins are blended and allowed to integrate. The result is rich, smooth, and dangerously easy to drink — blue and red fruit, balsamic notes, ripe cherry, and a minerality that reflects the land it was cultivated on. ~14% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Phinca El Vedao
Lieu-dit red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaFrom the lieu-dit of the same name in Elvillar — ~2,300 bottles — a 100% Garnacha wine of aromatic intensity and savoury, herbaceous character. Fermented in concrete and aged for 30 months in 500-litre barrels. The wine is balsamic, wild, and deeply expressive of its site — notes of wild thyme, lavender, garrigue, and red berries that seem to have been picked from the Mediterranean scrub that surrounds the vineyard. It is a wine that scandalises conventional Rioja tasters and delights those who understand that Garnacha, when farmed biodynamically at altitude on limestone, can produce wines of extraordinary finesse. ~14% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Phinca Abejera
Single-vineyard red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaFrom an old vineyard planted in 1929, surrounded by cypress trees and Mediterranean shrubs — ~2,200 bottles. A field blend of Tempranillo and Graciano (40% each) and Viura (20%), planted west-facing on calcareous soils. The wine is extremely aromatic — lavender, rosemary, thyme, and wild herbs — with an energy on the palate that seems to come directly from the biodynamic vitality of the site. It is a wine of great ageing potential — gastronomic, structured, and profoundly mineral. The cypress trees that surround the vineyard are not merely beautiful. They are David's spiritual guardians — connecting earth to sky, past to present, grandfather to grandson. ~14% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Phinca Lali
Single-vineyard red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaNamed after David's mother — affectionately known as Lali — this is the oldest vineyard in David's care, planted in 1910 and visible from the road leading into Elvillar. A field blend of Tempranillo with 10% Viura, made with 100% whole bunches. The wine stands out for its depth on the palate and firm, noble tannins — a structure that comes not from oak extraction but from old vines, limestone, and the patience of a century. It is a wine of remarkable seriousness — dark fruit, earth, graphite, and a finish that lingers with the mineral precision of the Sierra Cantabria foothills. One of the most acclaimed wines in the Bhilar range. ~14% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan. Great cellaring potential.
Phinca La Revilla — Sexto Año
Single-vineyard white & red — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaThe most special wine at Bhilar — from a 0.8-hectare vineyard planted in 1925, producing both a white and a red that spend six years in barrel without disturbance — a tribute to the wines of Rioja's past, when white wines were aged oxidatively for years and emerged with extraordinary complexity. The white — 100% Viura — is probably the winery's most profound wine: despite its oxidative profile, it loses none of its freshness or acidity, displaying great complexity, nuttiness, dried apricot, and a saline, almost sherry-like depth. The red — Tempranillo and Graciano — is concentrated, intense, and almost port-like in its density, with six years in used 225-litre barrels giving it a patina of age without masking the fruit. Only ~1,000 bottles of each. These are wines for collectors, for contemplation, and for those who understand that time is the greatest winemaker. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Phincas Thousand Mils
Lieu-dit white — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaA field-blended white from vineyards over 50 years old on the Abejera and Lali sites — ~2,400 bottles. The name is a play on "milk" — Thousand Mils — because the wine blends Viura, Garnacha Blanca, and Malvasía (the "milks" of Rioja), though the trademark office would not allow the word "milk" on a wine label. The grapes are macerated with their skins, giving the wine a bitter, fresh touch on the palate that is balanced by remarkable volume and texture. It is an orange wine in all but name — amber, tannic, and alive with dried herbs, citrus peel, and a waxy, honeyed complexity that evolves for days in the glass. Aged in large oak vessels. ~13.5% ABV. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Melanie Hickman / Struggling Vines — Phinca Hapa Blanco, Phinca Hapa Tinto & Phinca San Julián
Single-vineyard wines — Elvillar, Rioja AlavesaMelanie's three wines from her own vineyards — made with the same biodynamic care as David's, but expressing her own personality and her love of Rhône-style wines. Phinca Hapa Blanco — 82% Viura, 12% Garnacha Blanca, 6% Malvasía — ferments on skins for two months in a 2,000-litre concrete vat, then ages for one year in 600-litre French foudres. Silky, structured, and unmistakably Melanie's. Phinca Hapa Tinto — 94% Tempranillo, 6% Graciano — whole-cluster fermentation in concrete, then one year in 500-litre French oak. ~7,332 bottles. Phinca San Julián — from a tiny 0.6-hectare plot on a steep, secluded hill — 77% Tempranillo, 14% Graciano, 2% Garnacha, 7% Viura, 40% whole cluster, foot-crushed, fermented without added yeasts, matured in 225-litre French barriques for one year. Only ~960 bottles. A small amount of sulphur is added only at bottling. These are wines of profound individuality — made by a woman who crossed half the world to find her vineyard. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
David Sampedro Gil — Projects Beyond Rioja
Navarra, Rías Baixas, Sierra de Francia, GermanyDavid's restless curiosity extends far beyond Elvillar. In Navarra, he discovered old Garnacha vines on the slopes and ravines of San Martín de Unx while helping Australian winemaker Dan Standish, and now rents plots to make Pasolasmonjas — a wild, savoury Garnacha of extraordinary purity. In the Sierra de Francia (Salamanca), on granite and slate soils, he makes Phinca Encanto (100% Rufete) and Phinca Durmiente (100% Rufete Blanca, also known as Verdejo Serrano) — two wines that prove David's philosophy travels. In Rías Baixas, he makes Shanela — a saline, mineral Albariño aged on its lees for 16 months, grown in Val do Salnés with Atlantic Ocean views. The name comes from the Galician xanela (window), changed to suit the North American market. He also has a project in Germany. Each wine is a question: can biodynamic farming, indigenous varieties, and minimal intervention produce great wine anywhere? David's answer is always yes. Minimal sulphur. Vegan.
Legacy — The Grower of the Year, the First Demeter in Rioja & the Woman Who Bought a Vineyard with Her Pension
Bodegas Bhilar matters because it is one of the most complete, principled, and technically accomplished wine projects in Spain — the work of a man who, after working in the largest wineries in Rioja, returned to his village, ditched the tractor, planted cypress trees among his vines, and built a solar-powered, partially underground winery where concrete and wood replace stainless steel, horses replace machines, and biodynamic principles replace chemical dependency. In 2020, Tim Atkin named David Sampedro Gil Grower of the Year — not for making flashy wines, but for "extraordinary work in implementing organic and biodynamic farming in Elvillar." In 2024, Bhilar became the first winery in Rioja to obtain Demeter certification. And through it all, David has remained exactly what he was when he started: a village boy who believes the vineyard is more important than the winery.
His legacy is agricultural. By farming ~16 hectares biodynamically across more than thirty small parcels, by eliminating tractors in favour of Alfred Ferrís's Breton mares, by keeping yields at 3,000-3,500 kg/ha when the appellation allows 6,500, by planting over 2,000 native plants and trees for biodiversity, by using only sulphur and milk whey as treatments, and by refusing every shortcut the modern wine industry offers, David has created a model for viticulture that is closer to Steiner's ideal than to any commercial consultancy. The cypress trees, the horses, the bees, the chickens, the fruit trees, and the olive trees are not marketing. They are the material reality of a farm that is trying to heal itself — and the land around it.
His legacy is also oenological. The Phinca Lali — from vines planted in 1910, 100% whole-cluster, named after his mother — is a wine of remarkable depth and cellaring potential that has received some of the highest scores in Rioja. The Phinca La Revilla — six years in barrel, white and red, oxidative and profound — is a deliberate resurrection of a lost Rioja tradition that almost no one else would attempt. The Phincas Thousand Mils — an orange-tinged field blend from 50-year-old vines — pushes the boundaries of what white Rioja can be. And the Bhilar Tinto — a village wine of 25,000 bottles that still manages to feel handmade and soulful — proves that scale and integrity are not mutually exclusive. Each wine is an argument for a different kind of Rioja.
And his legacy is human. The story of Melanie Hickman — the American from Ohio who crossed half the world, bought a vineyard with her pension fund, named it after her dead dog, and now makes wines that are completely different from her husband's — is not a footnote. It is central to what Bhilar represents: that wine is not merely a product but a relationship between people and place, that a woman can build her own label within her husband's project, and that the personality of the person who owns the finca is "fundamental" to what ends up in the bottle. David and Melanie raise two children in Elvillar. David's father, Bienvenido, helps in the winery. Alfred Ferrís ploughs with his horses. The village of fewer than 500 people is not merely a location. It is a community — and Bhilar is its most eloquent voice.
From the one hectare his mother gave him in 1999 to the 16 hectares he farms today, from the "village's worst vine grower" to Tim Atkin's Grower of the Year, from the first Phi to the first Demeter in Rioja, from the Ohio girl who bought a vineyard with her pension to the cypress trees that connect earth and sky, Bodegas Bhilar is a testament to what happens when a man decides that the vineyard is older than the textbook, that the horse is wiser than the tractor, that the cypress tree is not decoration but prayer, and that the best way to make wine is to let the land speak and get out of the way. The grower has spoken. The horse ploughs on. And the drinker is transformed.