The Brats of Couto & the Vertical Vineyards

The story of Fedellos do Couto begins not in Galicia, but in the Sierra de Gredos and the classrooms of La Rioja. Curro Barreño grew up in Méntrida, a small wine region in northwest Spain, surrounded by vines from childhood — his grandmother owned vineyards in the area. It was here that he met Dani Landi; their families had known each other for years, and the two men essentially grew up together. Curro left Méntrida to study Agriculture at the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, specialising in environmental studies and bodega management. It was there, in a twist of fate, that he met Jesús Olivares — a fellow student who would become his creative partner for the next two decades.

After graduating, Curro worked at a bodega in Galicia, where his love for the region was ignited. He then returned to a winery near Méntrida, but destiny kept pulling him back toward the Atlantic. A friend called on Curro to help with a project in Ribeira Sacra, and Curro enlisted Jesús — why have two hands when you can have four? The duo spent three years leading Ronsel do Sil, one of the most heralded estates in the region, handling everything from finding vineyards and planting vines to designing labels and mapping out a global commercial plan. By the end of that tenure, they were rooted in the area. They knew they had to start something of their own — an independent venture that would answer to no one but the vineyards.

Their paths crossed with Luis Taboada, an astrophysicist whose family had owned the Pazo do Couto — a rambling 12th-century manor in Ribeira Sacra — for generations. Luis had returned to reclaim the ruined family house and had begun making wine on the property. Curro and Jesús advised him on winemaking, and in turn asked for a little space to make their own wine. The first vintage was 2013, and by the time harvest began, Luis proposed they join forces. The project became Fedellos do Couto: the brats of the old manor. Jesús and Curro eventually took over day-to-day operations, with Luis stepping back to focus on his other pursuits. They also enlisted Pablo Soldavini, a viticulturalist and passionate advocate of organic farming, to help manage the wild, steep terraces.

The Gredos connection remains palpable in their wines. Like their friends Dani Landi, Fernando García, and Marc Isart, Curro and Jesús favour elegance over extraction, freshness over power, and terroir over technique. Their wines are nuanced and persistent, layered and complex — a style that has its origins in the high-altitude granite vineyards of Gredos but finds a new voice in the schist and slate canyons of Ribeira Sacra. The story of Fedellos is the story of two university friends who refused to accept that steep, abandoned vineyards were worthless — and who proved, vintage after vintage, that the most difficult sites often produce the most profound wines.

The guiding philosophy of Fedellos do Couto is site expression through minimal intervention — a commitment to letting the vineyards of the Val do Bibei speak without the distortions of modern winemaking technology. Curro and Jesús are not merely natural winemakers; they are terroir archaeologists, digging into abandoned vineyards and ancient techniques to recover a Galician wine culture that was nearly lost to depopulation and industrial standardisation. Their approach is defined by whole-cluster, indigenous-yeast co-fermentations, long gentle macerations, and aging in neutral vessels — a methodology that demands patience but rewards with wines of extraordinary transparency and depth.

All grapes are hand-harvested from organic, chemical-free vines on steep terraces, then transported to the stone cellar in Seadur. Rather than separating varieties — a modern convention that would destroy the identity of their field-blend vineyards — Curro and Jesús co-ferment the mixed grapes together: reds and whites, Mencía and Godello, Bastardo and Doña Blanca, all entering the tank or barrel as a reflection of the vineyard itself. Fermentation occurs spontaneously with native yeasts, and macerations are long and gentle: 40 to 60 days for reds, with minimal extraction, producing wines of surprising lightness and finesse given their extended skin contact; and around five days for whites, with some cuvées seeing extended skin contact that gives texture and tannic grip.

The wines are aged in a carefully chosen mix of concrete tanks, neutral French oak barrels (300–500L demi-muids), and large foudres — never new oak, never toast, never flavour additions. Concrete preserves purity and mineral tension; old oak provides structure and micro-oxygenation without masking the wine. The wines rest for over a year before bottling, and are released unfined and unfiltered — a decision that means some bottles carry a natural haze, but that ensures no aromatic or textural nuance is lost. The only addition is moderate sulphites at bottling; otherwise, the wines are entirely the product of vine, stone, and yeast.

In 2016, Curro and Jesús made a decision that would define their project: they left the DO Ribeira Sacra. Their wines — with their low extraction, pale colour, and atypical elegance — were repeatedly rejected or pressured to conform to a homogenised standard. Rather than compromise, they chose freedom. Today, all their wines are bottled as Vino de España or Vino de Mesa, with no appellation to hide behind and no committee to please. It was a courageous move that cost them market access in some channels but gained them integrity in all of them. As Curro has said, their point of view is to work naturally in the vineyards, and for the wines, they add only sulphites. The cellar is not a factory; it is a continuation of the terraces, where two friends provide only their labour, their intuition, and their absolute refusal to correct what the Bibei has already made wild, beautiful, and true.

Curro Barreño and Jesús Olivares are not merely winemakers; they are vineyard rescuers and category breakers — two friends who have helped to transform Ribeira Sacra from a region of tourist postcards into one of the most intellectually exciting wine landscapes in Europe. In an era when Spanish viticulture was dominated by large bodegas, chemical agriculture, and the homogenisation of regional styles, Curro and Jesús represented something rare and vital: a bridge between the heroic viticulture of the past and the uncompromising minimalism of the future. They were organic in a wet region, natural in a conservative appellation, and brave enough to leave the DO when it threatened to silence them. Fedellos do Couto is not merely a source of wine; it is a model for how to revive, how to resist, and how to let the mountain speak.

The legacy of Fedellos extends far beyond the bottle. By reviving abandoned, north-facing terraces that the industry had written off as economically unviable, they have proven that the "worst" sites — the steepest, the coolest, the most difficult — often produce the best wines. Their refusal to de-acidify, their insistence on whole-cluster co-fermentation, and their long, gentle macerations have established a new paradigm for Galician red wine: one that values pale colour, low extraction, high acidity, and mineral finesse over the dark, oaky, high-alcohol style that once defined the region. Their 2016 decision to leave the DO — sacrificing market access for artistic freedom — has inspired a generation of younger producers across Spain to question the value of appellations that demand conformity over authenticity.

The future of Fedellos is tied to the future of the Val do Bibei. As they continue to map new sites, identify additional single-vineyard parcels, and push further into the remote heights of Viana do Bolo, Curro and Jesús remain exactly what they were in 2013: two brats with more ideas than hours in the day, farming impossible slopes by hand and bottling wines that taste of nothing but granite, schist, and the stubborn refusal to give up on a landscape that everyone else had abandoned. The story of Fedellos do Couto is the story of two university friends who looked at a ruined valley and saw a cathedral — and who have spent the last decade proving that the most beautiful wines come from the most difficult places, made by the most stubborn hands.