WINEMAKER
Emma Villajos is the new Technical Director of Bodegas Franco-Españolas.
With 20 years of professional experience in the same position and with her entry into Bodegas Franco-Españolas and Bodegas Valparaíso, Emma consolidates her experience in two denominations of origin: D.O. Calificada Rioja and D.O. Ribera de Duero. Denominations she knows very well thanks to the development of wine projects with a lot of identity linked to the land and its native varieties.
“I face this new stage with strength, enthusiasm, affection, and commitment. My last professional experience completes 20 years of developing a winemaking project that I saw born and to which I was able to contribute and shape. I poured into it all my acquired knowledge and the values that define me from childhood: involvement, responsibility, and enthusiasm.
In this new stage, I feel a great responsibility and I am also overwhelmed by the feelings typical of a new professional and personal challenge. I face it with strength, enthusiasm, affection, and commitment, all accompanied by a self-confidence acquired thanks to the baggage accumulated over my 44 years.”
-“Wine is my passion and my passion is my work”-
“Wine is my lifestyle. When I think of wine, I feel excitement, care, affection, and attention. In my mind, a direct connection is created between wine and the best of my life: family, friends, and shared moments of joy. Wine is my passion, and I am very fortunate that my passion is my work, what fills me in my professional daily life.”
-“There is a feeling of birth when making wine”-
“For me, winemaking is one of the most poetic and passionate professions a person can dedicate themselves to. It is a creative work, and, as in any creation, there is a feeling of ‘birth’ where wine is the living being that is born in the vineyard and that must be cared for until the bottle.”
-“Wine is a team effort, with many people involved throughout the entire winemaking process”-
“I feel a profound respect for a good raw material like grapes, which are born as living beings in the field and continue as such throughout their journey to the bottle. This implies being very meticulous, systematic, and controlling each and every stage of their ‘growth’ to ensure that the qualities they brought in the grape are reflected in the wine and that the consumer’s enjoyment is maximum. In wine, many links come together that are expressed when pouring it into a glass. With each vintage, new wines are born that I love to care for and pamper until the end. I also feel that making wine is teamwork, because from the field to the glass, many people are involved in making sure that everything, grape and wine, comes out perfectly. Once it reaches the glass, it is a great honor and pride to see that something you created can be enjoyed, shared with friends, and can make unique moments both inside and outside of work. Each glass and each sip carries a piece of the effort and care behind that grape in the form of a glass of wine.”
-“It is us, human beings, who must do our best in terms of education with the generations that come after us to appreciate nature, care for resources, and teach each other to be efficient in our day-to-day lives”-
“On a personal level, since my studies as an Agricultural Engineer, I have always had a special sensitivity to observing everything that happens in the farms and in the fields, and that is why I am concerned about anything related to water needs and its scarcity, as well as the lack of life in soils heavily treated with pesticides. Seeing ladybugs on peach vine leaves or seeing butterflies flying in the vineyards is a sign of life and good health in the vineyard. It is us, human beings, who must do our best in terms of education with the generations that come after us to appreciate nature, care for resources, and teach each other to be efficient in our day-to-day lives. It is essential to be respectful and to collaborate in daily tasks such as recycling, the use of lighter, more organic materials and less plastics, eating healthily, and valuing fruits and vegetables that ripen on the plant, as well as incorporating all possible renewable energies into our daily lives to contribute one more step towards an awareness of everyday and much-needed sustainability.
-“Sustainability is a topic that has become a priority at the corporate level, a strategic pillar within our business strategy at Bodegas Franco-Españolas.”-
“Our winery, in addition to aiming to make good wines, wines of the highest quality for enjoyment, is also focused on the fact that this must go hand in hand with the concept of sustainability. It is a topic that has become a priority at the corporate level. At an agronomic level, by using minimal intervention techniques in the vineyard, minimal phytosanitary treatments; respect for the ‘earth-soil-air’ ecosystem of the vines, materializing it in the transition to
