A place in La Ribera: where wine and good food bring the community together

Marta Iglesias presented a project that came about “in a very organic way” in La Aguilera, a small village in the Ribera del Duero, which aims to reconnect the local community through wine, gastronomy and shared meals. Together with her sister Esther, a fifth-generation winemaker from a family with long-standing ties to the vineyard, she has transformed her father’s estate into a meeting place where chefs, winegrowers, locals and travellers come together.

The format is simple and deeply local: long tables set amongst the vineyards, seasonal cuisine based on produce from the vegetable garden and local growers, and wines selected to break away from the usual “same old, same old” found on wine lists in the area. What began as a meal amongst friends who share a passion for wine and food has evolved into open-house events where visitors from Spain and abroad—particularly from Latin America—can experience the Ribera ‘just as we do’.

The scenes are as homely as they are powerful: Marta’s mother cooking, a father grilling lamb chops over vine cuttings, and a group of friends sewing tablecloths and coasters for the dinners, turning the preparations into a social ritual. Every detail is carefully considered: handcrafted Spanish and international tableware, hand-blown glasses, printed menus and dishes that bridge regions, such as Mexican tacos with torrezno from Soria or Colombian beans with green grapes from the estate.

Wine is the other key focus. Esther sources special wines from wineries and bottles, and the tastings are designed as a gateway even for those who claim they ‘don’t drink wine’, but who discover new nuances when served something out of the ordinary. These evenings, promoted exclusively via Instagram, also aim to have an economic impact on the local area: encouraging those who sample eggs from a small local farm to choose the same ones at the supermarket afterwards.

Beyond the gastronomic experience, Iglesias emphasised the social dimension of the project: opening up the house to bring groups together, breaking down the shyness typical of small towns and forging unexpected connections between people who barely knew each other by sight. For her, sharing who you are—without any pretentious sophistication—is the only way to keep traditions such as lechazo or chuletillas al sarmiento alive. Every guest who walks through the door, she maintains, leaves a little of themselves in the Ribera and takes away, in return, an intimate memory: that of having been welcomed into a home, rather than a restaurant.