La Rioja Wine region of Spain
Our drive from Madrid to LaGuardia was uneventful except for the fact the Car Rental agency was running out of cars. We took what they had and were off. We were being extra careful with speed limits and watching the traffic, but it wasn’t a problem. It did really help when I changed the language for the car from Spanish to English so I could read the many messages on the dashboard.
La Rioja is the most famous wine region in Spain. We had been looking forward to this part of the trip for two reasons. The wine and staying at Hotel Castillo El Collado which is located within one of nine Spanish Medieval Cities, LaGuardia part of the Basque autonomous community. Yes, the signs are in both Spanish and Basque. Basque is unrelated to Spanish or any other known language. Fortunately many people speak English and others know how to make do.
What a difference in climate. We were sweating waiting for our rental car in Madrid and looking for a jacket when we arrived at cold and windy LaGuardia. We learned its not normally this cool. It warmed up a little each day of our stay, but that was just going from 60s to 70s and minimal wind.
Our host Javier, who is much older than me and is the owner rushes down the stairs to help with our bags. His English is good enough to make us very welcomed through out our stay. We are staying in what looks like a small castle with a torrent you can go up to for great views. Built in the early 19th century on the site of the original castle, it has only 10 rooms and a restaurant. It reminds us of the Restaurant with rooms concept in Scotland. Our room “The Fable” is huge with an incredible view to the lands below our hillside community. Across the way we can see the white granite mountains of Sierra de Cantabria. This is great.
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| Our Hotel, great views from the top of the tower |
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| Sunset from the top of the Tower |
We opted for the Hotel breakfast the next morning. I should have taken a picture, the table was covered in plates of food waiting for us. Fruit, meat, bread/toast, yogurt, jams, hard boiled eggs and more just for the two of us. We make a dent in it before heading off to visit Bodega Ysios. Its a 30 minute walk down the hill and into the valley. It’s not hard to find as it has a very distinguished architecture.
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| Bodega Ysios Note the wavy architecture |
This winery is owned by a large wine and distilled liquor company that wanted to create an avant- garde boutique winery. To distinguish themselves, they hired the famous architect Calatrava to design the building. It’s both functional and expressive in design.
We are taking the tour, which in most ways is similar to many other wine tours we have taken. However, Calatrava has designed the building to both simplify some of the process and to bring in indirect natural light into the cellar. In the picture below, the tanks above store the wine until its ready to flow down below into fermentation tanks. Note how the beams above slope downward, first left to right and then right to left to create the distinctive appearance from the outside.
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| See how the beams angle townward above the tanks |
After the tour, its time to taste the wine. We share a table with a family from Athens, GA (Go Dawgs) The parents work for the University and the oldest daughter is a student. We opt to buy a bottle of Ysios Blanco 2021 which is made from Viura, a varietal new to both of us. It was a great afternoon learning about the wine and talking about UGA.
Our next stop is back above the valley in the ancient city of LaGuardia to visit Bodega Carlos San Pedro’s. The family claims to have been making wine for over 500 years, but just 300 years in the caves underground below the town. We learn there are over 300 underground caves carved out of the rock. Almost one for every home. Built originally for protection, this one has been a winery for 200 years. While today the fermentation takes place off site, the aging of the wine occurs in this underground cellar.
It’s just the two of us on the tour. We start with a video showing how they made wine with stomping of feet up to 2002. Now they have a modern fermentation process off site and the caves are used for aging both in stone tanks and barrels. It’s time to go down several flights to the cellar. They have a pipe to send wine from the outside to the cellar. The barrels look quite old. They use their barrels for 12 years versus the 5 years we heard from the larger wineries. Our guide invites to climb a ladder to look into the stone tanks, which I find filled to the brim. He extracts a sample from the tank for us to try. It’s a young wine, so not yet ready. Again, our taste goes to a Tempranillo that has aged. This one longer than most. 2011 Carlos San Pedro
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| Top is wine aging in barrels and bottles Bottom is me looking down from the atop the ladder |
We eat in a restaurant in the town and after dinner, our waiter invites us to visit their Cave Bar. So we descend several flights and find a long twisty tunnel with many tables created from wine barrels and a large table created from a wine press. Then it's off to wander the town, which has really come alive in the evening.
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| Top - view of the cloud shrouded mountains at night Below - two odd art installations of everyday items from a recent past |
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The next morning, we opt to walk to a cafe for a light breakfast of Spain’s version of French toast (which we learned about on our food tour in Madrid), which has been soaked a long time and has a slightly gooey texture within a toasted exterior covered in cinnamon. Next stop Haro, which is a nearby town with several wineries that have wine bars in the town center. The first winery is Bodega Muga. We go straight to the tasting room/wine bar. Carol finally gets to enjoy a Cava, a sparkling white wine made from Viura and Chardonay. I enjoy one of their 2015 Prado Enea Grans Reserva, which is another barrel aged Tempranillo which is better than most I’ve tried.
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| Bodega Muga |
Our next winery was an impulse as we wanted someplace we could order some food. La Rioja Alta fit the bill. Carol ordered Lagar D Cervera 2022, which is made from another new varietal to us, Albariño. I try their 2019 Finca El Otero, which is a TInta del Pais varietal that is new to us. It’s very good, but out of my budget, so we buy Carol’s white.
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| Bottom right is a retired bottler used as a lawn ornament |
We had a big finish planned for our day. That is to visit a hotel designed by the famous architect Frank Gerry, the Hotel Marques de Riscal. We had tried to get a dinner reservation the night before, but that was booked out to August. So we decided to drive by and have some food and drink at the bar. That turned out not to be, as they were not allowing anyone on property without a reservation. None the less, we drove through the countryside to find the picture below. We will have another opportunity to see his work when we visit the Guggenheim Balboa museum. We first saw his work at the BioMuseo in Panama City years ago.
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| The hotel is covered in bright purple, pink and gold metallic folds on right |
At the end, we wished we had spent another night or two, three was not enough. With each day, we discovered more to see and do like shown below: delicious bakery, automaton clock, tree’s sculpted to create a flat canopy, running routes through vineyards and always something around the next corner.
