August 2015

Most wine drinkers love a good Rioja—a world famous drop—so I was really excited when we decided to pass through the region en route from San Sebastian to Barcelona.  The wonderful thing about the region is that they do the laying down of the wine for you so there is no danger of drinking it too young.  Each of their four main categories has a minimum amount of time it must be aged in oak and in bottle before it is legally allowed to be released to the world (though many producers often exceed these requirements):

• Rioja – the youngest, spending less than a year in oak
• crianza – aged at least two years, with at least one of those in oak, the rest in the bottle
• Rioja reserva – aged at least three years, with at least one of those in oak
• Rioja gran reserva – aged at least five years, with at least two of those in oak

But before you go, a little preparation is essential.  The first thing to note with wineries in this region is that you cannot simply pop in and taste their wines.  You must book yourself on a tour and the tasting is included in the tour.  Price will vary according to how many wines you would like to taste, but the tours are inexpensive and are very interesting, so well worth it.  Also worth noting is that you will most likely not have time to visit more than three wineries in one day.  I would very much recommend, based on personal experience, to enjoy a delicious, food-matched-to-wines lunch at the middle one of the three.  Here’s how my day went…

La Rioja Alta

This winery makes some absolutely delicious wines.  Located in Haro, it was conveniently on our way from San Sebastian to Laguardia.  Unfortunately for us, the winery itself was closed (apparently they close for the month of August every year), but we were able to pop in to their shop.  After tasting a few of their wines, we continued on our journey with a mixed case safely ensconced in the car.

Laguardia (or Guardia in Basque)

The capital of the Rioja Alavesa wine region in the north of Spain, Laguardia is a gorgeous little medieval town located on the top of a hill.  Now when I say little, I mean little; it is so small that you can walk across it, from one end to the other, in just five minutes!  There is plenty of on-road parking en route to the top of the hill to take advantage of before walking through one of the four main entrances to explore the walled town.  We didn’t stay the night here, we stayed in Logroño (see below), but it makes a perfect base to explore the wine region from a geographical perspective.

Originally used as a military stronghold thanks to its strategic position, tunnels dug into the hill under the town were used for weapons storage and safety for the villagers during sieges.  Afterwards, the tunnels were sectioned off to create private cellars beneath each house.  With a consistent cool temperature throughout the year, they are perfect for wine and food storage.  There are four wineries that run tours of their cellars.  We booked in for two, Bodegas Carlos San Pedro in the morning and Bodegas Casa Primicia in the afternoon.  The winery we did at lunchtime, Bodegas Baigorri, was only 11 minutes out of town, so it was easy to zip out and back in again.

Bodegas Carlos San Pedro

As I mentioned above, the cellars naturally maintain a consistent cool temperature throughout the year.  I found it welcomingly refreshing, but S was very grateful for the offer of a wrap before we descended into the chilly environment.  The one thing that astounds me the most about this winery is how they manage to produce such excellent wine in such a relatively tiny space.  It is by far the smallest I have ever seen.

I love the fact that with every winery tour I do I learn or experience something new.  The novelty factor for this one was getting to climb up a ladder to the top of a tank, take the lid off, and smell the wine.  I was a bit worried about falling in and becoming a red bear!  Thankfully that didn’t happen.  I would have been amused if R had fallen in though; he looked like he might as his head all but disappeared into the tank!  The other exciting thing was getting to taste the wine straight from this tank.  You could tell it was going to be a good wine once sufficiently aged.

Bodegas Baigorri

This is a really interesting winery located in Samaniego.  This was the second of the three wineries we visited, and the one in which we had the delicious, food-matched-to-wines lunch!  So, what’s so special about this winery?  Well for a start, when you drive up to it, all you see is a single storey glass box with a great view over the region.  This is the top floor.  The rest of the building is built into the hill it sits on.  Not only does this mean it blends nicely into the landscape, but it also means they are able to very cleverly use the force of gravity for the entire wine making process as the wine is poured rather than pumped down the levels.

Inside, it is a vast open plan space unlike any winery you have ever seen before.  It was clean (almost to the point of being sterile) and extremely minimalistic.  After the interesting tour that covered their entire wine making process we were led to the restaurant which is situated at the back of the winery, affording magnificent views over the vineyards.  We were a little disappointed to find that the wines for the meal were restricted to the lowest four of their range.  However, after our delicious lunch (I particularly loved the Iberico pork jowl with Riojan bean casserole) we tracked down our lovely tour guide who was more than happy to let us try the rest before buying.  We left Baigorri with a case of their nicer wines feeling replete and rather jolly.

Bodegas Casa Primicia

Our final winery visit of the day was significantly larger than Carlos San Pedro, but still tiny in comparison to Baigorri.  The interesting part of this tour is the history.  When you first walk in, you can see the original foundations under a glass floor.  They describe how they used to make wine in the old days such as crushing the grapes in big stone pits and transporting the wine in goat skins.  Down in the tunnel, you walk under a series of arches, each from a different century.  It was all absolutely fascinating!

Bodegas Marques de Riscal

One thing I love checking out when travelling is architecture.  Not from an academic perspective, but simply to admire (or turn my snout up in disgust, as the case may be) style and form.  If you are a fan of weird and wacky architecture, then check out Bodegas Marques de Riscal.  It was designed by Frank Gehry, the architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

Rumour has it that Gehry originally refused the request to design the new building (which contains a hotel and spa), so they opened a bottle of their wine from the year of his birth (apparently the winery has kept their wine from every year since they started in 1860) and by the end of that bottle he was convinced!  We didn’t have time to go in for a tasting as we already had a fully packed agenda, but it was great to see the impressive structure in real life.

Logroño

Having immensely enjoyed pintxos in San Sebastian, we were lured by the mention of pinchos (yes, apparently it is spelt differently, possibly because it is on the border between the Basque Country and the rest of Spain) to Logroño.  Head to Calle del Laurel and you will find a huge concentration (and thus great choice) within a couple of streets.  However, to be perfectly honest, it didn’t quite have the same ambiance or food quality as San Sebastian.  Ok, yes, San Sebastian is world renowned for taking pintxos to an art form, so we shouldn’t really be comparing the two.  If you do go, though, be sure to head to Bar Soriano.  Possibly the most famous pincho bar in town, they only do one tapa, but they do it extraordinarily well: three mushrooms topped with a prawn in garlic butter sauce on a piece of baguette.  We all loved this simple yet exquisite bite!  S of course ate it without the bread, but she reckoned that allowed her to enjoy an even more intensely flavourful bite.  R and I loved how the bread soaked up all the tasty juices.  Whichever way you do it, pair it with a nice glass of Rioja and you’re all set 🙂

Here’s to lovely, rich and velvety Riojan wine.  Salud!

Big bear hugs from Little Ted xx