12 days in September, 2014

A QUINTESSENTIAL PORTRAIT OF RIOJA - VINES, A FORTIFIED TOWN, & MOUNTAINS

This was another of our trips to famous wine regions. We did it with Paulo and Rebecca, our closest and best wine drinking buddies. We found Rioja very friendly, and the wine was great. Let's start with a capsule description of Rioja.

With an area of just over 5000 km², La Rioja is the smallest of the autonomous regions of Spain. To the north, the River Ebro acts as a natural boundary with the Álava and Navarra provinces. The southern boundary comprises the mountain ranges of the de la Demanda and Cebollera, with peaks of over 2000m.

The Rioja region is stunningly beautiful, with atmospheric fortress towns on hills, some with medieval walls still intact and filled with noble homes and Gothic churches, each with its own amazing ornately gilded Baroque altarpieces. However, all these pale in comparison to the incredible wineries. Winemaking in Rioja is an expensive business, and the most prominent wineries (bodegas) are big and beautiful, with amazing architecture, some with museums, some with gourmet restaurants, and one with a luxury hotel. 

The most picturesque villages, some in Rioja Alavesa, and some in Rioja Alta, are found on the route between Haro and Logrono, separated by only 50 KM. The most noteworthy towns are LaBastida, a Basque village which is also an impressive fortress town, Briones, an atmospheric and unspoiled Rioja town, and adjacent to the “not to be missed” Dinastia Vivanco wine and museum complex.   Other towns to visit are Abalos, Samaniego, Villabuena de Alava (home to an astonishing 33 wineries), and Laguardia. We visited every one of them.

HOW TO EAT PINTXOS LIKE A LOCAL

A PINTXO IS NOT A TAPA...!

Logrono is the capital of Rioja and its largest city. It is famous for its pintxos. Don't call the pintxos here "tapas", as what's known as tapas in the rest of Spain is different, and any local will be happy to explain the difference to you. To the left are a couple of links which explain the difference as well as proper pintxos eating etiquette. The best known stretch of pintxos bars is on Travesia de Laurel, and Calle San Augustin in the town’s old quarter, where (at last count), there were an amazing 58 pintxos bars, and where the locals congregate every evening after 8 for their pintxos crawl, or “chiquiteo”. On the weekends, residents of the provinces join the locals, and the bars fill up completely and the overflow spills out into the narrow streets, to stroll and enjoy their drinks and pintxos. Some of the pintxos in Logrono are very sophisticated, although there are bars with a single simple specialty that it does extremely well, and which is usually advertised on the door of the bar (or just well known to all the locals).  

Logrono is also famous for the San Mateo wine festival, held during a full week in September, around the date of September 21, the peak day of activities. We attended this festival at the very end of the trip and it was everything it was advertised to be.

Here's where we stayed overnight, and after that, a description of where we went and what we did.

The nearest serious international airports to Rioja are Bilbao and San Sebastian, both cities in the heart of Basque country. Bilbao had more convenient flights for us so we flew into and out of Bilbao. However, some of us had already been to Bilbao, so we decided to start the trip with 3 days in San Sebastian, the culinary capital of all of Spain.

San Sebastian is a beautiful city, surrounding a lovely scallop shaped bay, with lots of beautiful architecture, and lots of good restaurants - really good restaurants, and really lots of them. It has more Michelin stars per capita than any other place in the world. Many consider it to be the food capital of Europe. We really enjoyed the food in San Sebastian - both in the great restaurants, as well as the pintxos we ate when we weren't in the great restaurants. 

THE VIEW
FROM THE NIZA

We stayed at the Niza Hotel. The Niza is located right on the beach, with an entrance on Zubieta Street, and a rear entrance (through the bar) out onto the beach promenade. The hotel was very nice with a good breakfast, and simple but adequate rooms. Breakfast was good, but the most memorable feature of the hotel is the manual elevator. If you don't close the doors when you get out of the elevator, it will not move until someone closes the doors. There are lots of signs reminding patrons to close the doors, and remarkably, it only got stuck on an upper floor once while we were there. The staff was helpful, and it was about a 10 minute walk to the old town. To the left is a view from the promenade out behind the hotel.

AN ARTICLE
ABOUT PINTXOS AND SAN SEBASTIAN

HERE'S AN INFORMATIVE YOUTUBE VIDEO ABOUT pintxos IN SAN SEBASTIAN

ALISA'S
FAVORITE
PINTXOS

We arrived in San Sebastian on our first day at around 4 PM, and we went out to explore the city. We walked to the old town area, and had pintxos at 2 different places. To the left is a picture of our first selection of pintxos in San Sebastian. It includes marinated sardines which Alisa loves and which she searched for in every bar. They are called "boquerones" in Spain. To the right is a typical pintxos bar display. We enjoyed everything and spent the evening strolling around this beautiful city. 

PINTXOS BAR
IN
SAN SEBASTIAN

The next morning we ventured out of San Sebastian to visit the little town of Getaria and enjoy our first restaurant meal. Getaria is about 25 KM west of San Sebastian and is home to a museum dedicated to the famed revolutionary French designer Cristobal Balenciaga. It is housed in a beautiful building designed and built for this purpose, and the museum turned out to be quite interesting.  It's no surprise that our ladies enjoyed it, but we guys also found it interesting.

AT ELKANO
IN GETARIA

Getaria is a lovely little town right on the water with a small old quarter, and a picturesque marina. It is also home to one of the best fish and seafood restaurants in Spain, Elkano. I have found this restaurant referred to as THE best fish and seafood restaurant in Spain, but since my own experience is somewhat limited, I can't confirm that distinction. I can say that it was excellent,  and it is a great example of a wonderful family restaurant that doesn't need or want any Michelin stars. The restaurant is lovely, and we were the first diners for lunch. After we were seated, we were approached by a fellow in work clothes who informed us that the fishing boat was a little late and certain items listed on the menu wouldn't be available. He had just returned from the marina, and he turned out to be the current family member who was in charge of running the restaurant. He was very friendly and made us feel very comfortable.

KOKOTXES
AT ELKANO

The menu is mostly fish and seafood, but Paulo had a steak which was was done just right. To the right is a picture of the grill where steaks and fish were done to perfection. Here we were introduced to a Basque specialty called "kokotxas". Kokotxas are fish "cockles", the fleshy things hanging below the mouth of the fish. They are prepared in many different ways and we tried about 4 of them. My appetizer was these kokotxes (of hake) prepared in 4 different ways and served cold. Rebecca had a different version of the kokotxas for the main course, and I enjoyed it far more than my appetizer. When cold, the texture is kind of soft and slimy, but cooked, the texture is completely different and quite good.

THE OUTDOOR
OPEN GRILL
AT ELKANO

Alisa had a great seafood soup, and I had halibut, perfectly prepared. Everything was great, but the tastiest dish was the baked crab meat dish pictured to the right. It doesn't look like much but It was exquisite, and it was one of the dishes limited in quantity. There was only enough for one serving. The restaurant has a very nice wine selection and we had both a white and a wonderful red, called "BigA de Lubberri", from 2007. We also had 3 desserts; after all, this was our first serious meal of the trip. And, of course, in the evening we had some pintxos in San Sebastian!

WONDERFUL
CRAB DISH
AT ELKANO

HONDARRIBIA
OLD TOWN

The next day we drove east to Hondarribia, a lovely Basque town right on the French border. We strolled around the lovely old town, and then found our way to Kalea San Pedro, the pintxos street. There were quite a few places and the pintxos were very good, and a little less sophisticated than in San Sebastion. To the right you can see Paulo, Rebecca and I trolling for pintxos in one of the bars. To the lower left is a shot of one of the leading pintxos bars in Hondarribia - the Gran Sol.

HONDARRIBIA
PINTXOS

HONDARRIBIA
PINTXOS BAR
GRAN SOL

We enjoyed Hondarribia, but the highlight of this day was our evening meal, which was at Akelaŕe, a 3 Michelin starred restaurant and one of the top 3 or 4 restaurants in Spain. The chef here is world-wide acclaimed culinary star Pedro Subijana, and the restaurant is located on a bluff overlooking Biscay Bay. It opens at 8:30 in the evening, and its view of sunset is breathtaking. On this particular day, sunset was at 8:26. We weren't alone as many of the diners came a few minutes early to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy and the sun disappointed us.

On the other hand, there was nothing cloudy in the restaurant and nobody was disappointed. There were 3 different tasting menus available, and the four us of ordered all 3, that is, 2 of the "Akalare Classic" and one each of the other 2, the "Aranori", and the "Bekarki".  Each menu had either 7 or 8 courses, not including the opener, which was called "sea garden" and which is in picture number 1 below. As in many multi starred restaurants these days, instead of explaining each dish, the restaurant hands out an information sheet with a description of everything. Each dish is a complicated artistic creation, and I can't go into detail on all the 24(!) courses we had. I will describe 2. The sea garden (the opening dish) is comprised of "prawn's sand, oyster leaf, mussel with shell, sea urchin's sponge, beach pebbles, and codium seaweed coral (goose barnacles tasting tempura)". Everything was edible, including the sand, which of course, wasn't really sand.

The other dish I will describe is called "The leaves and the Foie under the Rain". There are 2 pictures of it above. The first is picture #2 and shows a leaf covered plate. Picture #3 shows what's underneath the green leaves. There is a serving of foie gras in the shape of a leaf under it all. It was incredible, and incredibly delicious. Picture #4 is a wonderful dessert which was on my menu. It looks like a broken yogurt jar with all kinds of good stuff inside. Of course, the jar, the label and everything else were edible and were absolutely scrumptious! The price for this culinary experience was a mere 187 Euros per person, not including drinks. Picture #5 is chef Subijano with Alisa and me. For 187 Euros per head, the chef comes out and visits every table.

SAN SEBASTION DISTRICTS

PINTXOS CRAWLING IN GROS

During one of the evenings in San Sebastian, we visited the neighborhood of Gros. located opposite the old town on the other side of the Urumea River. This neighborhood is known for its beaches and its young and lively population. There are lots of small boutiques here as well as many pintxos bars. We visited on a Thursday evening, and it was clear that in Gros, the weekend had already started.  The entire area was mobbed, and most everybody were either students in their early 20's or young families with little kids in tow. It was so crowded, we couldn't get near any of the bars, and finished our evening on Puerto Kalea in the old town. To the right is a picture of the crowd outside one of the Gros pintxos bars we couldn't get into.

THE HUGE
CROWD IN GROS

We really enjoyed San Sebastian,  its pintxos and its restaurants, but we had to get down to serious business and on Saturday, we headed out to Haro, the wine capital of Rioja Alavesa. Haro is a modestly sized town with quite a few well known wineries in the town, or just outside. The leading wineries right in Haro are Muga, Roda and Lopez de Heredia. All the wineries have tours available Monday through Friday, but not many have tours on Saturday, and fewer still on Sunday. Roda was one with tours on Saturday.

We had an appointment at Roda at 12 noon. We drove straight from San Sebastian to our hotel in Haro, the Arrope, and then walked to Roda.  The wineries here are concentrated at one end of town, and it was hot. The walk took a little longer than expected, but we did get to Roda at 12, and we did have a very nice tour and tasting. Roda is a large and modern winery. Right in the same area are the others I mentioned above as well as several smaller wineries. We visited a couple of the small ones to absorb some local atmosphere (as well as some wine), and then strolled back to town for a lunch at a pintxos bar.

RODA
BARREL ROOM

HOTEL ARROPE
CORNER

After lunch, we headed back to our hotel to deal with a minor problem, which was that the rooms we got were in the attic and had no windows. Let me be clear – I have only myself to blame. I saw among the Tripadvisor reviews that there were windowless rooms on the top floor, and I simply forgot to request other rooms. I made the reservations well in advance, so that there should not have been a problem. The two rooms  had skylights, which provided ambient light when open, but during the day, it was impossible to open them because of the heat. One of the rooms had a tiny window facing a nearby wall, and wasn’t much of a window. The rooms were in the finished attic, so much of the room had very low ceilings away from the center of the room. This allowed for quite a bit of storage space in the corners, but the lighting was poor (unless the skylight was open), and it was very difficult to use. You could put a suitcase there, but you couldn’t see what was in it. To the left is a picture of one of these corners.

The hotel is 3 stars and conveniently located near the center of town. Breakfast was fine, the hotel restaurant is better than expected with tasty food, but unprofessional service. The staff were always helpful, and in the evenings the hotel bar seemed quite popular with the locals. We had only one complaint, and that was the windowless rooms we got on the attic floor.  After an afternoon nap, of our first day in Rioja, we visited the tiny town of Cuzcurrita de Río Tirón. We didn't find much there, but there's a big old church and a bar where we sat down and had a cup of coffee. We seemed to be a novelty - I don't think they get many foreign visitors there. 

HARO
CENTER

VIVANCO
POOL

As I mentioned above, not too many of the notable wineries are open on Sunday, but one of the biggest, best and most prestigious is and we took advantage of this Sunday to visit it - the Dinastia Vivanco. This is the kind of winery that no longer calls itself a winery. It is a "wine foundation", it is a "center for wine culture", it is a "dinastia", it is an institution. It really is not just a winery, it includes the biggest wine museum in the world, and a gourmet restaurant. Don't get me wrong - we made a full day of it and took the whole package - museum tour, winery tour, and gourmet restaurant, and loved every minute of it. It was all fantastic. This is a "must do" visit in Rioja. The winery was magnificent (like a cathedral) and the restaurant was wonderful, but the museum was incredible - far better than we had anticipated. This museum is not just a collection of old wine making equipment, as is the case in many wineries which claim they have a museum. This museum covers the history of wine making, in general and in Rioja, it covers the entire process of making wine, and it also houses a vast collection of wine related items. It has 6 different halls, and 4 different floors, and it takes a good hour and a half to enjoy it and do it justice.

VIVANCO
ˮCATHEDRALˮ

BRIONES VIEW
FROM VIVANCO

I should mention the price we paid. The museum and winery tour as a package cost 15 Euros, and the restaurant menu cost 35 Euros - all the prices are very reasonable. At the restaurant they have tasting menus as well as a la carte. They were also very gracious and cooperative in adjusting the menu for Alisa who doesn't eat meat. All in all, we had a lovely Sunday with our visit to Vivanco. Next door is the lovely little town of Briones, which we visited after the visit to Vivanco. It's a nice little town, but its main attraction is its attachment to Vivanco. To the left is a picture of Briones taken from the Vivanco parking lot.

VIVANCO
RESTAURANT

VINE BRANCH
FILTER

On Monday, we visited Lopez de Heredia. This is a winery rich in history and whose philosophy is to preserve its traditional methods of wine making. They haven't cut any corners in preserving their wine making methods which have been in use since 1877. We enjoyed the visit very much, and it should be noted that the tour here is unique. It is the most expensive of all the winery tours we did (30 €), but includes a bottle of the winery's best wine - Viña Tondonia reserve, 2002(!). It really is the winery's best wine, and its price in stores is about the entire cost of the tour. It spent 6 years aging, 4 of them in oak, and should be at its peak now and for the next 5 years. 

LOPEZ DE
HEREDIA
BOTTLES

LOPEZ DE
HEREDIA
COOPERAGE

I was amazed by one particular thing at this winery. It has its own cooperage (picture on the left), meaning that they make their own barrels. That's pretty much unheard of in this day and age. The most modern part of the winery is the the decanter shaped store, which was actually designed and built to envelope the old store. Click here to read about the interesting story of its conception and design. (It even has architectural drawings which you can use if you want to build your own.) To the upper left is our guide with a bundle of vine branches, a traditional method of filtration which the winery still uses today. To the upper right is a display of some of the wineries oldest bottles of wine. They were all corked and still filled with wine, some of them being over 100 years old. To the right is the tasting room, which has a very traditional atmosphere about it.

LOPEZ DE
HEREDIA
TASTING ROOM

LA VIEJA
BODEGA

After the Heredia visit, we drove to Casallereina for a visit and lunch. The town is pleasant and we had lunch at a restaurant called La Vieja Bodega. Vieja Bodega means "the old winery", and the place is indeed built on the site of an old winery, and includes the winery's old cellars. It's big, and it caters to groups, however it has one giant hall for the groups, and several smaller more intimate rooms for small groups (like ours). It also has a lovely garden (pic to the right).  It was here that we had one of the best wines of the trip, from a winery I had never heard of - "Frederico Paternina".

LA VIEJA
BODEGA
GARDEN

The food was terrific and we had several excellent dishes. They included "Caprichos de Tolońo" (pastry block filled with king prawns), slow cooked ox tail with cream of foie gras and chantarelle mushrooms, spider crab salad, grilled monkfish and grilled cod. Everything was excellent. I expected this to be a good restaurant, but we were all surprised at how good it was.  It was one of the real restaurant surprises of the entire trip. 

LA VIEJA
BODEGA

LABASTIDA

After lunch, we visited Labastida, a lovely walled town with fantastic views of the entire area. There were a few stores, but because of the hour, everything was closed. To the left is a picture from above of the town center, the town hall, and the nearby mountains.

Ezcaray is a tiny town in the Sierra de la Demanda mountains. It is still in Rioja, but outside of the wine producing area. It is well known for 2 things - the local weaving, and a 2 Michelin starred restaurant called El Portal. The restaurant is located in the Echaurren Hotel. The hotel is a perfectly adequate 3 star hotel, but it is better known for the restaurant than for the hotel accommodations. The hotel reviews are fine, but we decided to stay in a different hotel, just to be different. We weren't disappointed.

SECOND STAR FOR
EL PORTAL

CASA MASIP
LOBBY

We spent our one night in Ezcaray at Casa Masip which is about a 2 minute walk away from El Portal. When we checked in, we immediately understood that we were in for an unforgettable experience. We were greeted by an old woman who didn’t speak a word of English and even her Spanish was mostly unintelligible. There were issues with the WiFi, and we had lots of other questions which went unanswered. We found out that the bar down the street was part of the hotel "complex" and a conversation with the young man there got the WiFi working and answered our many questions.

CASA MASIP
BREAKFAST

This was a hotel which “grew” on us, and by the end of the stay, we were enchanted by this little place. Breakfast was great, the hotel owners (once we found them) went out of their way to assist us, and in the morning, the proprietress took us to one of the weaving shops to buy some of the products for which Ezcaray is famous (more on that later). In the morning we couldn’t find anybody to pay for the rooms, and again, we found the answer in the bar. All in all it was a fun place to stay.

GOODBYES
AT CASA MASIP

CHEF PANIEGO
AT EL PORTAL

Now back to the restaurant. I did my best in planning this trip, not to eat late at night. In Spain, that's difficult, because most of the good restaurants open only in the evening at 8:30 or 9. When planning the trip, I made most of our gourmet meals at lunchtime and as few as possible in the evening. El Portal was an exception. It opened its doors in the evening only, and at 9:15 PM. If we wanted to eat here, it would have to be on the restaurant's terms. So, our meal started at 9:15, and it was memorable, and in the end, none of us complained about the late hour.

As it was done at the Akalare, there was more than one menu to pick from, and we were given a written description and explanation of all the items on the menu. The service was impeccable, the young chef (pic to the above left), Francis Paniego was charming, and all the dishes were incredible. The biggest difference from the Akalare, was the price. Here we were in "the country, the sticks, the boondocks", not in San Sebastian, the culinary capital of Spain. The price for the menu was about half of the price at Akalare. However, it was just as good. To the right is a picture of a lovely ensemble of petit fours which was only one of several desserts on the menu.

PETIT FOURS
AT EL PORTAL

ˮTHE SEEDSˮ
AT EL PORTAL

To the left is one of the most imaginative dishes we had. It was called "The Seeds", and its description, (taken from the restaurant's "data sheet") is below:
"Wedges of cherry (tomatoes), avocado, and pieces of crayfish, around the edge of a quinoa center thickened with reduced crayfish juice and covered with ajo blanco (liquor) and a few drops of extra virgin olive oil. Reminiscent of a seafood stew on the palate."

On the way to Ezcaray, we made several stops. The first was in Santo Domingo de la Calzada.  Santo Domingo is a town lying on the Oja river and has intact medieval walls and an interesting medieval center. It is a well known stop on the pilgrims route of Camino de Santiago, or in English, "The Way of St. James".  It has a well known cathedral which was built in the 12th century and was dedicated to St. James but is most famous for the live hen and rooster kept permanently in the church itself. The hen and rooster are part of a supposed miracle that occurred in the town. The cathedral also has an impressive museum. It costs about 5 euros to visit the cathedral and the museum. For an extra charge you can climb up the tower.

SANTO DOMINGO
CATHEDRAL

I was the only one of our group who visited the cathedral. I found the cathedral beautiful and the museum very interesting. I did not go up the tower but I did visit and "chat" with the hen and rooster.

YUSO
MONASTERY

The second place we visited was San Millán de la Cogolla, which is a tiny town famous for 2 historical monasteries found there - Yuso, and Suso. Yuso is huge and is located within the town and is easy to visit, although you can only visit with a guided tour. Suso, on the other hand, is above the town and requires a reservation in advance, and taking a shuttle bus to get there from the town. Both these monasteries have great historical significance, one of which is that they are considered the birthplace of the Spanish language. Here's  a great travel blog with a very good description of the monasteries in this area and lots of great pictures. We had a pedestrian lunch at a restaurant right near the Yuso monastery, called "Riojana". It's a huge place which obviously caters to the hordes of tourists which visit the monastery.

RIOJANA
RESTAURANT

The third place we visited was more conventional for us - the David Moreno Winery, a few kilometers north of San Milan. I knew little about this winery before we visited, beyond knowing where it was and that we could visit. It provides both guided tours (with advance reservation), or a self guided tour with a marked path and explanatory signs along the way. The wine was good, the tasting was generous and hospitable, and the visit a pleasant surprise.

TASTING AT
DAVID MORENO
WINERY

MANTAS
WEAVING
IN EZCARAY

On the morning of our departure from Ezcaray, and after we found someone to take our money, we found out about what Ezcaray was best known for - weaving. The lady from the hotel (the younger one who spoke Spanish we could understand) insisted on taking us to a weaving workshop called Mantas. It was about a 2 minute walk from the hotel and they really had a nice and colorful selection of scarves, wall hangings, various garments, small rugs. It was just the right place for buying gifts for the whole family; colorful unique products, good price, locally made and nothing made in China.

GIFT BUYING
AT MANTAS
IN EZCARAY

After stocking up on beautiful woven items, we headed to Samaniego where we had an appointment at noon to visit the Baigorri winery for a tour and lunch. The drive took us right through Haro, and in the area of Sameniego, we visited Abalos and Villabuena. Villabuena is worth a longer visit then we gave it (which was only a few minutes), but Abalos didn't have much to offer at all. 

AT BODEGAS
BAIGORRI

At 12 noon, we started the day's main event - the visit to Baigorri, a beautiful modern winery. The winery was the vision of Jesus Baigorri and renowned Basque architect Inaki Aspiazu. Quite near to the small town of Samaniego, and just below the Cambrian mountains. It is an absolutely fabulous place visible only as a huge glass cube from the road, but leading elegantly down to seven floors of gravity-fed winery below. There are stunning 360º views to the mountains, village and vineyards. Even better for the visitor, the winery is designed to make touring easy, with a suspended and convenient walkway which descends through several levels of the winery, and finishes at an excellent restaurant  located directly across from the barrel cellar. To the left is a picture of Alisa relaxing in the winery's gigantic welcoming lobby. In the background is Sameniego. This is a beautiful winery, amidst beautiful scenery. For some beautiful pictures, check out the Baigorri web site.

BAIGORRI
RESTAURANT

DESSERT AT
BAIGORRI
RESTAURANT

We had a lovely and knowledgeable guide. The tour was informative, the wine was tasty and varied, and then...we had lunch.  I believe that the entire tour group took lunch at the winery. They had a set menu, but were very cooperative in changing it to meet Alisa's dietary requests. There was a table reserved for each group (we were 4, but the tables could accommodate 8 or more), and at each place setting, there was a printed menu. There was even one menu which included Alisa's modified menu.  And of course, the meal was accompanied by appropriate Biagorri wines. The service was very friendly and cordial, and the dishes were of the highest quality. See one of the desserts to the left, described on the menu as "Baigorri's special dessert". The price for tour and lunch was a very reasonable 45 Euros per person.

AT BAIGORRI
RESTAURANT

After lunch, we continued to our base for the next 2 nights - Laguardia, which turned out to be the most atmospheric town we visited. It is fully walled and is a beautifully kept 13th century fortified town. Also, there are many beautiful wineries within a 10 minute drive of the town, and even a few inside the town.

OUR VIEW
AT ERLETXE B&B

We got room number 3 (named Las Moscas) which is a spacious room with a valley view and is probably the nicest room in the house. Our friends got a room on the street level (I don’t remember the room number) with the only window facing the street. The room is small and the street noise and people walking right by the window bothered them. Also, it was warm and there is no A/C and the only air came from the window which they didn’t want to open because of the people strolling by outside. They decided to stay the first night but go somewhere else for the second night. I, as the organizer and tour guide, was in an uncomfortable position.

This is where Unai came in. He was totally understanding and very helpful. He called our next hotel destination to find out if we could arrive one day earlier, which was impossible because they were full. Then he made a few calls within Laguardia and found them a room in a different B&B about a 2 minute walk away. This was September (still high season) and the B&B was full, so Unai was really going out of his way to be helpful. In the end, everything worked out. Our friends made some adjustments in the room, and decided to stay the second night. We all had a great time being together, and Unai made good friends with his helpful attitude.

LAGUARDIA
CENTER

No TV in the rooms, but there is an old TV (which actually works, with a little prodding) in the public sitting room, which has a lovely valley view and lots of books, and there is a refrigerator for guest use with unlimited cold bottled water.

While in Laguardia, we visited Marqués de Riscal, located in Elciego, about a 15 minute drive from Laguardia. Riscal is another winery (like Vivanco) which has become more famous than Rioja itself. It is without doubt Rioja Alavesa's grandest name and most important house. In 1858 it became the first winery in the Rioja to produce wines following the Bordeaux method. Don Guillermo Hurtado de Amézaga, the Marqués de Riscal, was asked by local producers to find a French wine expert to train them in the winemaking techniques of the Médoc. Subsequently he hired Jean Pineau, winemaker at Château Lanessan to come to Spain and the rest, as they say, is history.

AT RISCAL-
VINES, HOTEL
AND ELCIEGO

Today Riscal sells its products in more than 80 countries, and it has continued to innovate: in 1972 it was the first winery to promote the Rueda region where it produces its white wines, and which is now one of Spain's most successful white wine designations. This stunning bodega forms an entire village of its own (it calls itself the "city of wine"), where the ancient stone cellars and offices are towered over by the extraordinary Frank Ghery hotel. Ghery is the architect who designed the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. The hotel is a tourist attraction in its own right and is ranked among the top 100 hotels in the world. It is very exclusive and very expensive and you can't visit it if you don't have a room there or at the very least, a reservation at its gourmet restaurant.

RISCAL
HOTEL

ELCIEGO
FROM RISCAL

As for the winery tour, I found it rather pretentious. I felt like I was visiting a nuclear power station. We got name tags and were informed that photography inside the buildings was prohibited. We also started with a video presentation which lasted a few minutes and included safety instructions. The winery produces about 5 million bottles per year and a picture of a small corner of the beautiful store is to the right.

RISCAL
SHOWROOM

RISCAL
RESTAURANT

MY DEER

VALPIEDRE
GRAPE SORTING

We left Laguardia and headed to our last destination - Logrono. On the way, we visited our last scheduled winery, Finca Valpiedre. It turned out to be one of the most interesting visits of the trip. Finca Valpiedre is 1 of 5 wineries owned and developed by the Bujanda family. It is, if I understood correctly, the high end winery of the group. It's located just outside the small town of Fuenmayor which is about 10 KM south of Laguardia. It is situated right at a large bend in the Ebro river, which is the geographical backbone of the entire Rioja region. 

The tour at Valpiedre was particularly exciting because we were there for the process of collecting and sorting the grapes as they entered the winery. Some of our group even joined the 2 workers who were sorting the clusters as they headed toward the first stages of the winemaking process. Here's Alisa to the right with a grape cluster she took a liking to.

ALISA
HELPING WITH
GRAPE SORTING

VALPIEDRE
TASTING ROOM

Valpiedre is a very modern winery and I have to describe the very unique table in the tasting room. Check out the picture to the left. Note the beautiful view and the long table with the glasses and bottles. The recesses built into the table about every meter (it's a long table) are very elegant sinks. You can spit or pour your wine into one and then open a little valve and wash it down the drain - no muss, no fuss, very tidy. Our guide, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten was very jovial and entertaining, and the whole atmosphere was very warm and welcoming, which is surprising considering that the winery was in the middle of the harvest. 

VALPIEDRE
BARREL ROOM

LOGRONO'S
FINEST
SHOPPING
STREET

We stayed at the Sercotel Portales. The Portales is a 3 star hotel which is pretty close to giving 4 star services, although the best thing about it is the location, which is perfect. It is just outside the old part of town, and about a 1 minute walk to the pintxos bars of Laurel Street. It also has underground secured parking which was important to us. Our only complaint would be that the rooms were a little small. There wasn't much room for our suitcases - one went on the desk and the other just fit into the bottom of the closet. Breakfast was fine which included coffee and eggs made to order. The staff was helpful, and if we visited Logrono again, we wouldn't hesitate to stay here !

A GOOD SITE ABOUT VISITING LOGRONO

QUENTIN SADLER'S TAPAS CRAWL

VIVA SAN MATEO
A GREAT DESCRIPTION OF THE FESTIVAL

INSIDE RIOJA BLOG

ABOUT JAMON IBERICA - "THE FINEST HAM IN THE WORLD"

AT OUR LAST
MEAL IN RIOJA, AT A BAR CALLED THE DRUNKEN DUCK

We ate in a couple of simple restaurants, but mostly we had pintxos on Laurel and San Augustin Streets. As I said, they were quite close to the hotel, and we did as the locals, hopping from one bar to the next. In any case, the best restaurants were booked solid because of the festival, so pintxos were an excellent alternative. Logrono is justifiably famous for its pintxos bars. I have no idea how many pintxos bars we ate at, but I do remember the best. There was the "Universidad del pulpo" (the university of octopus), which mainly sold pintxos with all kinds of octopus preparations, the Angel bar, which served only one kind of pintxos - sauteed mushroom pintxos, and my favorite "Pata Negra", which served all kinds of little sandwiches (boccadillos), although the specialty was the sandwich with Pata Negra ham, which was absolutely delicious.  If you are interested in trying some, you can order it on-line from the Pata Negra web site. They also explain why it's "the most famous Spanish ham". Below are some pictures of our pintxos crawling.

SAN MATEO
OPENING
CEREMONY

The San Mateo Festival is, as far as I can tell, the number one festival in Rioja. It is celebrated every year in Logrono during the week which includes September 21. We managed to be there for September 20 and September 21, which were a Saturday and Sunday respectively, so it turned out perfectly. It goes back to the 12th century, when it was dedicated solely to Saint Matthew, but in 1956 the wine harvest became part of it, and today that's the main motif. The main event is on September 21 and is the ceremonial crushing of the first grapes of the harvest by traditional methods (by human feet).It is held in the city hall square, and I can certify that the entire town and thousands of tourists attended.

SAN MATEO
CERAMICS
FAIR

TRADITIONAL
GRAPE
PRESSING
CEREMONY

So what was the festival weekend like? I would call it organized mayhem. The streets were packed all day and all night with revelers, the bars were full, the restaurants were full, and the streets were littered with garbage and broken bottles. There were lots of street entertainers, street food, and various markets which were set up permanently during the festival, the main one being a ceramics and pottery fair which was set up in one of the town's main squares. In the early morning, the city cleanup brigade restored order and cleared the streets for the next round. I think that this link which has a lot of pictures, captures the atmosphere pretty well.

SAN MATEO
BAR CRAWL

The main thing I remember is the sea of people flowing through the streets from noon to midnight (and beyond). In the evening, it was seriously difficult to move along Calle Portales, the main street of the old quarter. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad we did it. My one complaint is that I couldn't find any information or schedule until just a few days before September 21. All I knew was that it would be a week including September 21. I had no idea if it was the week leading up to this day, or if it started on this day, or if it was something in between.  I send my thanks to Maria at Erletxe B&B in Laguardia who gave me the best guidance via email as to when to be in Logrono.

MORNING
AFTER CLEANUP

Visiting wineries in Rioja is more like visiting in Bordeaux than visiting in Italy. If you want to visit the winery, and taste the wine, it's highly recommended to make a reservation before hand. There aren't many small wineries to visit where you can just drop in and say hello.

Eating dinner in Rioja is like it is all over Spain - late. Most good restaurants open at 8 or 830 and many open at 9. We don't like to eat so late. On this trip I scheduled most of our "major" meals at lunchtime, when everything else is closed anyway. That was usually our daily schedule - morning visits to wineries or interesting towns, lunch at 1 or 2, rest at hotel, pintxos bars in the evening. Only when I had no choice, did we have a big meal in the evening. (both restaurants were Michelin starred and didn't serve lunch at all!)

TAPAS TIME IN SPAIN - PART 1
A HUMOUROUS AND INFORMATIVE YOUTUBE VIDEO

THE 2014 INTERNATIONAL TAPAS & PINTXOS COMPETITION

HERE'S PART 2
FAR MORE ENTERTAINING THAN PART 1

Nearby attractions are plentiful. Bilbao and San Sebastian are not in Rioja, but they are the heart of the Basque country. We didn't really visit Bilbao, because 3 of us had already been there, but it is worth a visit. We drove through the city on our way to the airport. The city is not so beautiful as San Sebastian, and the main attraction here is the Guggenheim Museum, which was closed on the day of our flight home. It's also possible to fly into and out of Madrid, which is about a 3.5 hour drive to Logrono, although there's not a lot to see on the way.