Rioja Wines & Logrono

Wednesday, June 21st - Travel & Arrival

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary so it was especially wonderful to spend the first half of the day packing and riding in the car from San Sebastián to Logroño. Sarcasm aside it was a lovely day. Before arriving in Logroño we stopped for a light lunch and celebratory champagne at the Frank Gehry-designed Hotel Marques de Riscal. 

AirBNB check-in was easy and since we had no plans here in Logroño today we wandered around the city center. We planned to eat out but it was too early for restaurants to be open so we came back to the apartment to snack. That easily took us until the local dinner hour but the snacks were so substantial we weren’t hungry. So we simply went out to a bar in the plaza for drinks. We followed with gelato and got back to the apartment at nearly midnight. 

It was very warm today (in the 90s) and the apartment doesn’t have AC but we do have three fans. When we opened all our windows we got enough cross-breezes to make it barely tolerable. At least it was quiet.

Thursday, June 22nd

We had breakfast in the apt and were ready at 10am for our wine tour guide to pick us up. Mel (English) and his wife Inma (Spanish) run Rioja Wine Trips. Our first stop was simply a vineyard on the side of the road where we got a lesson about the wines of the Rioja region. It was all very interesting and he talked a lot and we’ve forgotten much of it. It was also super hot standing in a field in the sun (temperatures today reached 100 degrees fahrenheit). 

Our second stop was a winery and Mel led us down into the cellar where we got another lesson about primary and secondary fermentation as well as info about the affects of different types of oak. Thankfully it was cooler here. The really amazing part was seeing the winery’s vertical storage cellar. They had dozens of super dusty bottles (you shouldn’t shift your wine about) each stored according to year. A few years were empty and some had only a dozen-ish bottles but the oldest was from 1969! We’ve certainly heard of these types of rooms but never been in one. No one from the winery was with us during any portion of our visit. Mel knew his way around and we followed. Finally going on noon we were upstairs on a terrace overlooking the landscape with some wine. The winery also provided some warmed chorizo slices, some dried ham slices, and bread.

Our third stop was a more familiar tasting experience. It looked like a tasting room and glasses were poured and wines explained. It was quite tasty and we bought two bottles to bring home and lay down.

The third stop was lunch and barrel tasting. This was another unique experience for us. Mel had a very large old-fashioned key that unlocked a wooden door in the side of a hill-top that had a tower ruin above. Inside we were allowed to taste from the barrel of “experimental” wine from the Olmeza family winery. This is their cave and Mel & Inma’s company is the only touring company that has access. It was a very small cave but it went downhill a bit and the dirt overhead went uphill so it was very well insulated and cool. There was a picnic table in the entry way (as well as a sink, dishes, countertop and cabinets). Mel set up a lovely lunch for us and we could refill our glasses as desired from the barrel. 

Back outside it was still warm but getting a little overcast and therefore slightly cooler. We could see darker clouds developing. We have one more stop and it would ordinarily be part of their “unusual suspects” tour which is more costly. But early on Mel deduced we might enjoy this more than what he had originally planned and asked if we wanted to substitute (no extra charge). We said yes.

For this final tasting experience, Mel again had a key to the door and total access without any of the winery staff being present. He is a talker and we are now technically at the end of our tour (6pm) but we haven’t even started tasting here and he’s still talking about the press clippings this winery is getting. He decanted some of their 20 euro wine (their most expensive and the one getting all the press) and then gave us glasses and took us down into the cellar/cave. This place is much more cave-like. It’s narrow, wet, moldy and cool. People have to work down here and at one point in time military personnel lived down here. We got to taste from a barrel that is an unusual  mix of the four most common wines in this area: roughly equal parts Tempranillo, Graciano, Garnacha & … ? (Tempranillo is indigenous to this area and the most common). It was tasty wine. Back upstairs we tasted a couple others and ended up buying two bottles. Now we were done and Mel drove us back to Logroño. Along the way we heard thunder and got rained on. We got back about 8pm which is two hours later than expected but we didn’t mind a bit.

We had dinner out and then came back to the apartment to pack. Plus we’re tired because it was a long day. Tomorrow we start our final week of this trip. Larry and Robin will drive us to the train station and we’ll be on our way to Barcelona. They will drive themselves to Madrid.

The back of the Hotel Marques de Riscal.
The actual rooms people stay in are in another building.

The front of the hotel.

We saw a lot of storks/stork nests in Logroño.

Recent vintages in storage.

Fewer bottles remaining from 1969.

View from the terrace where we were tasting at our first stop.

Our lunch time wine cave.
The entry room with the picnic table had a nice view through the door.

It was self-serve in the cave.

Outside view of the cave; ours was the one with the open door.

Gontes was our final stop. The "famous" wine is the one that's mostly black.

Look at these happy people in a damp moldy cellar.

Very briefly in Logroño we were on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage walk.

Drinks in the plaza in Logroño and yes that is the fire truck in the background.