No, that’s not another no-frills airline with a dodgy name, I mean you can now get travel itineraries to Rioja sent to you in a PDF file so you can get expert, and independent, advice on your trip before you set off.
My friend Wink Lorch runs an excellent wine travel resource called WineTravelGuides.com where independent travellers with an interest in wine can prepare their trips by downloading guide to great destinations in France, Italy, and now Spain. Not everyone wants to go on a fully organised wine trip, although there is a lot to be said for these when it comes to wine holidays (as they come with driver included), but if you are looking for the flexibility of planning your own dream trip to Tuscany, Bordeaux or Rioja, then these are a great place to look.
You can now read not 1, but 2 different itineraries for Rioja written by another long-term friend of mine, Tom Perry. Tom has lived and worked in Rioja for a long time and he certainly knows his stuff.
One guide centres around Haro in the North, and the other around Logroño, the capital of La Rioja in the centre of the region. Both provide great local information such as maps and history as well as listing excellent wineries to visit, and a range of restaurants and hotels that could be useful. I thoroughly recommend getting hold of a copy if you are planning on some independent travel to Rioja.
Unfortunately, I do have one issue with them. In attempting to justify creating two separate guides, each has a separate list of wineries, destinations and suggestions. This is great, but only if you buy BOTH. If you buy only one or the other, you miss out on SO much valuable information and suggestions. Rioja is not a large region by ANY means (you can get from one end to the other in about an hour) and can easily reach all parts of the region wherever you are based. Would you not want to visit Lopez de Heredia (in Haro) or the Dinastia Vivanco Museum (in Briones) just because you chose to be based in Logroño, only 30 minutes away? Or vice versa, would you want to miss out on the tapas of Calle Laurel or the wineries of Laguardia just because you were staying in Haro?
I guess it is a minor point as I believe you can get a good discount for buying both guides together, and I’d hate to put people off these guides because buying two here costs more than one elsewhere, but I do love the variety of wine tourism opportunities in Rioja and I want to ensure you get the most out of it.
If you are planning on travelling to Rioja, or any of this intrigues you, please do check them out. I’m sure I can encourage Wink to offer readers of Thirst for Rioja some special discount on these reports, so if you do contact her, please let her know you are a reader here – you never know!
Also, if you do buy these or are planning a trip to Rioja, do drop me a line and let me know. If I’m in the area, we could even meet up for a glass of good wine
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A big thank you for such a thorough recommendation for the Rioja guides on the Wine Travel Guides website! I hope you will permit me a little further explanation about the guides and then give your readers a special offer to subscribe!
A little explanation about why there are two micro-region guides … The website was designed to offer all travellers, whether real wine aficionados or simply casual wine drinkers passing through a wine region, the chance to access independent and thorough information on each wine region in bite-sized chunks. So, in France, for example, the Bordeaux region has 8 micro-region guides, Burgundy has 5, Champagne has 3 and so on – hence it seemed only fair to include at least 2 for Rioja (had Rioja Baja had more to offer the wine tourist, we would probably have had 3). If someone is just passing through or has a short time to spend, they will probably want to choose just one of the guides – someone wanting to really explore the wine region will obviously want both guides.
The guides are available by annual subscription as they are updated at least once a year (and often tweaked through the year with smaller changes) so at any time you can download the latest guide. I recommend a Gold subscription for any wine lover who might be visiting more than just Rioja during the next 12 months. This gives access to all the guides on-line (NOT just in PDF form) and it has an added advantage of being able to access interactive Michelin maps and tourist Green guides all included in the price. The Silver subscription gives 3 PDFs of your choice (and you don’t have to choose all at once) and the Bronze is just one micro-region guide.
The best way to see what we are offering is to register on the website with just your email/password and you can access a free sample guide to Inland Provence. Then, if you subscribe anytime in the next 90 days (to 8th June 2009), I’d be happy to offer readers of Thirst for Rioja a huge 30% off the Gold subscription and just slightly less off Silver/Bronze. Just tap in D2TFR09 into the box on the top right of the Subscribe or Gift page on the website.
Thanks again – I’m really excited to have the Rioja guides on the website and believe Tom Perry has done and will continue to do a great job on the guides. All comments are very welcome and forgive me for this big sell!
no problem at all – thanks for the clarification and for the special discount code
Anything that encourages people to discover the wonders of Rioja is fine by me