On the whole the images are interesting, but I feel they got the music BADLY wrong. I also think they got the balance of images slightly off by showing just a little too much old sandstone buildings and limestone cliffs. Of course these dominate the landscape and make it great to visit, but I the overall impression, especially with the music, is that this is some sort of South American or “wild west” landscape, with old dusty towns, vast expanses of vine-growing plains and jagged, imposing mountains.

In fact, it is an easily travelled, gentle and culturally rich landscape with lots of modern facilities balanced with historical towns that are very much still alive.

Come and visit and see what you think

Hotel Viura

La Rioja is a wonderful destination for travellers. As well as the wineries themselves, there are beautiful towns such as Haro, Laguardia and San Vicente, there are great food discoveries in places like Logroño and Ezcarray, there are even amazing discoveries to be had of Dinosaur tracks (real ones) in the south of the region.

One of the few things that La Rioja did not really offer, until now, were more boutique accommodation options. There are plenty of “casas rurales” for groups, or decent hotels and even a parador or two, but for some reason these were not all that exciting.

This started to change with the opening of the Hotel & Spa at Marques de Riscal a few years ago, but it only offered 30 rooms or so, and pretty pricey ones at that! If La Rioja was to attract more of the high end tourists heading to Bilbao, Santander and San Sebastian for their gastronomic wonders, then it has to do better.

And now they have.

In a short time, two boutique hotels have opened their doors. I have not been to either, but plan on doing so in the near future (purely for research, of course). Both are in the environs of Laguardia in Rioja Alavesa (technically Basque country and not La Rioja itself). If you have been to either, do let me know your thoughts, or if you have tried others like these.

Hotel Viura (Villabuena de Álava): http://www.hotelviura.com/ (picture of modern architecture above)

Hospederia de los Parajes (Laguardia): http://www.hospederiadelosparajes.com/

I’m starting to come across more and more travel blogs writing about visits to La Rioja.

This is a great sign that this lovely region is finally making waves in a more international travel arena. So far international visitors to the region are relatively small, especially compared to some other well known wine regions in the world, but the flip side is that those that come now are ‘pioneers’ with a new story to tell their now-very-jealous friends.

I came across a post called “Something about La Rioja” this morning, talking about Laguardia, Haro, wineries and the food of the region. I particularly liked the introduction:

I love to search for charming little places around the world, the type that do not usually fall under the average tourist’s wish-list, places I wish I could savour all by myself and hide from all you other thirsty travelers out there. But, alas, here I am in the magical wine region of La Rioja in Spain, and I am about to-very reluctantly may I say-divulge my precious secret to all.

I must admit I partly came across the post because of the review of the visit to Dinastia Vivanco’s winery and museum:

As a grand finale, I visit the Dinastia Vivanco Bodega, in Briones (www.dinastiavivanco.com). I am speechless. This goes way beyond my expectations.

Thank you for your selflessness in sharing the word! Maybe more travel writers will check out the region too. I shall go on a travel blog hunt, but feel free to drop me a comment with links to your own reviews of the region (travel related only please).

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The barrel cellars at Bodegas Campillo, Laguardia

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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Why is it that 99% of wine maps ignore the surrounding areas? It removes so much context, particularly when wine regions can be separated by some pretty arbitrary political borders.

Anyway, I’ve now got mine and I will be taking pride of place on my wall at some stage – it is quite beautiful as well as practical. Check it out!

If you fancy your own, you have 3 choices:

1. If you are in the US/Canada, visit De Long Wine to read more about the guy who published this and how to get hold of it over there.
2. If you are in Europe, you’d be better to buy it from Catavino‘s site as the shipping is much cheaper
3. BUT, if you are a UK wine retailer, you could try contacting me QUICKLY! I’m about to offer 10 of these to new customers that list wines from the Dinastia Vivanco range. If you get in early, you are more likely to get hold of one. Not only will the map be free, but you get to make money from selling the Rioja wines – not a bad deal.

Oh, and in case you have “that song” going through your mind, you can find it here, don’t cha know

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This visit was to be with the whole family – my wife, my mother in law and two kids, so I had wanted to find one that was amenable to such a varied group, and this sounded ideal.

Bodegas Ontañon (the building) is actually a converted caramel sweet factory which was bought in the 1980′s by the Perez family for the purpose of establishing their winery. This building is now used only for the ageing of wine in barrels (there are a LOT of barrels in Rioja, so there is always a need for spaces to store them), and therefore is not affected by the need to provide access to tractors, for large fermenting vats and all the paraphernalia of winemaking – these take place in another of their winery buildings elsewhere. Instead, they decided to surround the barrels with art, sculptures and stained glass, and almost all of it by a single, local artist and friend, Miguel-Angel Sainz.

The highlights of the tour are really the pieces of art. Without this punctuation, the series of large rooms full of barrels are a little featureless and a little lacking in that “lived-in” look that differentiates a home and a showroom, but this is an art gallery after all. In every room there is a larger than life sculpture or colourful stained glass window, and even the light shades were designed by the artist. Somehow our tour guide managed to combine details of the history of the family and winery, information on winemaking, and a discussion of art and the artist in the one tour. Note, they do apparently do tours in English and French if there is the demand, but our tour was in Spanish, so I am not certain how well this is achieved in English.

The pieces themselves, largely sculptures, were interesting and on a very grand scale (check out the statue of “Mujer en el Mundo del Vino” or Woman in the World of Wine), and it was good to see wine culture extending itself beyond just describing grape-growing and wine making practices. Most of the art has a wine theme, so it does tie together rather better than I may be describing it, although you might want to brush up on your mythology before you pop along.

They also have an interesting marketing idea. They take everyone’s photo during the tour and upload it to their site, so you can go back, select the date and time of your visit and check out your group photo. It’s a nice way to make the memory personal, and get people coming back to check the site of course! They also appear to have started a blog, which would make them one of the few wineries in Rioja to have done so.

However, I do think that most wine tourists are likely to want to see more “hands-on” areas associated with the wine; where the grapes come in, where they are selected, crushed, fermented and pressed. These speak of the human effort behind the process in a way that gently ageing barrels do not, and therefore I felt it lacked a little of its wine “soul”.

The end of the tour, rather unsurprisingly, consisted of a tasting. We tasted the Ontañon Rioja Reserva 2001, and a sweet white wine called Marco Fabio (Dulce) 2004. As this was a visit with family, I wasn’t taking detailed notes, so these are just some impressions:

I’m afraid the 2001 Reserva wasn’t showing all that well, lacking fruit and tasting somewhat astringent, but I suspect it might just have been a bad bottle.

The sweet wine, on the other hand, a Vino de la Tierra made with Moscatel and not a Rioja wine, was rather good. I’m not often a fan of such Spanish wines, but this wine was very nicely made, balancing the sweetness of the late harvest Moscatel de Menudo with a fresh acidity. This is one I’d like to taste again and I suggest you look out for (but I suspect is made in tiny quantities).

Overall, I’d say a visit to Bodegas Ontañon should be on your list of places to visit if you re staying in Logroño and you like art, as it really is a little bit different to any other winery. It is not far to the centre of town so you can easily fit it in your itinerary.

Only a few and in no particular order …

Good things:

• The red and gold colours of the tempranillo leaves at vintage can change dramatically quickly
• Those who work in wineries can be genuinely passionate about their employer – it is like a proper family affair
• I really love older Rioja wines – but is this style being lost?
• You can get excellent lunches for little money – go for the daily “menu”
• I really like Spanish coffee styles, particularly “cortado” (and not just because it makes me think of Palo Cortado sherry every time I order it)
• There are more amazing different cuts of pork than any foreigner could ever imagine – and they all go well with Rioja wines

Bad things:

• Rioja tourism is always going to suffer if the bodies of La Rioja and Alava do not do even more together – I just reaised I have to have two completely separate lists of wineries to check opening times and directions. Why? The international tourist won’t understand
• I really hate bars with smoking
• It can actually be quite wet and cold during vintage time in Rioja
• Rioja and Logroño are a little short of things for visiting families to do during inclement weather
• Spaniards may be sensible with alcohol during the week (“Continental Drinking Culture” and all that) but at weekends be prepared to be woken by homeward bound revellers any time between 3 and 6 am!
• Spanish bars seem obsessed by 1980′s pop music
• In Logroño, drive like you assume the vehicle in front of you is likely to jam on its breaks AT ANY SECOND in order to double-park, THEN turn on 4-way flashers

Some of these will inspire subsequent posts here and I will try and remember to add links as and when I do

Well, one of the top ones anyway.

According to, what is probably a rather unscientific study intended solely to get people like me to write about it, TripAdvisor has just put out a rather simplistic press release about the “Top 10 Wine Destinations”.

In at number 6 you’ll find this (is Inbibation even a word?):

6. Spanish Inbibation: La Rioja, Spain
Spain’s most famous wine destination, Rioja is divided into three regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa, and Rioja Baja. Most recognized for its outstanding reds, the region’s wines are particularly distinctive because of the oak aging and delicious vanilla flavors.

It is a bit of a shame that the most they could find to say was that it was divided into three areas and the wines have vanilla flavours. Oh well!

For the record, Rioja is a great destination, but I’d recommend it based on the fabulous wineries (many of which allow visits) both traditional and modern, the amazing wine museum, the succulent food, the great atmosphere in the towns and villages, the mountain scenery and the fact that, for the time being, it is not a place that many others have been – so it has the advantage of being a great story to tell.

Thank you Trip Advisor for encouraging wine tourism, but let’s improve the quality of the information offered!

[Update: If you want to see the rest of the list and check out the release, click here]

It means I can sit here and blog from my favourite coffee shop in the area, FABORIT. Free WiFi, Fresh Juices, Good Coffee and up-to-date music. What a difference from 4 years ago when I started coming here on a semi-regular basis. At that time you could not get an internet connection for love or money. In fact, the only one I found was a small school opened by the local government to educate Logroñeses in how to use the internet – and no access for web-deprived travellers!

Now you’ll find WiFi all over the place and mostly free in hotels and in some places like the museum.

As I will be rather busy with the conference, I’m not sure how much Rioja blogging I will be able to do, but I have my camera at the ready and hope to take some photos of how the vintage is progressing and report back after interviewing a few local winemakers too.

Also, with temperatures well above 30 degrees, I’m a little warmer than I was when I left London this morning.

And, as this is Spain, I have been invited out to dinner; a dinner that doesn’t start until 22:00. Can’t quite imagine sending that invitation in the UK.