Classic Estates & Creative Growers: The Wines of Rioja Trip

Embark on a deep exploration of the wines of Rioja, Spain’s premier wine region famous for its long-lived reds. Visit wineries in the most important wine-producing areas, including the villages of Haro, San Vicente de la Sonsierra and Laguardia. Taste the classic style of Rioja wine by visiting producers specialized in long-aged wines. Then you’ll discover the innovative wines that have brought Rioja fame in the last few decades, including expressive single-vineyard Tempranillos, ethereal Garnachas, and several of the region’s most prized whites. This trip will give you an insider’s view of the terroir and winemaking of Rioja and allow you to taste many of the region’s finest wines at wineries and in the best restaurants in the region.

Read the blog: Terroir Restaurants in the Rioja Wine Region

Classic Estates & Creative Growers: The Wines of Rioja Trip

Day 1 – Haro: Rioja’s Wine Capital

• Private transfer from Bilbao or San Sebastian to the Rioja wine region

• Gomez Cruzado winery visit

• Roda winery visit

• Lunch at Asador Jose Mari

• Overnight Rioja

Rioja

Rioja feels a world apart from the nearby Basque Country. The towns and villages are dominated by ancient castles, churches and monasteries, but most of all by wineries. Vineyards are everywhere, but the wineries have always been in town in the Rioja. In honorary wine capital Haro, the Station Quarter is full of them, their famous names and tasting rooms beckoning. The mountains protecting Rioja to the North and the South make this region a wine sanctuary. Great wine is everywhere: at the pintxos bars of Haro and Logroño, the traditional restaurants in Laguardia and Casalarreina, and the cavernous cellars of Michelin-star restaurants. The food ranges from rustic to refined, but is consistently local, seasonal, and high-quality. Above all, Rioja is beautiful. Perfectly preserved medieval villages, rolling hills covered in vines whose leaves paint them in jewel tones every fall, sprawling old wineries full of ancient barrels next to psychedelic new complexes. You could come here just to look at it all, but thankfully the wine is as spectacular and diverse as the country itself.

The Wines of Rioja

There is a well-established style of classic Rioja: savory, age-worthy reds dominated by Tempranillo but nearly always with small amounts of Graciano, Mazuelo, Garnacha, or even white Viura. These wines eschew single plots, instead opting to blend vineyards and even bring specific varieties from far-flung corners of the Rioja. Old American oak is often preferred to French. Many Riojas carry age certifications instead of varieties or vineyards. Crianzas are entry-level barrel-aged wines that can be very serious and great value. Reservas must have more bottle-aging than crianzas, and often age longer in oak as well. The reserva category includes some of the greatest wines in Rioja, for more is not always better when it comes to oak. Finally, the gran reservas spend at least two years in oak, often much, much more. These are the top of the classic categories, and many producers reserve their best plots for gran reservas and only produce them in exceptional vintages. Most classic Riojas can age for years, but gran reservas are built for the long haul, and the best examples will likely outlive the winemaker and the buyer.

Many quality Rioja producers have moved away from this aging-based system or changed their methods to produce a different sort of wine. Starting in the 1990s, French oak, often new, became popular among the top winemakers in Rioja. Producers like Remírez de Ganuza, Artadi, and Contador showed that French oak can make Riojas that match or even surpass those made in the old way. Single-plot wines have risen with the fortunes of new producers, many of them varietal wines of Tempranillo. New regulations allowing subregion and village labelling have firmly split Rioja producers: some have stuck with the old ways, while others have done their best Burgundy impression, producing separate wines from each distinct plot and aiming for pure terroir expression rather than consistent blends. The good news for wine lovers is that Rioja now has more diversity of fine reds than at any time in recent memory.

No wine region in Spain stands still these days, and Rioja has its own rebels and innovators pushing the boundaries. Small producers have found plots of old vines all over the Rioja, from the foot of the mountains in the Northwest to Rioja Oriental in the far east. These often contain field blends, and some producers are even taking advantage of quality Graciano, Mazuelo, and Garnacha vineyards to make varietal wines. In garage wineries you’ll see French oak, but also massive oak foudres, cement vats and amphoras. In Rioja Alavesa producers are returning to the tradition of carbonic maceration of whole bunches, the Riojan version of Beaujolais nouveau. Clarete can even be found, a full-bodied rosé style made from a blend of red and white grapes. Innovation is all around, and should continue to bring great new wines onto the market in the years to come.

Rioja means red to many people, but white Rioja is far from an afterthought. There is a classic style of white Rioja that once had many examples but today is mostly synonymous with one name: Viña Tondonia. Stubbornly traditional producer López de Heredia ages this white wine for years in American oak and years more in bottle before release: the Gran Reserva release can be over 20 years old before it appears on shelves. This kind of white Rioja is a strong contender for the most age-worthy dry white wine in the world: bottles over 40 years old can be not only drinkable, but still feel young!

Viura, the main white Rioja grape, can produce wonderfully subtle wines when treated with care. Many wineries new and old have begun to focus on white wines as well-made examples have led the way. Some are made to be drunk young, while others follow the footsteps of Tondonia and age for years. Other grapes are appearing as well, with Garnacha Blanca, Malvasia, and recent mutation Tempranillo Blanco showing up in blends and varietal wines. One small producer makes no fewer than six different white Riojas! This is a category to watch.

Gómez Cruzado Winery Visit

Gómez Cruzado is the most innovative producer in Haro’s Station Quarter, home to Rioja’s traditional stalwarts. It’s an old winery with new ideas, making all of its wines in a tiny building in the Barrio de la Estación. It makes classic Riojas blending Tempranillo, Garnacha, and other grapes from the best vineyards in Rioja, but Gómez Cruzado’s cult status comes from its premium terroir-focused wines. The white Montes Obarenes blends usual and unusual white grapes into one of the most acclaimed white Riojas on the market. Cerro Las Cuevas is sourced from old vines planted with a classic Riojan blend, but ages in large foudres for a fresher profile that showcases the vineyard. Finally, Pancrudo is one of the wines that put Rioja Garnacha on the map. This expressive, fragrant single vineyard red enchants enthusiasts and critics alike, and has become one of Rioja’s cult wines. Note: Pancrudo is often unavailable due to strong demand.

Roda Winery Visit

Roda lies next to the classic traditional wineries of Haro, but this is a new project making exquisite Riojas that garner consistent acclaim around the world. The winery was founded in the 1980s to make single-estate wines rather than the classic Riojan blends. Roda makes only red wines, and the intention behind the project has always remained to make the wines as long-lived in bottle as possible. French oak and years of bottle aging before release mean that opening a bottle of Roda is always exceptional. The wines are smooth yet powerful and complex, a perfect example of a different direction for top Rioja. Of particular note are Roda I, the top Reserva of the house with incredible fruit and character, and Cirsión, a unique wine made from grapes that exhibit particular characteristics, selected from within vineyards, resulting in a concentrated refined wine. Given the grapes used, Cirsión ages for under a year in oak (a short time for Riojan age-worthy wines) but is one of the Rioja’s finest wines.

Lunch at Asador Jose Mari

Up towards the mountains from San Vicente de la Sonsierra, in the village of Rivas del Tereso, José Mari is a Rioja classic. Pure traditional Riojan cuisine is on display here, making this a perfect place to try specialties like patatas a la Riojana, pochas, or delicious white asparagus. The main attraction, true to the name, is grilled meat, game, and Basque seafood specialties like rodaballo and zamburiñas. You’ll find an extensive list of Rioja wines by the bottle here, classic wines and small productions that pair amazingly well with the cuisine without breaking the bank.

Day 2 – Southern Rioja

• Vivanco wine museum visit

• Finca La Emperatriz winery visit

• Lunch at Echaurren Tradición

• Santo Domingo de la Calzada visit

• Overnight Rioja

Vivanco Wine Museum Visit

The Vivanco family made a fortune in the wine business in Rioja, and spent part of it accumulating the most impressive collection of wine-related art and artifacts imaginable. Today this collection forms the basis for the Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture just outside the village of Briones. The museum showcases every aspect of wine, from vineyard work and winemaking to consumption and appreciation, through historical and modern examples and excellent multimedia explanations. The collection of art related to wine, spanning thousands of years of wine history, could be a museum in itself, but the most surprising part of the museum comes at the end: the largest collection of corkscrews you can imagine, of all shapes and sizes and ages. The Vivanco Museum is a must-see in Rioja.

Finca La Emperatriz Winery Visit

Finca La Emperatriz is a singular estate in the cool, western corner of Rioja, a sort of Riojan chateau. The property once belonged to the wife of Napoleon III, the last empress of France, from which it gets its name. Today it’s known for producing a handful of exceptional white and red Riojas exclusively from the plots surrounding the winery. Old vines, chalky soils, and the cooling influence of the nearby mountains make Finca La Emperatriz’s wines exceptionally elegant.

Visit the property, including the chateau and the estate vineyards, before tasting Finca La Emperatriz’s finest wines.

Lunch at Echaurren Tradición

Francis Paniego has two Michelin stars at his restaurant El Portal de Echaurren, but his heart may be in Echaurren Tradición, the traditional restaurant just down the hall. Here Paniego’s mother’s recipes (she herself was a culinary legend) shine with the technical excellence of the Echaurren team. Riojan classics come alive here, from croquetas and hearty stews to fish dishes with perfect sauces and offal for the adventurous. There’s no better place to taste traditional Riojan cuisine at its best. Don’t neglect the wine list, full of rare and undiscovered bottlings from Rioja and beyond.

Santo Domingo de la Calzada Visit

Santo Domingo de la Calzada is a village defined by the Camino de Santiago that runs down the main street of town. The Santo Domingo of the name was a saint known for helping pilgrims who came through. The Cathedral, where his remains are stored, is home to many relics of the saint’s miracles and works of art memorializing his life, but one unique miracle stands apart. You’ll want to visit the church to hear the whole story, but the result is that a live rooster and chicken reside in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo to this day, as they have for generations.

Day 3 – Basque Rioja

• Teodoro Ruiz Monge winery visit

• Pujanza winery visit

• Laguardia visit

• Lunch at Amelibia

• Remírez de Ganuza winery tasting

• Overnight Rioja

Teodoro Ruiz Monge Winery Visit

Bodegas Teodoro Ruiz Monge represents both the old and the new of Rioja in one family. The family has been growing grapes since 1870 around the village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra. They were cosecheros (harvesters), making wine in large cement vats to sell to the large bodegas, a tradition that remains alive in the area, albeit often with cooperatives as intermediaries. Teodoro took a leap of faith and began bottling carbonic maceration red wine in the 1970s, a drastic step at a time when the power of large wineries was immense. Today, his son has expanded the winery with a whole range of single-plot wines which combine his faith in carbonic maceration and his family’s old vines with restrained barrel aging and careful winemaking. The traditional fermentation in cement with whole bunches yields wines with sincere fruit expression, while careful vineyard management and winemaking guarantee complex, ageworthy wines. Teodoro and his family have also restored their family aging cave underneath the San Vicente Castle, an enchanting historic space which opens up to a view over the surrounding countryside.

Pujanza Winery Visit

Bodegas Pujanza has a different vision of modern Rioja wines, focused on freshness and looking to express the caliber of the vineyards found at the base of the vertical slopes of the Sierra Cantabria Mountains. Founder and winemaker Carlos San Pedro comes from a multigenerational winemaking family, and at the turn of the millennium set out on his own. Since then, his wines have acquired a legendary status. The first wine he released, known today as Finca Valdepoleo, comes from a beautiful vineyard surrounding the winery itself and exposed to extreme temperature changes and cold winds from the mountains. Pujanza Norte lies higher, facing north, fully exposed to the mountains. It’s a wine full of vibrancy and freshness atypical in Rioja reds. A single plot of old vines yields the much-acclaimed Cisma, but perhaps the most revered among lovers of Spanish wines is Pujanza Añadas Frías, a white made only in cold vintages that brings a minerality and purity to the Viura grape few would imagine it capable of. Luckily, when the vintage is not as cool, a white is still made from the same single vineyard under the name S.J. Anteportalina. Pujanza is one of the great new wineries of the Rioja offering a different take on what the region’s finest wines can express.

Laguardia Visit

Explore the old town of the beautiful hilltop village of Laguardia with your guide. The village is home to a number of preserved medieval buildings, and its narrow streets transport the visitor back in time. The views over the surrounding countryside, which is home to some of Rioja’s best vineyards, are stunning.

Lunch at Amelibia

A beautiful little family-run restaurant in Laguardia, Amelibia serves updated, seasonal selections of Riojan cuisine. You can order à la carte, but the best option is to do the tasting menu, a selection of eight seasonal dishes which will guarantee you come away with a great experience and a perspective on the richness of products in the area. The wine list is carefully curated, featuring many small and fantastic producers from Laguardia and the wider Rioja alongside wines from around the world. The wine service is superb, so feel free to leave yourself in the hands of the warm staff when it comes to wine. The dining room has excellent views over the countryside around Laguardia.

Remírez de Ganuza Winery Tasting

This elite Rioja winery represents the balance of tradition and modernity. Founder Fernando Remírez de Ganuza acquired some of the best and oldest vineyards in Rioja Alavesa thanks to his work as a vineyard broker. Remírez de Ganuza burst onto the wine scene with a Reserva, and later a Gran Reserva, with modern concentration and new French oak balanced by technical perfection and a commitment to the Riojan tradition of long aging. The wines are made in a new building in the tiny village of Samaniego built so carefully from local stone that it could have been there forever. In addition to the Reserva and Gran Reserva, the winery makes some of the best white wines in Rioja, including a rare white Gran Reserva, multiple impeccable red Reservas, and Trasnocho, an incredibly aromatic and concentrated wine that is a benchmark for “generic” Rioja reds.

Day 4 – Pintxos & Michelin Stars

• Arizcuren winery visit

• Logroño pintxos tour lunch

• Dinner at Nublo

• Overnight Rioja

Arizcuren Winery Visit

The only urban winery in Logroño, Arizcuren is one of Rioja’s most exciting producers. Talented local architect Javier Arizcuren opened this tiny winery in the city center to make his own wine from his family vineyards in the far reaches of Rioja Oriental. Artisan winemaking and Javier’s personal touch has made his wines a great success. You’ll find almost no Tempranillo here, with the reds coming from old vines of Garnacha and Mazuelo planted on the slopes of the Sierra de Yerga. This is a chance to taste the past and future of Rioja

Logroño Pintxos Tour Lunch

Calle Laurel (Bay-leaf Street) in Logroño is the place where locals gather, or more often, spill out onto the street, sampling the appetizing selection of pintxos (small tapas) accompanied by Rioja wines. Throughout Rioja and the Basque Country, pintxos are usually washed down with young red wine with little to no aging. Although some bars are experimenting with more avant-garde tapas, most feature traditional Riojan cuisine: grilled sausages, Iberian ham, Manchego and Idiazabal cheese, tasty anchovies and potato omelettes. The most typical establishments are standing room only, and as in most places in Spain, you order to your heart’s delight and settle your bill at the end.

Dinner at Nublo

Nublo is the brainchild of two Michelin-starred Mugaritz Restaurant alumni who came to the center of Haro to bring out the best in Rioja’s products and dishes. The restaurant occupies an impeccably restored palace in Haro’s old part. All of the cooking is done using wood, whether in the wood oven, on the grill, or on the traditional Basque wood-powered stove. Expect a tasting menu that highlights seasonal Riojan products alongside excellent fish and seafood sourced from the waters of the nearby Basque coast. To accompany the pure flavors of the menu, Nublo boasts a cellar packed with wines from Rioja and around Spain, where you’ll find classic bottles alongside rarities from talented growers. The restaurant’s opening in Haro in 2021 made an immediate impact, so much so that in less than six months Nublo earned a Michelin star.

Day 5 – Departure

• Private transfer to Bilbao or San Sebastian for departure.

Classic Estates & Creative Growers: The Wines of Rioja Trip

Trip Information

Hotel

Rioja - 4 nights

Hotel Santa María Briones - Luxurious hotel in a beautifully restored palace in the heart of the hilltop town of Briones. Each room and public space has been furnished to highlight the historic building’s features while bringing modern comfort. The new vision of luxury in Rioja.

Trip Includes

• 4 nights hotel, double occupancy

• breakfast daily in the hotel

• 4 lunches with wine

• expert private guides

• private premium wine tasting

• private transportation for wine touring

• restaurant reservations and recommendations

• full trip planning

• in-country trip assistance and on-the-ground support

• Epicurean Ways expertise

Not Included

• flights to/from Spain and flights within Spain

• tips to guides and drivers (optional but appreciated)

• travel insurance (recommended)

• extra charges in hotels (minibar, room service, etc)

A note on restaurant selections and hotels

All tours, experiences and hotels are subject to availability and will be confirmed upon booking the trip.

We include restaurant concierge service as part of your trip. Note that our restaurant suggestions are just that–suggestions. Places we love, places to go back to time after time. We recommend these places after years of experience eating in Spain and Portugal together with frequent research and input from our local partners. We aspire to guide your choices with information on the styles of cuisine and restaurants; the choice on where to eat is yours based on your preferences and desires.

We have included hotel options ranging from 5-star luxury properties to small boutique hotels. Let us know your preferences and we will tailor the hotel choices for you.

Trip Prices

Note that we can customize this trip for you. Add days in your arrival or departure city or in other locations or make changes to the experiences, winery visits, restaurants, or hotels included in the trip. Whatever it is, we’re here to work with you. Once you’re happy with the trip plan and have some idea of your dates we will calculate and send you the price.

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