The alternative Rioja bodega tour. If you think Spanish wine, your first thought will most likely be Rioja. This area in northern Spain is the most well-known of all the Spanish wine producing regions, and our tour will not only reveal the spectacular scenery, towns and villages, but will give you an insight into the various different vineyards and the variety of wines created here.
Rioja Alavesa, about a 90 min drive south from Bilbao sees us visit a modern, family-run bodega that is now at the vanguard of the new style of wines produced in this region. An excellent and very informative tour in English, we will sample learn about their excellent wines. Heading out of the village and past the rolling Riojan hills and tiny villages, our second visit will take us into the main town of the area, Haro. The secret here is the remarkable and famous bodega that is still run by the founding family back in the late 19th Century. Only partly modernised this excellent bodega is rightly famous for its amazing wine, produced using only their own grapes grown on their vineyards. The wine is rightly seen as a benchmark for Riojan reds and our tour will enable you to discover not only the history of this remarkable region but sample its produce.
Having contrasted two very different wine-makers we will head for a typically late lunch local’s-style in an excellent restaurant that provides a fitting finale to the day’s activities. From here we head north to Bilbao aiming to be back at your hotel for around 18:30. Both bodegas include tastings, one includes a bottle to take with you per person.