Rioja wine route, from the halls beside Haro's railway to the caves beneath Laguardia.

Rioja is the oldest wine appellation in Spain: it was constituted in 1925 and in 1991 was the first to receive the title of Qualified. It covers about 66,000 hectares along the Ebro, spread across La Rioja, Álava, Navarre and a tiny piece of Burgos, and in 2020 had 576 bottling wineries. That scale is deceptive: the part most visited fits in a half-hour drive triangle between Haro, Laguardia and Elciego, and within that triangle there are century-old wineries door to door, walled villages above wine caves and buildings by famous architects set among the vines.

Tempranillo, wood and time

Rioja is, above all, a tempranillo red: in 2018 that grape occupied almost nine in every ten hectares of red vineyard. It is accompanied by garnacha, graciano, mazuelo and maturana; among whites viura rules, which gives its name to a hotel we mention below. What made the region famous was not just the grape, but ageing in barrel: a crianza red spends at least two years in the winery, one of them in oak; a reserva, three, with a minimum of twelve months in barrel; and a gran reserva, five, with two in wood and two in bottle. That patience in wood is what you will see at the classic wineries: whole halls of barrels and bottle racks decades old.

The appellation is divided into three subzones: Rioja Alta, to the west, around Haro; Rioja Alavesa, on the north bank of the Ebro, at the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria; and Rioja Oriental, downstream towards Navarre. The route on this page stays in the first two, which are the ones that concentrate the visits.

Haro: the station halls

The historic wineries of Haro set up in the late 19th century beside the railway line, to send wine to Bilbao and France, and there they remain, in a few hundred metres of the Station Quarter. Muga shows its oak vats and its own cooperage in a 90-minute visit with two wines for €30, Monday to Saturday. La Rioja Alta opens on Saturdays and public holidays with a guided tasting of Viña Ardanza and a gran reserva, for €35. Both are booked on their websites, with fixed places. Every 29 June, Haro celebrates the Wine Battle on the Bilibio crags, and in the old town the Herradura streets are those of the wine bars and pintxos.

Rioja Alavesa: caves, titanium and glass

On the other side of the Ebro, Laguardia is riddled with holes underneath: its streets stand on calados, caves dug to store wine. You go down with the tourist office, at El Fabulista, from €14 with two wines and sessions every day, or beneath the Mayor de Migueloa palace, with five wines and cheese from €25.

7 km away, in Elciego, Marqués de Riscal combines the 1858 winery with Frank O. Gehry's titanium-sheet hotel; the basic visit, every day, costs from €30. To the west, next to Samaniego, Bodegas Baigorri hides its winemaking on floors underground, beneath a glass cube: the visit with two wines and two pintxos costs €25, Tuesday to Saturday, and at 13:00 can end with its tasting menu facing the vineyard.

The Najerilla, for a Sunday

In the southern Rioja Alta, next to the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla, Martínez Alesanco, in Badarán, is a family winery that offers its visit with four wines and an aperitif on Sunday at 11:00, for €20. It is the way to combine wine and Yuso on the same day, as in this Sunday in San Millán.

Eating and sleeping among the vines

In Haro, the Asador Terete has roasted suckling lamb in a wood oven since 1877. Near Laguardia, Héctor Oribe, in Páganos, serves signature cooking at midday from Wednesday to Sunday. To eat inside a winery, Baigorri's menu, at €70 or €80 with the visit included.

The best way to do tastings without thinking about the road is to sleep where you drink. The Hotel Marqués de Riscal, inside Gehry's building, has 61 rooms and a wine-therapy spa. The Hotel Viura, in Villabuena de Álava, has 35 rooms in a cluster of cubes beside the church, a cellar in old tunnels and 43 wineries around it. On the outskirts of Laguardia, in Páganos, the Hotel Eguren Ugarte has 21 rooms inside the winery, above 2,000 metres of galleries visited with three wines for €22. Inside the Laguardia wall, the Posada Mayor de Migueloa sleeps above its own cellar, and in San Millán the Hostería occupies a wing of the Yuso monastery.

When to go

The harvest, from mid-September to October, is when the vineyards turn yellow and red and the wineries work at full tilt; it is also when visits and hotels sell out soonest. May and June bring green vineyards and the Wine Battle. In winter the wineries stay open by booking and the villages are quiet, although some restaurants reduce their days.

Getting around without driving

This is the part most overlooked. Line 9 of Álava Bus links Vitoria, Laguardia and Logroño with about ten departures a day, and line 12 takes you from Vitoria to Haro in an hour. From Logroño there is a bus to San Millán, with one outward and one return trip on Sunday. Within Laguardia and the Station Quarter everything is done on foot. For Elciego, Samaniego or Villabuena, take a taxi from Laguardia or sleep there. If you go by car, decide beforehand who drives and that this person spits at the tastings.

Three ways to do it at leisure: a Sunday in Haro among wineries beside the track, a weekend in Laguardia from Vitoria, and a day through the Sonsierra with a night in Villabuena, without a car for the way back.