La Rioja Alavesa in a day, two tastings, a signature table and your bed four kilometres from the last glass.

Almost all winery routes have the same hole: someone has to drive back after the last tasting. This one solves the problem from both ends. You arrive in Laguardia on the Álava Bus, move around on foot and by short taxi rides between villages a few kilometres apart, and end up sleeping in Villabuena de Álava, four kilometres from the last winery. On the way there are two very different ways of keeping wine, a cave under a palace and a glass box, and a signature lunch in a hamlet at the foot of the sierra.

From cave to glass

10:30 · Laguardia on foot. The bus drops you beside the wall. Walk the three streets of the old town, which are, literally, on top of the cellars: underneath there are more than 300 calados, caves dug to make and store wine. Look out from the Paseo del Collado, over the lagoon and the vineyard.

11:30 · The calados of El Fabulista. You go down seven metres below the 17th-century palace where the fabulist Félix María de Samaniego lived. It begins in the street-level treading tanks, where the pressing of the grapes is explained, and continues through four calados, one of them still used for winemaking. The one-hour visit ends with two wines and cheese and chorizo, for €14; with three wines, €17. From Sunday to Thursday there are sessions at 11:30, 13:00, 16:00 and 17:30.

13:30 · Lunch at Héctor Oribe. Two kilometres away, in Páganos, a house of signature cooking with traditional roots and two tasting menus. Lunch only, Wednesday to Sunday. If the weather is good, you can walk there in half an hour; if not, a taxi in five minutes.

16:00 · Bodegas Baigorri. The taxi drops you on the Samaniego road, facing a glass cube. The winery is underneath, spread over excavated floors, and the grapes descend from one to the next by gravity. At 16:00 the visit leaves with the premium tasting, three top-range wines, for €35. Book on its website or on 945 60 94 20.

17:45 · Samaniego. Walk up to the village, a quarter of an hour: stone houses, the church and the Sierra de Cantabria behind, which turns orange at this hour.

19:00 · Night at Hotel Viura. Four kilometres by taxi to Villabuena, a village surrounded by 43 wineries. The hotel, a cluster of cubes beside the church, has a bistro with local cooking, a pintxo bar and a roof terrace for a last glass. You dine there and do not touch a car until tomorrow.

The way back

The next morning, taxi to Laguardia and the line 9 bus to Vitoria or Logroño. If you came by car, you leave it parked in Laguardia the day before and collect it in the morning, already rested.

If you change the order

With one more day, Marqués de Riscal, in Elciego, is six kilometres from Villabuena and open every day, with visits from €30. If you prefer to eat inside a winery, swap Héctor Oribe for the 13:00 visit at Baigorri with its tasting menu, at €70 or €80, and the afternoon for the El Fabulista calados at 17:30, back in Laguardia.