Visit to the El Fabulista underground winery

Beneath the streets of Laguardia there are more than 300 caves dug for making and storing wine, the calados. El Fabulista is one of the largest that can be visited: it lies seven metres down, beneath the 17th-century palace where the fabulist Félix María de Samaniego lived, and it is one of the few where wine is still made, by carbonic maceration, as it has always been done in the region.

Seven metres beneath Samaniego's house

Samaniego was born in Laguardia in 1745 and died here in 1801. The winery occupies the ground floor and the subsoil of his house, in Plaza de San Juan, and owes it even the names of its wines: a young white and a young red, and the reds Ilustrado, Sabio and Fábula. What sets it apart from other visits in the old town is that the cave is still at work: one of its cellars is for making wine and another for ageing.

From the street press to the four cellars

The visit starts in front of the palace, with a little history of the house and the town. It continues in the stone vats at street level, where the grapes were trodden and how it was done is explained. Then you go down to the four cellars: one for winemaking, one for ageing and two for tasting. In the last one the wines are served with an appetiser of local cheese, home-made chorizo and bread.

There are two prices, VAT included: €14 with two wines and €17 with three. If you want to taste more wines or have pintxos with them, the winery arranges it on request; ask when you book. The website does not say how long the visit lasts or in which languages it is given: if it matters to you, ask when you book.

Morning and afternoon sessions

There are visits every day:

• Sunday to Thursday: 11:30, 13:00, 16:00 and 17:30.
• Friday: 11:30, 13:00, 17:30 and 19:00.
• Saturdays: 11:30 and 13:00.

Outside those times you can request visits for groups or individuals. The dramatised visits, "de fábula", in which an actor played Samaniego on Saturday afternoons, are not available at present according to the winery itself. For children and school groups, Villa-Lucía, from the same group as the winery, offers the experience "¡Pásalo de Fábula!", which follows Samaniego around Laguardia and Villa-Lucía; ask about dates and ages.

How to get to Plaza de San Juan

The winery is inside the walled old town, next to the church of San Juan, in the southern part of the town. The old town is pedestrianised: leave the car in the car parks outside the wall and enter through the San Juan gate, which is right beside it. To eat afterwards without taking the car, Amelibia is on the Barbacana road, a few steps from that same gate.