Ágora de Protos, Wine Shop and Wine Bar

What it is

Bodegas Protos turned its first Peñafiel winery, built in 1927, into the Ágora de Protos: restaurant, wine shop and wine bar on Avenida de Escalona, below the castle. The brick building keeps the air of the time and is divided into three areas: the dining room, the wine shop with the wine bar for a glass and a bite, and the terraces, some glazed and, in good weather, one outdoors with a garden. In all it holds about 100 people. The kitchen is run by chef Javier Sánchez Macareno, with Juan Pablo Rincón and Julián Anaya at the wood-fired oven and the grill, in collaboration with Casa Florencio, a house with almost 75 years of cooking in the Ribera del Duero.

A mid-morning glass

The wine bar is open every day from 11:00 to 14:00 and is the stop for a Protos wine with something to nibble between the castle visit and lunch. The wine shop, where bottles are bought, is open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 18:00 and on Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, with no midday break. From 14 to 18 August, during the fiestas, both open from 10:00 to 15:00, and at Christmas the hours change on some days.

Eating in the restaurant

The restaurant is open every day from 13:30 to 16:00. The menu mixes the traditional food of the Ribera with more contemporary dishes: butterflied anchovy with Churra sheep butter, Iberian ham croquettes, fried pig's ear with chipotle, ravioli of lamb trotters, Ribera black pudding, red peppers roasted in the wood-fired oven, chorizo cooked in verdejo wine with chip-style potato and, as the house dish, wood-fired roast milk-fed lamb, by the quarter, as chops or as a portion. From the grill come Simmental beef entrecôte, Friesian fillet and turbot.

The menus are served for the whole table. The seasonal one costs €35, Monday to Friday only, without drink and for a maximum of ten people; the Terruño menu, at €42, on weekdays outside public holidays and with a minimum of two people, comes with a quarter of roast milk-fed lamb; and the Ágora menu, at €100, has eight courses paired with wines from the winery. There are other menus with lamb or grilled meat and Protos wines included. Book online or on 983 240 008.

Getting there and what to combine

It is at Avenida de Escalona 12, at the foot of the castle, with parking and wheelchair access. It fits before or after the Castle and Provincial Wine Museum and the winery visit. Visits to the Protos winery are booked separately, always by appointment.