Our dear friend Kim's daughter is getting married in Toledo Spain in late June. So of course we are touring around Spain for the next few weeks.
We started the trip by attending a Stanford event in Mexico City on Friday night. It was the Latin American celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Stanford Business School. It was nice to connect with classmates Alejandra and Martin.
Knowing we would be in Mexico City, our interior designer suggested we visit one of the fabric showrooms for a better selection of fabrics for refreshing our bedspread and bedroom drapes. We succeeded and she will be ordering fabrics and maybe even making the bedspread and drapes while we are away.
Our flight left midday Sunday and we arrived in Bilbao (in the Basque area of NE Spain) around 8:30 am Monday following a close connection in Madrid. We supposedly made it by only 2 minutes. But due to some non-disclosed issue we didn't depart until 30 minutes later. Dinner on the flight wasn't bad and included a tasty squash relish (and cute salt & pepper shakers).
First stop: Haro, the heart of the Rioja wine country. We made a short visit to Vitoria-Gasteiz (the hyphenated name may seem an extension of Spain's system of hyphenated family names, but really it is the combination of the Spanish and Basque Language names for the city.
We explored the medieval heart of the city, enjoying the views of church towers and crenelated walls of the old town as we criss-crossed the maze of narrow streets. As with many cities these days, they have a big city sign. In this case theirs is constructed with plantings.
Despite the historic features, one of the most notable features for us was the various escalators, elevators and moving belts that facilitate navigating the hills of town. (See bottom left of top left photo). Actually San Miguel has much steeper hills and we manage those quite well without such modern day assists, but were still impressed.
We continued on to Haro, the capital of La Rioja, one of three autonomous communities in the Rioja wine region. The name Rioja comes from Rio Oja (the Oja river).
The Haro central plaza is arcaded with wine barrels representing many of the local producers on display in a couple of the arches. We enjoyed our first tapas of the trip at Beethoven bar. We had Patatas Riojana (potatoes in a very tasty broth), Gambas al ajillo (shrimp and garlic sauce) and some nice fat stewed fresh asparagus with a couple glasses of the house wines. One was a deep red. It was rich and tasty but having had only a few hours sleep since we left Mexico, sadly we neglected to get the details.
Next day, we checked out the local centennial wineries (wineries that are over 100 years old) and the local railway station that was central to the development of the wine industry here. Note the two large wine barrels on the train below.
Then we visited a couple medieval villages. In Sajazarra Pat explored the mobile SuperMercado's offerings. The truck, equipped with a full grocery selection, services the small villages that cannot support even a small local store. We were amused to see a dragon emerging from a building and an alleyway almost narrow enough to reach a friend's hand from across the other side. From outside the city walls we got a good view of the local castle. We moved on to visit Santo Domingo stopping to visit a renovated Roman bridge. Santo Domingo de la Calzada is a key stop on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. While waiting for our guide, Pat noticed a nice shop with hiking gear (clothes, shoes and more) where we shopped for our upcoming trip to East Africa. A shirt and a pair of pants for Pat, Two shirts and a pair of pants for Bill. Who knew we would find such a well stocked source of hiking / safari gear here?
The Santo Domingo Cathedral is named for a priest who aided pilgrims traveling through the district. Due to one of the miracles attributed to the Saint, the cathedral is the only cathedral to house a live rooster and a live hen. Look carefully at the photo with the grate below, and you can see one.
We stopped for lunch at Echaurren in Ezcaray, another medieval village. We ordered "the menu" and a wine from Rioja Alta. Some amazing dishes. A delightful light, white cheese with a honey based sauce, some of the best croquettes we've ever tasted, along with stew and hake (moist, lightly breaded, tasty). This was topped off with ice cream with a dried apple hat.
Our final stop for the day was at Finca la Emperatriz. (It turns out that our tasting hostess grew up in Guadalajara Mexico!). We tasted two "el Jardin de Finca la Emperatriz" wines, a 2024 white and a 2020 red) and two Finca la Emperatriz reservas (again, a white and a red from 2019). We were especially impressed with the white reserva. The primary white grape for Riojas is Viura.
Next day on our way to Logroño, the largest city in the Rioja wine region. Our first stop was at the Elena Corzana winery - a one woman show located in the family "compound". She produces a few thousand bottles, white and red from local vineyards, fermenting them in a clay amphora's. She punches down "the cap" with a handmade wooden pitchfork.
We moved on to Logroño where we wandered, shopped, explored the market and encountered the Camino again. We made a quick stop at a wine museum and thought about playing Chutes and Ladders but the dice were difficult to manage. For lunch we stopped at several Pinxto bars. - At Bar Baco we enjoyed their speciality, the BACO - setas silvestres, bacon, queso fundido y aceite de trufa blanca (wild mushrooms, bacon, melted cheese and white truffle oil) and the TOSTA: de crema de queso de Los Cameros y pimientos caramelizados con reducción de vinagre de blanco de Rioja (cream cheese from Los Cameros and caramelized peppers with a reduction of white vinegar from Rioja).
- Bar Angel on Calle Laureles, where you can have any pinxto you want as long as it is a mushroom stack, Some of the yummiest mushrooms ever ...
- Bar Sedas for stuffed peppers and sautéed breaded fresh anchovies.
- Bar La Anjana for Solomillo (pork loin) with roquefort followed by dessert (milk cake with ice cream & caramel).
And then on to another slightly larger winery, the in-town Arizcuren. They too ferment in amphoras. Their white is sold out but there were 5 reds, several blends and a couple single grape wines.Another day, more wine tasting. Today we started at Bodega Miguel Merino in Briones. Grapes from Briones. It is family owned they have a staff of 5 including our hostess who grew up in Mexico City and Quintana Roo. They age in oak barrels and concrete and have sufficient history to have a collection of vintages in bottles from 750 ml to 16 liters.
After the tasting we walked around Briones visiting the market and church (lovely pipe organ) and enjoying the views of the countryside. They dry the grape vine prunings to become fuel for grills. The town celebrates medieval days. Model of town,
Our San Vicente de la Sonsierra visit included views of a bridge and walking around the town and castle.
Nearby was a Guarda viña (bee hive shaped structure that provides shelter for the vineyard workers) with a wall known as a chozos. Nearby the vineyard uses a novel approach to propagate the vines. They bury a branch and let it take root. They maintain the connection to the parent vine to share its full DNA and "old vines" character. Unfortunately its new roots do not benefit from the protection from Phyloxera of the parent's American root stock.
 |
We stopped for lunch at Villa de Ábalos where we had croquets, salad (tomato and pepper with a garnish of cod), white asparagus, lamb chops (Pat) and cod in pepper sauce (Bill). Then cheese cake and ice cream with grape syrup for dessert. |
Access to our next winery took us through some construction. Our guide sweet talked the crew into letting us through to Bodegas Puelles. The father and uncle of the current winemaker started the wine making business. Previously her grandfather was a grower and made only Jovenes (young) wines. Bill is highlighting some very young grapes on the vines.
We finished the day at an ancient Necropolis, graves from the Neolithic Period, and an area nearby where rock presses were cutout and used for wine making.
Our final day of Rioja wine touring started at Bodegas Juan Carlos Sancha. Juan Carlos is also a professor of wine making and several of the previous winemakers we visited were trained by him. We were greeted by two Spanish Mastiffs and immediately taken on a vineyard tour where we saw contemporary vertically planted areas and old terraced vineyards.
We enjoyed the piles of fluffy seeds from the Poplar trees which reminded us a bit of snow, particularly when the wind blew. The seeds have been common during our stay but here they were dense. Pat & our guide had to hit the allergy pills.
We tasted one wine where one bottle had added nitrates and the second was natural. The one "with added nitrates" was more transparent, softer and lighter in general while the other was more robust and darker with more depth.
Monastery Yuso in San Millán de la Cogolla is one of two local monasteries. It's brother monastery, Suso, is located up the mountain. Yuso has an impressive library with centuries old books.
Restaurante El Molino de San Millán is located in a mill where they make their own grains. We had croquettes, cachopo (beef stuffed with hame & cheese, then heavily breaded and fried) and 2 pizzas and a nice crianza. It was way too much food but everything was great, especially the cachopo.
In Gimileo we visited Bodegas Cor de Mei. The current winemakers bought an old neglected winery and extended the caves for storage.
Next stop: San Sebastian in Basque Country with a stop in Pamplona.
