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A Guide To Exploring The Spanish Wine Country

One area of Spain that we have been wanting to visit for a while is the Rioja region. Home to many good Spanish wines, we were excited to learn more about how wine is made, do some wine tastings, and explore the beautiful Basque countryside.

How to get there

If you don’t want to make the four hour drive from Madrid , we suggest flying into Bilbao, which in itself is a fascinating city. It is only just over an hour’s drive from Haro, the capital of the Rioja region. There are trains from Bilbao to Haro, but it is faster and easier (and sometimes cheaper) if you can rent a car and drive. The roads are very easy to navigate. Surprisingly, we did not encounter much traffic at all!

A word of caution on which car rental company to go with. Try to stick to the bigger names to avoid problems when picking up your car. We tried out OK Car Rental Company which was cheap but surprisingly slow in service. The car and prices were great, but the company itself seemed a bit disorganized. The company is also not located in the airport. You need to take a shuttle from the airport to the pickup location. All the big name rental companies were much faster, and inside the airport!

Google Maps was also very accurate and easy to use in Spain. You can never really be lost! We never encountered any dead zones while using our phones there, either, no matter how remote it seemed we were.

The countryside

This area of Spain is surprisingly beautiful, with craggy mountains on the horizon, rolling brown and green hills covered in vineyards, beautiful, tiny old Spanish towns, and long, nice roads to drive on. For flower enthusiasts, depending on the time of year, you can find vast fields full of golden sunflowers, too!

Where to stay

Briñas

We decided not to stay in Haro, the hub of all-things-Spanish-wine, and instead stayed in Briñas, a small village nearby. For us, this was the perfect location. We could walk along the Ebro River towards Haro (only 20 minutes on foot!) to check out the vineyards, and retreat to a nice, quiet village at night, with strong local culture and few tourists.

Briñas has a great view from the church at the top of a hill overlooking the countryside. We stayed at a very nice 4-star hotel (the Palacio Tondón – only around 110€/night), and there is a 3 kilometer path along the river that led to Haro. We can highly recommend staying at Palacio Tondón. It has an excellent breakfast buffet, great lunch and dinner. Make your reservation in advance with the hotel if you want dinner at the hotel. There is also a terrace where you can enjoy sundowners while looking out on the river and the countryside beyond.

Andreas by the entrance to our hotel

One of the most impressive and tasty breakfast spreads we have experienced!

We were very happy with our breakfast at Palacio Tondón!

Haro

If you prefer to stay in Haro you will be more in the thick of Spanish nightlife. We spent one evening there and it was fascinating to see the city come to life after 8pm. The streets were crowded with people, and most restaurants opened only for drinks and snacks from 7 or 8pm. They were only open for dinner after 10pm so be ready to wait for your meal!

A typical evening in Haro – but this was before it really got busy after 10pm!

Waiting for tapas!

There are numerous other small villages in the area if you prefer not to stay in Haro. The choices are nearly endless, as long as you have a car!

Getting around

Since the main purpose for many people visiting this area of Spain is to try the Spanish wine, it is a good idea to plan out how you will get around after a few drinks. There are taxis, but it is best to arrange a taxi with your hotel. We never saw any taxis driving around on the roads between the towns.

We had an excellent taxi driver arranged by our hotel. He took us from Briñas to Haro and then back in less than 10 minutes. We had agreed to meet at a prescribed time and he was so punctual you would have thought he was Swiss and not Spanish! At the time it was 10€ to drive from Briñas to Haro in the evening. During the day it might be a bit cheaper.

A view of the river from our walk from Briñas to Haro

You can rent bikes, although make sure you carry water during the hot part of the day. We also saw some people canoeing down the river from Briñas to Haro. The 3 kilometer walk from Briñas to Haro is along the river and mostly in the shade. We found walking very pleasant in good weather!

Wineries, Wine Tasting & Tours

If you would like a tour of a vineyard, it is best to call or email ahead of time to arrange a tour. They are often fully booked or have no availability. Tours are usually in Spanish and you must make special requests for tours in other languages.

A typical apartment style in Haro

Bodegas Lecea

We happened to arrange a tour at one of the oldest operating vineyards in the area. Bodegas Lecea is run by a family who has been making Spanish wine for nearly 500 years in caves. You might see small hills with chimneys in the area. These are usually local caves where wine was made and stored in the old way. This family is one of the only ones in Spain who still makes and sells wine in the caves.

A view of the wine keg storage in the caves

We had a great tour of the place and a tasting afterwards. We really felt that this was a good way to start our visit in the Rioja region, because then we understood how wine used to be made, as well as understanding how it is made today. It gave us a good appreciation for the work that goes into making wine! After our tour, we were given a wine tasting along with cheese and chorizo and a chance to buy our own wine. Bodegas Lecea will also ship wine overseas incase you don’t want to carry it with you.

An old wine press

If you are interested in booking a tour with Bodegas Lecea, please check out their website here. This post is not sponsored, but we enjoyed our time with them so much that we highly recommend them!

We had some surprisingly good white wine here, too!

Other Vineyards & Wineries

From there, we visited several other vineyards for tastings. You do not need to make a reservation for a tasting. All we did was walk in, ask if we could taste some wine, and then we were set up with a list of wines to choose from. Most places will charge per glass, or for a flight of 5 wines. You can taste anywhere from one to eight kinds of wine.

Be aware that wineries are not open all day long. Most open around 9 or 10am and close around 2 or 2:30pm. Plan the timing of your tastings carefully. We did not find language to be an issue, either, so if your Spanish is rusty, have no fear! The vineyards are used to dealing with tourists from all kinds of countries.

A huge surprise to us was that white wine in Spain is actually excellent. We have always loved Spanish reds, but it was a pleasant surprise to find that Spanish whites and some rosés are also very good. When we asked why this was, we were told that Spanish whites had always been good. They were just more poorly advertised compared to others, like a California Chardonnay. This discovery encouraged us to try more whites in Spain!

Creating an itinerary

We would recommend starting your visit with a vineyard tour so you understand better how the wine is made. From there you can figure out which vineyards are nearby that you would like to visit for a tasting. Some are so close to each other that you can walk just a few minutes from door to door. A good number of wineries to aim for in a day in order to really enjoy the wine is probably around three, or a maximum of four. There is a famous tour of seven wineries in one day that is possible … but we personally prefer to take things slower and enjoy ourselves!

You can easily visit wineries on your own and don’t need to book a tour. It makes your trip much more personable if you show up to a winery on your own, rather than with a big tour group. The information the people share with you about the wine is also great. They will tell you exactly how they made the wine, how old it is, what it should taste like, and what foods would best be paired with each wine. They are happy to answer any questions you have about wine and are just as good as having your own personal tour guide in each place!

Other Places to Visit

Haro: The Heart of the Vineyards

Besides visiting vineyards and wineries, we highly encourage you to explore Haro and the villages surround the city. We found Haro to be a bustling, safe, and culturally rich city, especially at night when the locals come out for dinner. It can be very quiet during the day, and some restaurants you will need reservations for, especially for lunchtime. We weren’t exactly sure why as we once walked into a mostly empty restaurant and were turned away at 2:30pm for lunch without a reservation – prime time for a Spanish lunch!

The Haro “Hollywood” sign

Many other places will simply not be open. If you arrive at midday be prepared to have to settle for maybe just a beer and a snack instead of a meal. Wait to enjoy your Spanish wine for dinner!

Our first “meal” in Briñas (nothing was open for lunch!)

La Guardia: A Medieval Town

If you have time to visit another city nearby, La Guardia has a breathtaking view of the countryside around, and is a beautiful old Medieval city. There are many cute streets to explore, and it is small enough that you can easily visit for lunch, take a walk around, do some shopping, and return to your hotel for the evening.

Worth A Weekend for the Wine!

We believe that the Rioja region of Spain has a lot to offer, especially to culinary enthusiasts and those who want to learn more about Spanish wine. The beauty and peace of the countryside pose a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of larger Spanish cities. It can be a great place to retreat to when you are tired of dealing with the big cities.

Have you been to Rioja? What did you enjoy about it and which of the Spanish wine and vineyards are your favorites? Check out our pin below for a list of our favorite wines from this beautiful region.

If you want to read more about wine tasting, check out our trip to South Africa and read up on how we visited the vineyards in the Stellenbosch region. These vineyards were considerably more spread apart and difficult to get to than those in Spain!