Penafiel Castle

Barrel Maker in Rioja

Vineyards in Rioja

Rioja & Ribera del Duero

21 - 27 October 2012

This superb wine tour is the culmination of 23 years of Arblaster & Clarke’s wine touring in Spain. Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours has been offering top level tours here to meet the owners of leading estates since 1990. We believe this may well be our best tour yet to the region!

We meet in Bilbao at our centrally located Four star hotel just a stone’s throw away from the Guggenheim Museum (which is open on Sundays) – this evening as an introduction to meet your fellow travellers,  we enjoy a selection of tapas which will be paired with some wines from Northern Spain.

We head south to the wonderful region of Rioja, where our visits begin in style at one of the leading estates, Muga, where over lunch we enjoy their intense and complex wines.  That evening your wine guide hosts an introductory tasting of Rioja at our 4* hotel (which at various times during its history used to be a convent, a prison, and a war hospital).

Other visits include Contino, in Rioja Alavesa, owned by the Madrazo family of CVNE. It was one of the first ‘single estates’ in Rioja and is one of the few estates whose vineyards surround the bodega ‘chateau-style’. The style of the wines is concentrated and rich, with fantastic length of flavour. It’s a privilege to come here and taste these delightful wines and we will again be personally hosted by a member of the family, as we always have been since 1990.

Lunchtime is free in the delightful historic walled hilltop town of Laguardia and our afternoon visit is to the fascinating wine museum of Dinastia Vivanco Museo de la Cultura del Vino, which not only has a unrivalled collection of wine artefacts but also shows the social history of the region. Our evening visit is to Marqués de Cáceres whose foundation in 1973 signalled the beginning of a new era for Rioja. They were the pioneers of the modern style Rioja and are a benchmark of quality here. They are old friends and we have a rare invitation to dinner at the bodega, which opens specially and uniquely for Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours in the evening.

We hope the next morning to visit Allende and this will be followed by Remelluri, whose wines are elegant and perfumed, very fine in structure and with great capacity for ageing – the epitome of the Rioja Alavesa, and which we enjoy over a lunch of succulent baby lamb chops cooked over vine cuttings! The wines of Rioja perfectly match the local cuisine. Throughout this truly outstanding Spanish wine tour we’ll relax over delicious hearty traditional Spanish lunches to match these fantastic wines, often as personal guests of the most famous wine estates.

We then head further south to the stellar region of Ribera del Duero and as our journey then takes us through dramatic scenery, we call in to the historic city of Burgos for free time over lunch.  Our visits in this region begin with Condada de Haza, which belongs to Alejandro Fernandez. Over dinner we taste wines from all four of his estates, including the famous ‘Pesquera’. We are always welcomed here by a member of the family – usually one of his four daughters who run the estates today.

Next day we visit one of the stars of Ribera del Duero ‘Aalto’, founded in 1999 by Mariano Garcia, former winemaker of Vega Sicilia, and Javier Zaccagnini, former President of Ribera del Duero’s governing body. Their perfectionist vision determines every small step in the process to deliver ultra-high quality wines. The wines have spicy, dark fruit and are a supremely elegant, modern take on Ribera del Duero. We are personally welcomed by Sr Zaccagnini himself to taste these fabulous wines.

Lunchtime is free in Penafiel, a small dusty town but with an impressive castle. Although it is outside the Ribera del Duero region, our next visit is usually linked with it due to it’s proximity. Abadia Retuerta is based around their beautiful 12th century Abbey and has 200 hectares divided into plots categorised plots by soil and orientation. This ‘terroir’ reflects in their range of wines that we enjoy following a visit to their modern gravity fed winery, designed way ahead of the current fashion for gravity wineries,  by Pascal Delbeck of St Emilion fame.

If you would like to there is the option of dinner at their outstanding Gastronomic Restaurant. Their Chef will prepare an inventive tasting menu for us, which was rated by clients in 2011 as one of their best meals ever! The price for the dinner including Abadia Retuerta wines and return transfer after dinner (at one set time) is £135 per person. This is bookable and payable at time of booking the main tour. Otherwise, there is a free evening in Penafiel to relax and explore one of the local tapas bars or asados.

On our last day we leave Ribera and head for the enchanting city of Segovia where there is some free time to explore its fairy tale Alcazar, Romanesque churches before a last lunch of  regional speciality of suckling pig, so tender that it is cut with a plate! We continue to Madrid airport where the tour ends.

We stay in a 4* hotel in Bilbao and in 4* converted convents in Peñafiel and Haro.