Thu, May 25 - Bodegas Marqués de Riscal

Another sunny day in the high 70s.  We set off at 9:30, following very good Goggle directions into the La Rioja winery area and reached the Bodegas (wine cellars) Marqués de Riscal, a respectable winery which features a wild and gaudy Frank Gehry hotel in the middle of its bustling bottling business.  The hotel resembles a pile of silver, purple, and gold ribbons representing red and white wine and the foil bottle wrapper.  It's quite astounding and the rooms go for up to $800, so we decided we're happy at the Parador!

The general rule on visiting wineries here seems to be that you need a reservation and you only get to taste wine on a guided tour.  Bob had ordered tickets before we left Santa Barbara and booked an 11 AM tour in English.  We arrived early and birded the pleasant leafy entryway bridge over a stream.  At our tour time we joined about 25 others with our guide and walked out into the vineyard for a good view of the hotel. Then we went inside and looked at the impressive set up for processing a few million bottles a year.  Our guide took us into the wine library where very old bottles are kept.  Frank Gehry was given a bottle from his birth year (1929) but there are far older bottles stored there!

We were given a glass of white  (2016 Rueda Verdejo) and red (2012 Elciego Rioja) for our tasting - the tour lasting exactly 90 minutes.

We drove further north towards the Kantauri Mandillorri mountains hoping to find a hiking trail; we found one picnic area with part of a trail and followed it a ways, but it petered out so we retraced our route stopping briefly to look at Ysios Winery, designed by Santiago Calatrava, a well-known Spanish architect.  This one is not a hotel but the winery itself, built to resemble the mountains behind it and quite beautiful. 

Ysios Winery

We returned to the Parador and relaxed until dinner which we had at our hotel at 8:30.  Paradores tend to specialize in dishes of the area in which they are located, some of which we had.  We split a risotto with mushrooms, and then Bob had roast pork in honey and mustard sauce and I had a veal steak with mushrooms.   We stepped outside after dinner and found that it was raining!! Quite beautiful on the stonework!