Sips and Bites in Logroño to Laguardia: Thurs., Aug. 22nd

We were going to have time to sit in the park and read a bit this morning, but a potential theme of this trip is not getting up any earlier than absolutely necessary. So we checked out of our hotel at 11 to get to our wine tour at noon. Our car was fine, and my navigating wasn't too bad, except for when I switched the hotel and the winery. But I caught myself after a couple hundred yards - having Rosie drive and me navigate has been working out really well, especially since there is a lot of shifting in and out of gear that I'm not comfortable with. We have a cute little Fiat that just fits us just right. It is a little under-powered on hills, we found out today. 

The Marqués de Riscal winery is the oldest in the Rioja region, with its first harvest in 1858. They have a bottle from every vintage since the first in 1862 in their bottleria. The corks are so old, they use a metal bottle decapitator to heat up the glass around the neck of the bottle, then brush on cold water to shock the glass and break it. 

Being so old, the winery has buildings from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The building from the 21st century is a hotel designed by Frank Gehry. 

Frank Gehry is famous in Spain for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but I know his as the architect for the Experience Music Project in Seattle. (See the similarities? Curvy metal, silver and bold colors, no regard for the countryside or surroundings.)

When Frank Gehry visited with the plans, they opened one of those old bottles from his birth year. The building was finished in 2006, and the colors are meant to represent the winery - red/ purple for the grapes, silver for the seal on the bottle, and gold for the gold wire around the bottle.

Near the Gehry building (which is a very pricey hotel) is the processing areas for making the wine. It is sorted out front of the building, first bunch by bunch, then berry by berry. The vines have been trimmed down so that each of their two main branches has just four bunches each. The bunches are all separated by grape type, age of the vine, and quality of the grape. 

Once chosen and separated, the grapes are mashed into a pulpy mixture (with the seeds still in it, but not crushed). This mixture goes into the first barrels, where the sugar-alcohol fermentation happens in 7-10 days. Then the mash is pressed slowly, for about three hours, to filter the seeds out. The finer mash goes to smaller (but still thousands of gallons big) barrels where the malic acid to lactic acid fermentation happens. Then, it is filtered again, and into the barrels for the typical amounts of time for each type of Rioja wine. 

This winery is slightly smaller than Campo Viejo, producing about 5 millions bottles of red and 5 million bottles of white at another facility. They recently started their white wines (about 10 years ago). Of all their wines, they export about 65%.

The Rioja region is perfectly suited for grapes since the Cantabrian Mountains to the north and a different range to the south protect them both from harsh winters and humid summers (though they are definitely still hot!)

We got to taste one of their whites, a "rueda verdejo" as well as a mostly Tempranillo Reserva. The white wine was actually really good! Fruity and dry - the only way I like my whites. It helps that it is warm around here (glorious days in the 80s and 90s), but it still is confusing when they serve us the red wine cold too.

We met a couple and their kids from Connecticut and chatted about Barcelona and San Sebastián, since we each had just left one and were going to the other. She also was the de facto photographer of the tour. We asked for her to take a picture, and she ended up probably taking one for every couple there. 

We wandered into a "jardin ingles", but were then told "no possible" and decided to just get back on the road. The ten-minute road to our hotel and a recommended restaurant in Laguardia.

We checked in, found parking down a hill near the hotel (potentially illegal - guess we'll find out tomorrow), and dragged our hot bones to Amebilia, a restaurant Rosie's family recommended.

First off, the view was magnificent. We split a bottle of my newly discovered favorite white (verdejo), a vegetable and shrimp appetizer, a cod and "pista" (which might be pistachios according to the Internet, but the taste wasn't like that) entree, and then a black chocolate mousse dessert with sea salt and olive oil. Everything was so delicious, and our meal was so relaxed, that of course we had to walk the block back to the hotel for a siesta. 

Seven o'clock arrives, and the two flies in our room wake us up. Some sort of 2-on-2 ball game was happening right outside our hotel. The teams alternated hitting a racquetball-type ball against a wall above a metal line, and if you didn't get to the ball before its second bounce, the other team got a point. 

We wander to the west side of the the walled city (Laguardia means "The Guard" for its protective presence on the hill) and find ourselves on a gorgeous overlook with a beautiful sunset. We play cards until the sun goes down (about 9pm here) and I pay back Rosie for the thorough pounding I took yesterday by beating her soundly today. But really, can we just appreciate this awesome view for a bit?

Our night ended with a stroll around then through the family-oriented town, with grandparents and small children walking slowly through the cobblestone streets. Inside the walls, it is pedestrian-only, and you can tell by the crazy car parking situation outside the walls. 

We ate some cheese-bread-berry pinxhos (tapas) then got a full recione (mostly by accident) of the croquettas and tomato salad at another bar. But it was a great dinner, and the melted chocolate back at the hotel room, combined with some planning for tomorrow's adventures, topped off a pretty evening in Laguardia.