Rioja 2013

Our longest wine trip so far! We flew to Bilbao and then took the bus to Logroño, where we had our base. The first wine tasting was actually planned for the day of arrival, but the winery cancelled at short notice due to a death in the family. Our local guide then promptly took us to the Campo Viejo winery – not really our kind of thing, as the winery is mainly known for producing cheap supermarket wines. But their premium wines under the “Félix Azpilicueta” label were convincing! The barrel cellar with over 80,000 barriques was impressive, too!

The highlight was certainly the visit to Haro – many great wineries are gathered here, such as Muga, La Rioja Alta, Roda and López de Heredia. At the latter, the tour was very interesting – besides their own cooperage, thousands of bottles are stored there completely covered in mould and cobwebs – strange! The wines are also very good, but they all come onto the market only after many years in a matured state – something quite extraordinary!

Also memorable were our pintxos evenings in Logroño as well as the fact that the intended shipping of the wine cases via DHL turned out to be impossible, and with the help of TSG members from Germany a freight forwarder was found who took care of transporting the wines!