A Visit to the Wineries of Rioja, 2026

After our time in Bordeaux, team Drinkhacker headed south to Spain and its coastal Basque Country, posting up in the delightful town of San Sebastian. Pintxos culture couldn’t be more fun — standing in crowded bars, sipping on local txakoli wine, and chowing down on one bar snack after another. Used napkins? Tossed on the floor! It’s a lifestyle that doesn’t seem particularly healthy — rarely dining before 10pm, rarely consuming anything resembling a vegetable — but one which I could (and did) easily get used to.

From here it’s about an hour and a half to Rioja, another iconic wine region but one which is dramatically different than Bordeaux. (Along with Priorat, Rioja is one of only two DOCs in Spain.) Here, mountains hem in a sprawling, hilly valley that is absolutely covered with vines, a stark contrast to the tiny, often flat vineyards of France. The landscape is decidedly reminiscent of California, albeit even hotter.

Abutting the laconic Ebro River, wineries here measure their production in the hundreds of thousands of bottles each year, their cellars stretching seemingly forever with barrel after barrel of (mostly) tempranillo, along with smaller quantities of graciano, garnacha, maturana, and wines made from other heritage varietals. Rioja spans three regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa, and Rioja Oreintal. All of the wineries except one that we visited were based in Rioja Alta — though many have vineyards across all three regions.

On this leg of the trip, we made our base in the town of Lagrono, which has its own pintxos scene to enjoy in the evening after a day of making the rounds to the bodegas of the region.

Unlike Bordeaux, the wineries of Rioja were very accommodating to media visits, and setting up appointments was not particularly difficult. (Thanks to the Consorzio Regulador DOCa Rioja for helping us make arrangements.) We visited a total of five spots, and I’ll tell you all about them in the writeups below.

Finca Valpiedra

Finca Valpiedra, like many wineries in Rioja, operates multiple facilities and labels, including Bujanda and Montepedroso. Tours and tastings are at the Valpiedra location, however. Our guide Paola loaded us into a Jeep to tour the terraced vineyards here, which stretch all the way down to the river’s waterfront. The massive stones that dominate the floors of the vineyard make the rocky soils of Bordeaux look like tiny pebbles. And as in Bordeaux, blazing temperatures forced the earliest harvest ever here, and harvest was well underway during our visit.

One of the most interesting parts of this vineyard tour was a close look at the Spanish practice of overgrafting, where a young vine is grafted not onto young rootstock but onto an older, healthy vine, Frankenstein-like. It’s a curious but apparently successful way to deal with the increasingly hot climate, which is hostile to young vines, while helping get the new vine to maturity much faster. It also looks slightly crazy.

We sampled three wines here — paired with local cheese and charcuterie, almost ubiquitous when tasting in the region — with a deeper dive into two Rioja offerings, a young 2022 Cantos de Valpiedra and a more mature 2018 Finca Valpiedra Reserva. This was an excellent way to get a fresh grounding on how the young joven style (very fruity with light florals) and the richer, older Reservas differ when placed side by side. The dense minerality of the Reserva was particularly bright in today’s tasting.

El Montecillo, s/n, 26360 Fuenmayor, La Rioja

Bodegas Marques de Riscal

This is probably the most visited and definitely the most photographed winery in Rioja, and it isn’t because of the wine. It’s because of a structure erected here 20 years ago that was designed by Frank Gehry. Turns out this isn’t part of the winery at all but rather a 61-room hotel, operated by Marriott. It’s quite breathtaking to behold but is certainly starting to show its age inside; the corridors particularly could use some freshening up considering the exorbitant price of staying here (typically $1000 a night and up).

The adjacent winery finds us across the Ebro in the Rioja Alavesa region, and it hosts a robust tour operation, complete with buses dropping off large groups of people who go on packed tours of a facility that turns out 10 million bottles per year. Despite the relatively impersonal nature of the tour here, it was still worthwhile and featured tastes of three wines — my favorite being a white Rueda with its green apple and gentle tropical notes. After the tour, our host offered samples of Riscal‘s 2022 Reserva XR, a special version of its Reserva designed to be softer and better balanced. Made from Riscal’s oldest vines, it’s a chewy, chocolate-heavy wine that is mostly sold in restaurants. As promised, I felt it offered a much more nuanced version of what Rioja has to offer, and was a top taste for the winery. (While not offered on the tour, you can buy a glass in the cafe.)

Calle Torrea, 1, 01340 Elciego, Araba

Bodegas Muga

Day two found us traveling to the Rioja Alta town of Haro, where some of Rioja’s best-known wineries can be found in a concentrated cluster together, all within walking distance of one another. We had a bit of a rocky start here, as our reservation had been misplaced, but after righting the situation enjoyed a lengthy and informative tour of the facility, complete with a look at its own cooperage; this is one of the only wineries in the country that produces its own vats and barrels.

Fun fact: In Spain, Muga markets its Reserva as a younger Crianza. Why? In the local market, older wines are generally shunned for fear they will be overly woody. It’s the same wine, but with a younger designation on the label, it sells better.

The typical tasting here includes just two wines, a white Rioja and Muga’s Selection Especial Reserva, but we were treated to a tasting of almost everything in the tasting room after the official tour wrapped.

This deep dive into eight additional varieties was one of the most instructive experiences I had on the trip, and I really fell in love with Muga’s 2019 Prado Enea Gran Reserva, a wildly distinctive wine with notes of licorice, slate, and nutmeg all on display atop an almost Port-like fruitiness (though sans the sweetness). Even the comparatively young 2021 Torre Muga was approachable despite its significant density; our guide Carmen suggested it would be much more refined in just six more months.

Avenida Vizcaya, Barrio de la Estación, 2, 26200 Haro, La Rioja

Bodegas La Rioja Alta

We hopped into this tasting room around the corner from Muga without an appointment because our guide suggested La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904 would be a fun comparison against Prado Enea. We bought a glass of the 2016 release (plus an albarino from a sister winery in Rias Baixas) and found the similarities intriguing. Lots of cocoa, currants, and some mint. A little less Port-like than Prado Enea, but quite a soulful wine to sample. Lovely grounds here, and I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into the place.

Avenida Vizcaya, 8, 26200 Haro, La Rioja

Mystery Winery

I hate to do this to you, but our final stop was at one of Rioja’s most internet-famous producers, and if you spend any time on Reddit’s r/wine boards you’ll know immediately who I’m talking about. The winery is open to visits and tastings only to media and industry professionals, and we were offered a tour on the condition that I do not write about it or post anything about the place on social media. That was a first for me, but I agreed, so I’ll leave it mostly at that. It was quite a wild tour, complete with a descent into its 150-year old cellars (pictured above) and a tasting of two of its well-aged Reservas. (2014 and 2015 are the current vintages!)

If you do figure out who I’m talking about, know that you can visit the winery’s small shop and purchase a bottle of wine (including half bottles) to take home or sip on site. Good luck!

The post A Visit to the Wineries of Rioja, 2026 appeared first on Drinkhacker: The Insider’s Guide to Good Drinking.