Andrew, this is so perfect as 4 of us are planing our trip to Portugal and Spain in late May/ early June now and after a week in Duero and Oporto, were going to San Sebastian for 4 nights, Rioja for 2-3 and Ribera del Duero for one before going to Madrid for a couple of days and then returning to the US.
Since the other guy is a former CEO of a large wine distributor here in the US and a huge Port collector, he’s got us covered there. It’s the Spain part of trip we need help and other than a friend who reps for LDH and has us set up for a visit there as well as a visit to Pedrosa, we are winging it with preferences to go to Muga, LRA, Vega Sicilia and a few others.
We’ve also been recommended to go to restaurants, Etxebarri and Elkano and I’m in the process of making reservations.
Gehry has managed to market discount versions of his buildings, like the concert hall at Bard College, which, when you look closely, is basically a concrete box with soaring stainless steel panels. Bilbao it is not.
Thanks Greg. I did know LRA was across the street and when I went on line to arrange an appointment, they were only offered in 2 hour blocks at 10 Euro per and I’m thinking for 2 hours, it might be another vineyard/ cellar tour with basic explanations and that’s not want we prefer to do.
Good to know about Muga being nearby as I’ve already got a friend working on the appointment.
Yes, even in restaurants; e.g., I always eat at El Rincon del Vino Logroño when in town (a very good asador: chuletón, paletilla/chuletitas de cordero, etc.) - and they have a very good well-priced list of tintos Riojanos. I was last there this past mid/late October; and these were the reds I ordered over a long lunch - only 44€ per bottle on the list. Crazy cheap.
Glad to see this thread come up. We are going to Logroño, San Sebastián, and Bilbao in late July for two weeks. We have already scheduled a private tour guide for one day to take us to small family run wineries. I figure we will hit a few others on our own, whether we make reservations or take a chance on some that allow walk ins.
That is true. And they do monovarietal bottlings of the various grapes. It’s actually very educational and worth visiting. And if you’re in Briones, stop by and see my old friend Miguel Merino and tell him hello for me. His wines deserve more appreciation and he’s a great guy. Travels a lot, so it’s a crapshoot whether he’ll be in town.
I had the 2016 Vivanco ‘Crianza’ [Rioja] over the last 3 days, after specifically searching for it based on Luis Guitterez’s book on Rioja. This 14.5% abv wine comes in a flanged, 18th century bottle, which would be awkward in most racks. Here’s a picture:
This Rioja also has bits of graciano and maturano in it, although its mostly tempranillo. Despite the old school bottle, the wine tilt modern, and the label is an (unappealing to me) Miro print of some kind. I get wood on the nose, and then ripe berry notes on the palate, with some cough syrup on the back palate. It’s a nice wine, but feels like there’s some hype here by media savvy owners. It doesn’t have the typicity I might expect from this DO…but to be fair this was consumed very young. Most of the time I prefer to drink these well after their grapey youth has been deburred a little (even if Rioja is less that way than other young wines from other areas). Compared to the 16 M de. Caceres crianza from last week, I find this more full bodied, and would tilt toward that megaproducer rather than this. All in all, I’d slot this into the B+ zone, a nice wine and ‘ok’ value but I’d like to try an older, higher level wine. This is one of those quality bottles that shows neither distinctiveness nor typicity to me; it’s hard to give scarce wine fridge slots to those.
