Become a Member
Travel

Spain with a touch of glass

A good wine tour goes perfectly with a visit to Bilbao’s fine architecture.

July 8, 2010 10:19
Vine and dandy: Rioja country is perfect for a gentle-paced tour with lots of wine tasting

By

Jenni Frazer,

Jenni Frazer

5 min read

There are, at present, 317 people living in the isolated northern Spanish village of Villabuena de Alava. But - given its location in the heart of Rioja wine country - it is not surprising that there are 43 wineries.

If you exclude the priest and the mayor, we are probably looking at one winery for every six people.

Travelling from Bilbao airport to Villabuena - my base for a weekend of learning about the best of the bodegas - the eye is immediately struck by three things.

One: lush green countryside studded with vineyard after vineyard. Two: an astonishing rash of ultra-modern architecture, ranging from the crazed cubes of our base, the Hotel Viura, to Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao itself and his "wow factor" hotel, the Marques de Riscal, built above one of the oldest wineries in Spain.