This was the last visit to 'family and friends' during our Spanish Odyssey, to one of Manny's old school friends who lives in Logroño. Logroño is a very attractive city that is located in the famous wine growing region, La Rioja and also happens to be on the most popular Camino route the Camino Frances. Logroño is also well known for fabulous Tapas bars in the old city and if you ever have reason to visit I highly recommend spending an evening there, look for Calle Laurel and go from there. Manny's friends very generously took the day off from their busy work schedules to spend the day with us and arranged a tour of a winery in Haro and then lunch. Being towards the end of October we enjoyed seeing the Autumn colours coming onto the trees and grapevines on the drive half hour to Haro. The winery we visited is one of the oldest in the Rioja, Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia, they use traditional methods handed down through four generations of wine making which is a contrast to the other wineries in the area. We all expected to be on the tour with one of the winery staff but we were lucky to be included in a tour conducted by one of the owner/winemakers Maria Jose. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos during the tour, so you are stuck with my inadequate description of the almost 150 year old buildings and the visit. We were guided though underground storage areas, dark tunnels gouged out of the sandstone by Maria Jose's grandfather as part of a large project that the family continues to work towards completing. The tunnels, dimly lit and lined with oak barrels stacked 5 high. The wine barrels are hand made by the onsite by the winery’s coopers from imported oak. The walls of the storage areas are thickly lined with black mould due to the high levels of humidity and augments the ageing of the wines. After the tour we headed into the wine tasting room and tried some glorious wines with the tour group we had joined. A group of wine enthusiasts from Hong Kong, they were visiting four wineries that day and on a fairly tight schedule. Maria Jose's enthusiasm kept us all mesmerised and engrossed in the story of the winery and fascinated by her philosophy of life and the enjoyment of wine. The wine enthusiasts asked lots of intelligent, well informed questions and we benefited greatly from the questions and the answers because we know bugger all about good wine. The tour group moved onto their next winery. Maria Jose grabbed more bottles of wine and took us outdoors to sit in the sun to chat and sip her 25 and 30 year old wines. Time to go for lunch came and went and we continued sipping and savouring the wine and trying to pinch ourselves that it was really happening. Fortunately Maria Jose asked the staff to bring out some Jamon (Spanish ham) otherwise it would have been an entirely liquid lunch. We had a most memorable afternoon and it was a real privilege to sit and listen to such a knowledgeable person speak about their passion. I am without words to describe how lucky we felt. Author- Victoria NorfolkThis blog is a record of our recent travels including walking the Camino de Santiago
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AuthorMy interests are photography and family history research. And I like to cycle and travel. We are walking the Archives
May 2019
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