Wineries & Tours in Basque Country

Sy,

first I would avoid coming into Logroño the 19th-21st. That is the chupanzo, and during the weeking a lot of people come from the surrounding town to celebrate the WINE part. For me the best day of the fiestas in the Chuletada, when they cook over 800kg of lamb chops in the plaza. The whole area smells like bbq lamb. Whichever day you come, stay for the fireworks show. They are quite impressive.

Another "must" is to visit the Dinastia Vivancos winery and museum.

For general ideas about visiting La Rioja visit the RiojaTourism page. A good place to start when planning to visit wineries is the DOC. Some ideas are:

-Go to Vivancos, and have lunch there or in San Vicente. After lunch visit the wineries in San Vicente or Abalos. You can also visit the castle in San Vicente.

-one day in Laguardia. There are many wineries there to visit, I like Bodegas Palacios. Make sure that you visit the Portico in Santa Maria.

I would avoid Haro. Many of the famous Riojas are there, and you have vans so you should try to go to some of the smaller wineries that don't have much distribution in the states.

I would also recommend Lecea, they have a very interesting tour, and Ijalba in Logroño, they are doing a lot of different things like trying to bring back some of the older disused grape varieties.

And because there is more than wine, I would take a day to visit the Abby in Cañas, the Monastery of San Millan (a UNESCO site) and the Monastery of Santa Maria el Real in Najera, with it's pantheon of Navarran Kings.

I hope this helps you,

Thank you so very much! This is exactly the type of information I was hoping for and you are much appreciated! I will check out the sites you mentioned. With aloha!