wBlog:Vm7-b-M
It was August in 2015 and I had just got married. Where to go for the honeymoon? This time, no.. sorry, this first and last honeymoon, we decided go to Basque Country, Rioja and Bordeaux (own blog from Bordeaux). Flights were to Bilbao via Frankfurt. In Bilbao we spent one night and wondered very cheap prices, wonderful food and own kind of style of culture. Still we purposely avoided the Guggenheim museum.
Bilbao
Next morning there was car rental where the clerk almost forced us to change our pre-booked car (Fiat Punto) to the bigger car after we told our trip plan to drive mountain highways from Rioja to Bordeaux. We got Nissan Qashqai. Navigation with very old TomTom caused a troubles at beginning and it took almost 2 hours to find the correct way to Haro city in Rioja. Distance from Bilbao to Hari is 120km. When we arrived, it was already quite late and there was only one cellar door open and it was Lopez de Heredia. We took the first wine tasting right away of course. We decided to come next day again with better time since this cellar door was also getting closed pretty soon. We navigated to the our hotel in Logroño city which is a biggest city in La Rioja. Distance from Haro is about 40km.
In Logroño, we went to have lovely pintoxes (tapas) and glass of wine before heading to sleep early. In the morning we drove back to the Aviza Vizcaya street in Haro where are located a big anount of producer`s cellars and cellar doors. We had booked one cellar tour for the day and it was at CVNE.
CVNE
CVNE was founded two brothers in 1879. Very traditional wine making method is in use in Cune`s (as speaking term of CVNE) flag ship winery Imperial but 2004 builded Vin̂a Real was one of the most modern wineries at time. Other wineries are Contino and CVNE, where we visited. The most memorable things were Eiffel cellar, where barrels has moved with clever roof solution and wine cellar where mold (penicillin) had spread everywhere. Traditional wine cellaring was well presented.
Eiffel Cellar
Old school wine cellar
For tasting, tour offered only cheapest and youngest wines such as Rose.
MUGA
Our journey continued just across the street to Muga Winery. We skipped cellar tours and focused to the tasting. There were a lot of tourists fooling around so it took a while when we had a change to start taste the wines. Practice was that you needed to pay small amount for tasting and if you buy a wine you tasted, then the tasting was free of charge. This practice seemed to be also elsewhere in wineries here. 
Muga is a big producer with them five vineyards and ten different wines. Most expensive flag ship is Torre Muga in my tasting Prado Enea Gran Reserva 2006 kicked the Torre’s ass. It was cheap as well (26€). In Alko Finland you need to pay 45€. This great wine always produced from last grapes of harvest which are brought from vineyards to the winery.
Must (pulp) (contains 80% of Tempranillo and rest of it are Garnachasta, Mazuelosta and Graciano) fermented in 10k liters oak vats without temperature control or added yeast. After max. 20 days fermentation, wine pumped to 16k liters oak vats for one year. After 1 year there is min. 3 years aging in oak barrels where racking system is in use. In racking system wine is moved from barrels to another barrels from time to time. Now over 4 years vinification, it is time for bottling. The wine needs to be in bottles 3 years before it goes to the market.
La Rioja Alta S.A
It knew that this producer had a lot of wines ranked very high in top lists of the biggest wine magazines in the world. We were excited to go to have a taste and purchase their wines. Inside the cellar door we waited for 20 minutes without service. “Uno momento” was a phrase we heard many times there. Camel´s back broke when tourists from the States came to cut in. We went to the next door winery to cool down. Winery was a small producer called:
Gómez Cruzad
Here we tasted a round of their wines and after we cooled down, it was time to go back to La Rioja Alta.
This time the cellar door was almost empty. After apologies from staff we got service in Spain since nobody spoke English.
Coming back here was a good choice since their wines were absolutely deliciuos. For example wines like 904 Gran Reserva 2004 and Vi n̂a Ardanza 2007. Gran reserva 904 2005 was selected to be the best wine in top 100 wine in 2016 list published by Wine-Enthusiast. In Finnish monopoly store Alko, this wine price is 45€. This beautiful red has been made from 90% of Tempranillo (60 years old vines) and 10% of Graciano.
If compared this to the Muga´s Prado Enea Gran reserva, this wine has fermented 14 days in steel tanks in temperature of 28 Degree of Celsius. After malolactic fermentation (28 days) wine aging about 4 years in old American oak. Also racking method used during barrel aging. Wine is ready for market after 4-5 years bottle aging.
Roda
Small cellar door at end of wine street was focused also to sell olive oil. Cellar was nicely near to cellar door. Roda I 2007 was the best wine here to taste. Also my wife was very excited about this wine.
1.5kg grapes / Tempranillo vine, fermentation in oak, 16 months aging in french oak (half as new), 30 months in bottles, then this beauty is ready to drink or cellaring.
Roda Cellar
Lopez de Heredia
Re-visiting with more time. Lopez de Heredia keep red wine and also white wine long time in old oak barrels and in bottles before let it to the market. Long bottle aging makes white wines very soft.
We chose for tasting famous white wine Viña Tondonia 2001 and red reserva 2002 since magical 2001 was sold out. White was better than red and we purchased a bottle of this. Also we bought a bottle of Vi n̂a Bosconia 2004 red which in my opinion was better than Tondonia red.
Last winery before going back to the Logrono was Bodegas Bilbainas which owns multiple brands but maybe the most famous one is Vin̂a Pomal. After tasted many of their wines, we concluded that the wines were overpriced compared to quality and were not our favourites.
Calle del Laurel
It was time go back to Logrono and spend the last evening having wine and pintoses at famous street named Calle del Laurel which was full of pintos restaurants and wine bars. A big glass of good crianza was only couple of euros.
Marques de Riscal
In the morning we packed all our staff to the car and started our journey to the Bordeaux in France. Distance from Logrono to Bordeaux was 400km but before that we visited a massive tourist center called Marques de Riscal with winery, hotel, Michelin star restaurant (where we had an excellent lunch) etc.
Johanna Laukkanen
Next guided tour was in Spain but to save some time we joined in. Winery, cellars and other facilities were massive. Wines themselves did not make any positive surprises except their 150 year anniversary celebration gran reserva which was very good.
Heading in navigator was set to Bordeaux, doors were cross checked and cabin crew was ready for take off. V1 rotate!
-Markus Laukkanen