Wine Tours in San Sebastian or Riojas

[donaldsc]

We are doing a 10 day driving tour of Spain between 2 cruises. We will be driving from Barcelona to San Sebastian stopping at Rioja on the way. I am looking for a decent not too overpriced wine tour out of either San Sebastian ot Rioja. I understand that if we want to visit wineries in the Rioja or Haro area, we need to make prior arrangements and can not just drop in as we to in the States.

 

Any suggestions as to good tours or tours to be avoided would be appreciated. Also, are there any drop in wineries in the area.

 

DON

[LondonTowner]

Yes, you have to pre book the visits to the bodegas in La Rioja. We went a few years ago to the bodega that produces Vina Tondonia wine. It is in Haro, so you can Google it. The visits are FOC. They operate the tours in various languages, but as I speak Spanish we did ours in Spanish. At the end of the visit we were offered as much of the reserve wine to try as we wanted and lovely ham and cheese to accompany it.

 

We also visited the hotel on the Marques de Riscal estate. I think the modern architecture looks out of place in the environment. It was designed by Gehry. We stayed at La Guardia, a lovely town in the middle of the La Rioja region. It is an interesting part of Spin to visit as most of the tourists are nationals. We enjoyed it very much and would go back.