Plan two or three nights in Rioja, ideally from May to June or during the September and October harvest, between Bilbao and Madrid. Your licensed guide leads you through the historic cellars of Haro’s station district, the walled hilltop town of Laguardia and the Rioja Alavesa, with family winemakers and Michelin dining along the way. Private journeys including Rioja start from $884 per person per day, based on double occupancy, excluding flights.
At a glance. Ideal stay: two or three nights · Best months: May, June, September and October · Nearest major airport: Bilbao (BIO), about an hour and a half from Laguardia, or Madrid, about three and a half hours by road · From $884 per person per day, double occupancy, excl. flights
Beneath the walled hilltop town of Laguardia, families have dug wine cellars into the rock since the sixteenth century, and some 300 of them still run under the streets. Your guide, usually Vanesa, takes you down the stone steps of a family cellar, where wine rests a few meters below the cobblestones at the same cool temperature all year. On request, lunch follows in the vineyards, with lamb chops grilled over vine cuttings, the way the Riojanos have always cooked them.
Which Rioja wineries should you visit?
Rioja has hundreds of wineries, and the best visit mixes a famous name, a classic cellar and a family table. Your planner books the private and premium visits in advance, and your licensed driver means nobody has to drive between tastings.
The station district of Haro
The railway reached Haro in 1863, and when phylloxera ruined the vineyards of France in the following decades, French merchants came south to buy wine, and Rioja’s great houses built their cellars beside the tracks. CVNE, founded in 1879, keeps a barrel hall roofed by Gustave Eiffel’s studio. La Rioja Alta dates from 1890, Muga still has three master coopers making its barrels in house, and López de Heredia ages its Viña Tondonia in cobwebbed galleries behind a pavilion by Zaha Hadid.
Gómez Cruzado, founded in 1886, is a small house that farms old vines in the Sonsierra and the Alto Najerilla, and its technical director, Juan Bautista Sáenz, has written that in winemaking two plus two never make four. A tasting in its cellar shows how each vintage is read on its own terms.
Marqués de Riscal and the new architecture
In Elciego, Marqués de Riscal has made wine since 1858, and its “City of Wine” now includes Frank Gehry’s hotel, its ribbons of titanium in the colors of the bottle’s pink wine, gold mesh and silver cap. Near Laguardia, Santiago Calatrava’s Ysios winery rolls like a wave along the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria. In Briones, the Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture holds 8,000 years of wine history, with works by Picasso and a collection of corkscrews, and offers a private visit of about four hours.
Family winemakers
In Baños de Ebro, in the Rioja Alavesa, the García family has sold its own wine since 1969, and Bodegas Amador García is built of wood and iron so that you feel you are standing inside a barrel. In Nalda, 15 minutes from Logroño in the Iregua valley, Palacios Vinos de Finca runs Proelio for reds and Nivarius, the first winery in Rioja devoted only to white wines, grown at about 800 meters. Its terrace looks across terraced vineyards to the red hills of the Camero Nuevo.
Which wine towns should you see in Rioja?
Laguardia keeps its medieval walls and five gates, and inside the church of Santa María de los Reyes a Gothic portal carved in the fourteenth century still wears the paint added in the seventeenth, one of the few painted portals left in Spain. Haro is the capital of Rioja Alta wine, and every 29 June its townspeople climb to the Riscos de Bilibio and soak each other in red wine for the Battle of Wine.
Briones, on a hill above the Ebro, is one of the most beautiful villages in Spain. San Vicente de la Sonsierra keeps a castle above its vineyards. In the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, on the Camino de Santiago, a live white hen and rooster are kept in a Gothic coop in memory of a medieval miracle. At San Millán de la Cogolla, monks at the monastery of Suso wrote the notes in a medieval codex that count among the earliest written Spanish, and Suso and Yuso together form a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Where do Riojanos eat and drink?
Three Michelin-starred tables stand out. Venta Moncalvillo in Daroca de Rioja, run by the Echapresto brothers, holds two stars and grows much of what it serves in its own garden. El Portal de Echaurren in Ezcaray, Francis Paniego’s restaurant in the mountain town where his family has cooked for generations, holds two. In Haro, Nublo cooks over a wood fire in a sixteenth-century palace and holds one. On request, your planner reserves all three.
In Logroño, the locals spend their evenings on Calle Laurel and the streets around it, where some 60 bars each serve one specialty, from the grilled mushroom crowned with a prawn at Bar Soriano to the next counter’s house pintxo. At home, Riojanos cook patatas a la riojana, a stew of potatoes and chorizo, caparrones and pochas, slow-cooked bean dishes, and lamb chops grilled over vine cuttings. Camerano goat cheese comes from the mountains to the south, and in September the smell of red peppers roasting in the streets fills the towns.
What are the best hotels in Rioja?
The finest is the Hotel Marqués de Riscal, a five-star Luxury Collection hotel designed by Frank Gehry beside the winery in Elciego, with a Caudalie vinotherapy spa and views over the vines to the village church. For a four-star stay with bold contemporary design, Hotel Viura stacks its 35 rooms in geometric cubes beside the church of Villabuena de Álava, a village surrounded by more than 40 wineries, with a bistro restaurant, a rooftop terrace and views of the Sierra de Cantabria. Your planner matches the hotel to your pace and your route.
How many days should you spend in Rioja?
Two or three nights. Two cover Haro’s station district, Laguardia and a family winery at an easy pace. A third adds Logroño’s Calle Laurel and a Michelin dinner, a balloon flight or a hike in the Sierra de Cantabria, or the monasteries of San Millán, keeping the same hotel.
When is the best time to visit Rioja?
May and June bring green vines and days in the 70s and low 80s°F. The harvest runs through September and October, when the wineries are busiest, the peppers are roasting and the vineyards turn gold and red. July and August are hot, with highs in the mid 80s°F, so summer days start early. Haro’s Battle of Wine falls every 29 June. Hotels, like airlines, use dynamic pricing, so rates rise with demand. A higher price marks a popular week, not a poor time to travel.
What can you do outdoors in Rioja?
At sunrise, a hot air balloon lifts off over the vineyards around Haro for about an hour and a quarter in the air, followed by a glass of cava on landing. We know the light hiking trails with the finest views, including a guided walk through the vineyards of the Rioja Alavesa, where your guide explains how the Sierra de Cantabria and the Ebro shape each plot. For keen walkers, a half-day climb up Toloño, at 1,277 meters, looks across the whole valley.
On request, you ride an e-bike between vineyards, follow the GR-38, the old Wine and Fish Route, from Oyón into Laguardia, walk part of the Camino de Santiago stage from Logroño toward Nájera, or head up to Ezcaray and the beech forests of the Sierra de la Demanda. In September and October, a few wineries invite guests to pick grapes for a morning.
How does Rioja fit a journey through Spain?
Rioja sits between the Basque coast and Castile. Laguardia is about an hour and a quarter from Bilbao and an hour and three quarters from San Sebastián, and Madrid is about three and a half hours by road, or about four by train to Logroño and a short drive. Many of our American travelers pair Rioja with the Basque Country, then continue south to the Ribera del Duero, where a twelfth-century Cistercian monastery now houses a hotel among the vineyards, on the way to Madrid. Your licensed driver handles every leg.
Private Rioja Journeys
Spain
10-Day Private Food and Wine Tour of Northern Spain: Basque Country, Rioja and Ribera del Duero
Pintxos in San Sebastián, Rioja in Laguardia, Ribera del Duero and Segovia’s cochinillo. 10 days from $12,484 pp.
Spain
22-Day Private Tour of Spain: Madrid, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Rioja and Barcelona
Madrid, Seville, the Alhambra, Málaga, Bilbao, San Sebastián, Rioja and Barcelona. 22 days from $24,484 pp.
Multi-Country, Portugal, Spain
22-Day Spain and Portugal Private Tour: Rioja, Andalusia and the Douro in Three Weeks
Barcelona, Rioja, Madrid, the Alhambra, Seville, Porto, the Douro and Lisbon. 22 days from $23,624 pp.
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Frequently asked questions about private Rioja wine tours
Which are the best wineries to visit in Rioja?
Marqués de Riscal in Elciego, the historic houses of Haro’s station district such as CVNE, La Rioja Alta, Muga, López de Heredia and Gómez Cruzado, Ysios near Laguardia and the Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture in Briones, with a family winery such as Amador García in the Rioja Alavesa.
What are the best off-the-beaten-path experiences in Rioja?
A family cellar under the streets of Laguardia, a sunrise balloon flight over the vineyards, a vineyard hike with lunch, the white wines of Nivarius in the hills above Nalda, and the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla.
What do most people not know about Rioja?
Rioja became Spain’s first qualified wine designation in 1991. The wine region spans La Rioja, the Basque province of Álava and part of Navarre. And a live hen and rooster are kept inside the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
Why take a private wine tour of Rioja?
Rioja’s best cellars book private visits weeks ahead, and the wineries are spread across the valley. Our licensed guides open family cellars that rarely see visitors, your planner reserves the tastings and tables, and your licensed driver means no one drives after a tasting.
Can a private Rioja tour include the Basque Country and Ribera del Duero?
Yes. Every journey is tailor-made, and Rioja fits naturally between Bilbao and San Sebastián on one side and the Ribera del Duero and Madrid on the other.
Plan your private Rioja journey
Our sample journeys are a starting point. The 10-Day Private Food and Wine Tour of Northern Spain travels from Madrid through Bilbao, San Sebastián, the Rioja and the Ribera del Duero from $12,484 per person. The 22-Day Private Tour of Spain joins Madrid and Andalusia to the Basque Country, the Rioja and Barcelona from $24,484. The 22-Day Spain and Portugal Private Tour travels from Barcelona through Bilbao and the Rioja to Andalusia and Portugal from $23,624. Each is tailor-made, so your planner shapes the route, the hotels and the pace around you.
Since 2002, nearly 17,000 travelers have journeyed with us. Your journey is planned by our Spain team, led by founder Dan O’Beirne, an American in Europe since 1998, and Magical Private Travel maintains excellent ratings on Trustpilot and Google’s independent review platforms. Planned from Europe. American precision with local expertise.
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