In the best possible taste
We pay dutiful obeisance to the cathedral, throwing out a few oohs and ahs, but we are on a mission, a tapas or more correctly pintxo tour of the Calle del Laurel (Path of the Elephants), home of some of the best pintxos in northern Spain.
Pintxo is the Spanish Basque version of tapas, the difference being they are held together by a cocktail stick or ‘pincho’ (spike), invariably on top of a slice of bread. A roast cod in tomato sauce kicks us off and I’m quite amazed at how well it holds up with a beefy Campo Viejo Gran Reserva, a fine example of local cuisine melding with local wine. And so it goes, a social pintxo (squid, beef, fois gras, pork) with a glass of rioja, then move on; a pub crawl without crippling inebriation.
The hit of the evening is a mushroom pintxo, a secret sauce marking it out from the pack. I have my suspicions as to the ingredients but the owners promise to take the recipe to the grave. As we stand around in the street outside the serving hatch, trying to ram the delectable fungi, dripping with hot oil, down our throats faster than they cool, salving blisters with yet more Gran Reserva, we wonder if he’ll show the same reticence when Spanish TV show up in the morning to do an item on this classic pinxto.
The Campo Viejo Winery visitors’ centre is a very attractive, if discreet little building atop a plateau looking down on the River Ebro and the majestic Sierra de Cantabria in the distance. Following a bone-rattling slalom tour through the vineyards in a jeep, we screech to a dusty halt beside a security hut and three large steel trapdoors laid into the ground at a road’s end. Waiting to meet us, debonair in a blue sports coat and shining brogues, is winemaker Roberto Miguel.
“Such a beautiful day,” Roberto teases, “do you really want to go underground?” I am with him 100%. We enter the ‘security hut’, a couple of computers inside to monitor deliveries of grapes. I stifle a yawn. We descend a small staircase to a much larger room, impressively equipped with machinery, but I’m still yawning.
Then Roberto opens a small door to the next ‘room’. My mouth is wide open but no longer yawning. I suspect Roberto really enjoys this bit. It is the secret lair in a Bond movie; it could house Semple Stadium. It is humongous!
Over 300 giant stainless steel vats, 30 feet high, run the length of the great cavern. At the far end, great oak doors, a foot thick and close to 20 feet high, lead into another stunning space, futuristic and primal at the same time.
We pass through another few of these doors and into a cool, dark room, descending a staircase, eyes adjusting to the gloom. Under the low cellar ceiling, as far as the eye can see, are aging barrels of French, American and Hungarian oak, 70,000 of them, spicy oak-musk hanging in the cool air. Heading back out the door, Roberto asks us to pause a moment while he presses a button. A sliver of intense light pierces the gloom, gradually widening as two giant shutters slide back, revealing a huge panoramic view of the distant Sierra de Cantabria.
It is ridiculously beautiful, a stunning party piece, Roberto chuckles heartily, our jaws graze the concrete floors.
In the state-of-the-art tasting lab, we run through some of the current Campo Viejo range as I struggle to spit and not swallow, failing miserably — actually, merrily — on the Cava, a delicious 2010 Rosado (Rosé) and the stunning Dominio Rioja.
In a kitchen as large as any major hotel’s, Basque chef Alex is about to give us a tapas masterclass. While Alex knocks out some croquetas and tortilla, I’m keeping a watchful eye on his assistant, in particular, his paella. I raise a brow when the rice is last into the giant pan. Valencia-style, he explains. We break for lunch, back up a couple of flights of stairs and we’re back in the airy visitors’ centre. “If we had built this place above ground,” explains Roberto, “it would have been a huge factory, five storeys high.”
I’ve had nicer paellas but I’ve had fewer nicer meals, lazing like a lizard in the sun, washing down the paella with Cava, the Rosado and the Dominio, gazing out across the valley. A siesta is becoming essential but our day is not yet done. We are each about to blend our very own wine, a Gran Reserva using five single grape wines, Roberto the judge. Post-prandial and slightly wobbly, he ends up doing a lot more swallowing than spitting and then it really is siesta time.
The next 48 hours is a beautiful blur of rioja and pintxos, masterclasses and tastings, including a trip to the architecturally stunning Ysios winery designed by Santiago Calatrava in the foothills of the Sierra de Cantabria. Inside it is more akin to a buddhist temple than an industrial operation, winemaker Luis Zudaire a suitably serene presence. After sampling some beautiful Riojas and a stunning Verdejo, all sadly unavailable in Ireland, we pick up a bottle each of quite possibly the rarest wines in the world — our own creations, bottled, labelled, individually named and signed by ourselves.
Sometime in the not too distant future at mi casa, I shall nonchalantly be asking the biggest wine buff at the table if he wouldn’t mind opening a feisty little rioja I brought back with me from Spain — a Don Jose Cabellero Gran Reserva, if you don’t mind.
The primary reason for visiting La Rioja is wine. There are wine museums, vineyards and historical monuments aplenty all associated with the grape. (http://www.winetourismspain.com/rioja)
What is wine without food? The pintxo is the Basque version of the tapas and is to be found all over the region. The Calle de Laurel (Path of the Elephants) in Logrono City’s Old Quarter offers a splendid night’s eating and drinking in atmospheric old surroundings.
One place not to be missed is the old medieval walled town of La Guardia atop a rock formation in the shadow of the Sierra de Cantabria. Hardly changed since the 13th century, it is like stepping back in time.
La Rioja is Spain’s smallest region and the best way to explore is by car.
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus.ie) have three flights a week to Bilbao from Dublin and Logrono City is 150km away, about 1.5 hour’s drive. Car rental http://bilbaoairportcarhire.net.
The mountainous region offers many adventure activities (hiking, whitewater rafting and biking) and one of the famous pilgrimage paths to Santiago de Compestela runs through La Rioja.
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