Earlier this year, the WineBirds took a flight over the ocean, and landed in the wonderful land of La Rioja, the place of some excellent Spanish wines. La Rioja is a few hours north of Madrid, and about an hour and a half south of Bilbao. The main grape of the region is Tempranillo, and most wines are a mixed with some Grenache and perhaps Mazuelo and Graciana. These are great food wines — a great pairing with salty Manchengo cheese and jamon.
While in the region, we were able to stop at several wineries, one of which was Bodegas Ysios. We showed up at our designated appointment time, and found that J had booked our tour in Spanish (this ended up being a theme of our trip). As we were the only ones on the tour, our guide graciously ran the tour in English.
The WineBirds 