Rioja

What Rioja teaches: oak and ageing

Rioja does something almost no other region does: it ages your wine for you, then tells you exactly how long on the label. Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva: each word is a legal promise of years in American oak and bottle. The result is vanilla, leather, and dried cherry, wines released ready to drink. Rioja teaches you what time tastes like.

The wines

Tempranillo-led reds from juicy joven to decades-old Gran Reserva, plus white Rioja: oxidative, nutty, and one of Spain's great secrets.

Where to go

Haro's Barrio de la Estación packs more century-old bodegas around one railway station than anywhere else on earth. López de Heredia is the cathedral of old-school Rioja, all cobwebbed cellars and wines aged for decades. Muga, next door, shows the modern face. Twenty minutes east, Frank Gehry's titanium-ribboned hotel at Marqués de Riscal makes the architecture argument for wine tourism in one glance.

Eat

Calle Laurel in Logroño is a single street of pintxos bars, each famous for one dish. Eat the mushroom skewer at Bar Soriano, then keep moving. That's the rule.

Getting there

Fly into Bilbao and drive 90 minutes south through the hills, or fly Madrid and train to Logroño. October, during harvest, is the region at full volume.