Contrasts in Rioja part 1: Marqués de Riscal

See here for my tasting notes.

Marqués de Riscal is like a little village in its own right – they call it the City of Wine and it covers a total of 100,000 square metres – even though it is also very much part of the village of Elciego in the Álava region of Rioja. They’ve even annexed the public road that runs between the two halves of the winery complex and diverted the local traffic so that you can saunter down the road and admire the recently cleaned and polished 19th and 20th century winery buildings (an example from...