Bodegas Marqués de Riscal

The hotel is absolutely stunning. We came for the architecture rather than the wine, and it was totally worth it. Frank Gehry’s work is fantastic. We did Wine Tour 1, and it was fine. However, from a learning perspective, I felt it lacked depth—I missed out on a lot of information, though I understand it's hard to cover everything during the visit.

Winery tour in English was superb. Jose explained every detail and answered all the questions very clear. Tasting was good and had a little snack to go with it. The setting is gorgeous and very well maintained. Worth the 20min drive from Logroño.

A interesting winery in the heart of Spain’s Rioja region. While commercialized, the experience was still impressive and well done. The tour guide was professional and knowledgeable, walking us through the entire process — from bottling to distribution. There was an astonishing amount of wine on site, and the tasting experience was well organized and enjoyable. Overall, a cool and worthwhile visit!

Fantastic winery tour and complete explanation of the wine making process. We have been to many wineries and this is car the best tour we have done. Our tour guide Assad was great and took time to answer all our questions and add lots of historical context to the tour. The winery is beautiful and the Ghery building worth a visit.

Asaad gave us the best wine tour we’ve ever experienced. His explanations were clear, engaging, and easy to follow, and the video added great context. The winery itself is absolutely stunning. it’s amazing to witness a place with such rich history passed down through generations. A truly unforgettable visit. Thank you!

The good: - The tour was informative and very interesting The not so good: - If you don’t drink wine you still have to pay the same amount, and instead you are giving water or grape juice. - While wine drinkers get 3 drinks, you only get one, but still same price - Chances are they will forget about you so you won’t get served until everyone else does - If you are in odd numbers you won’t be able to socialise with your friends while you have sociable drinks, and unless you know this and know that you need to run to the front to get two tables close to each other, you will end up on the opposite side of the room, like I did. Sadly, the tasting ruined what had otherwise been a perfectly fun and enjoyable outing, even as a non drinker.

We took a fabulous, detailed tour of the winery and the winemaking process. The tour ended with a tasting of three delicious wines and charcuterie. Our guide, Asaad, was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic. He took the time to answer all questions. We have been on many winery tours and this one has to be the best. Absolutely beautiful winery, hotel and grounds. Do not miss it. Reservations are a must.

A quick visit to Bodegas Marqués de Riscal to see the Guggenheim designed hotel and to taste the wines. We enjoyed the wine flight including reds and whites.

Marques de Riscal is a large production winery that makes delicious wines in the Rioja region. What makes Marques de Riscal a winery worth checking out is that it is one of the oldest Rioja wineries, also you get a close up view of the cool hotel designed by Frank Gehry. Marques de Riscal does offer English tours, but definitely do your research beforehand and book the tour online, because there may only be one per day. During the tour, we got to taste tempranillo grapes as we watch the grapes get sorted, and crushed by the grape crushing machine. Our guide was very informative and there was moderate walking to be done since the Marques de Riscal site is huge. At the end of the tour, we tasted two wines, a verdejo and the crianza. These are everyday, easy drinking wines to enjoy and are well made. They also put out delicious, sliced sausage, chorizo and breadsticks you can help yourself to, which was great as we missed breakfast and were really hungry. Marques de Riscal takes security very seriously, they give you a badge when you arrive and you have to follow the guide at all times during the tour. When you do finally leave, someone needs to buzz you out of the facility. Marques de Riscal feels commercialized but their wines are undeniably good. There are also more impressive, limited production wines that they make as well so this is really a good place for wine lovers of all levels to check out.

The Village of Elciego (6 km SE of Laguardia) is the home of the historic Marqués de Riscal Winery Complex (AKA La Ciudad Del Vino) and founded way back in 1858. Gayle and I took the Tour and for 10 Euros each, it was worth every Peseta. This is a first class operation all the way, starting with the Frank Gehry (of Bilbao Guggenheim Museum fame) designed visitor complex, proceeding onto various Winery operations, finishing up with a few tasting room pours, and not "letting" us leave until I found a cool item at the Gift Shop. This Winery Tour was one of the overall highlights of our Spain trip, and we only wish that we had more time to explore the Rioja Area and certain other places (like Ysios). The Frank Gehry design is an amazing sight and somehow all those modern titanium ribbons blend in well with the rest of the stone-aspects of Marqués de Riscal Winery Complex and the surrounding Village of Elciego. The silver, gold, and "dusty rose" sheets are Gehry's response to the unbroken landscape of vineyards and the associated rich tones. There is also a Luxury Hotel and Spa within the Complex. One part of the tour featured the Reserve wines that have been laid down for years. Our guide (we took the Spanish language tour) pointed out that the Winery honoured Frank Gehry by pouring a bottle of wine that was bottled the year he was born (1929) and showed us the old direct flame way the wine bottles used to be opened. This illustrates the fact that the Winery may be modern, but at the same time remains faithful to the Bodega's "old fashioned" rigorous tradition of quality. and of course those who wish to aspire to a sophisticated nose and refined palette.

We had a really nice visit at Bodegas Marqués de Riscal. We were staying at the hotel, which offers a tour of the bodegas for hotel guests, so we thought "why not." We did not have the highest expectations, as we have toured wineries in France, Italy and at home in California, many times. Our expectations and predictions were a bit off, however. This tour, which the able Vanessa led, was far more interesting and in depth than others. We saw both the alcoholic (1st stage) fermentation room and vessels and malolactic (2d stage) fermentation room. We got good descriptions of both processes and their roles in wine making. We then watched a 2-3 min video reviewing the overall winemaking process and highlighting the individual steps and chemistry. It was nice. We then visited the modern and ancient bottle and barrel storage rooms, which are not normally accessible at other wineries. We finished with a tasting, a 100% Verdejo blanco and a Riserva tinto, along with regular and chorizo sausages. It was one of the best winery tours I've experienced. Highly recommend.

Don't get suckered into visiting this winery just because of the Frank Gehry designed hotel. Don't waste your money, your time or your palate on this place. The person conducting the tour did as good a job as she could. The tour is a series of videos shown to the crowd of 30+ people assembled for the English-speaking tour. This was the most expensive and the worst example of La Rioja winery tours we took. We tasted at 25 wineries over 3 weeks and took 10 other winery tours. The whole atmosphere of the tour reminded us of a cattle drive or sheepherding. At the conclusion of the tour, we were served a white wine and a red wine. Both were BY FAR, the WORST tasting wines we had in La Rioja. On the way to the parking lot, we noticed that they were offering a REAL Riojana multi-course meal for the low, low cost of $140 per person, when we had just finished one at Restaurante La Florida in the little town for under $20. Hugely disappointed with the completely over-hyped enotourism stunt that the Marques de Riscal pulled. They are a bulk wine producer on the scale of E&J Gallo. Marques de Riscal wines are on every retail shelf in the world. This is a classic case of big not being better. Having visited and tasted at 225 wineries around the world, this one is at the very bottom of our list.

There are much better winery visits in La Rioja, and much friendlier places. This may have been the lowlight of our recent trip to the region. The Gehry-designed hotel is quite the sight, but the quality of the wine is a step below most bodegas and we experienced some chilly customer service while here. I'd recommend driving to Haro and visiting some of the O.G. bodegas there. It's incredibly convenient because there is a free parking lot in the town within walking distance of 7-9 wineries, including some of the best in the world. Lopez de Heredia was recently named the No. 2 vineyard visit in the world, for instance, and their products are spectacular. The same could be said for Muga (perhaps the best tasting flight we had that week) and La Rioja Alta, which produced our favorite bottle of the trip (Vina Arana Gran Reserva 2012). Another place to visit that features stellar architecture is Bodegas Ysios, just 10 minutes or so from Marques de Riscal.

Beautiful vineyard and delicious wine - go if you have the time and means. The tour is informative and you get to visit a number of different parts of the history winery/vineyard. To top it off, Frank Gehry designed the beautiful and impressive hotel that is located on site. At the end of the tour, you have the opportunity to try their white and red wines.

We stayed at the hotel and didn't want to miss the opportunity to tour the bodegas that made this place famous. As guests of the hotel, our tour was complimentary. They guide was friendly and engaging. The tour itself is about 2 hours long, with some time at the end to sample two of their wines (the Verdejo and Reserve). My absolute favorite part was going down to the wine library. The library holds bottles of wine from the very fist vintage year of 1858 - of course, we weren't allowed directly into the library, but we were able to stand in front of its doors and peer inside to all the bottled treasure. This is not a small winery, but a fairly large commercial establishment. Even so, the small tour size and the access we were granted made it feel like a small boutique winery.