It was inevitable that a wine region didn’t have its Dionysian dwelling. In La Rioja, Spain, everybody knows it as Laurel Street. It’is a narrow and short street of Logroño, where dozens of restaurants offer splendid dishes accompanied by wines of La Rioja, in an environment that starts late at night and ends early in the morning.

If you want to do things right, leave Laurel Street for later as you must drive several highway kilometers, and those wines of early grapes aren’t precisely the best co-pilots you may desire. You have to leave La Rioja as well and go to La Rioja Alavesa’s territory. The first one is an Autonomous Community and the second is a province of another community. If you don’t want to complicate the moment with geography issues, just stay in Laguardia’s village (Alava), a place with eleven centuries of history that presents in its medieval streets as well as in many of its buildings, several moments when it was part of Navarra’s kingdom, and others, of Spain itself.

Those who follow wine’s trail must enter the village’s subsoil through some of underground wineries --full of time and deep smell of liquid gold--, although here it’s almost always red. If you ask some neighbour for one of these wineries, you’ll have to stay in town several days: it’s an endless list. To make things easier, better don’t ask anything and go to Vinoteca Entreviñas y Olivos, who offers a good panoramic of interior’s architecture and regional flavour through several food products, all enlivened, of course, by the house wine. If you are still interested in investigating Laguardia’s subsoil, visit Bodega El Fabulista --under Samaniego’s Palace—where wine is worked in a traditional way.

Next scale is close to Laguardia: it’s a come back to the future in few seconds. If you enjoyed the mirador (viewpoint) before leaving the village, surely you saw a metal and wooden structure carrying the signature of one of the most famous architects of the time: Santiago Calatrava, from Valencia. The building houses Bodegas Ysios, which you may visit all year long and taste the wines with views to dozens of barrels in the impeccable wine cellar. To get to Ysios just follow the indications, but to go to next route’s point it would be wise to get lost in the vineyards roads. The mountain you will see all the time, which serve as a reference to avoid total misguidance in the fields, is Sierra de Cantabria. 

After peregrinating in this place it’s moment to go to Elciego: a small town which counts on more than ten centuries of existence. However, before the arrival of Frank O. Gehry’s work of art, few persons knew about its existence, except good wine seekers.

Bodegas del Marqués de Riscal also decided to stand up and carry La Rioja to contemporary architecture’s kingdom, calling one of the best creators: Gehry, who built –with his great name and his many years-- the most avant-garde winery of all Spain. When you can no longer praise the proposal of the building, it’s time to enter its subsoil and travel the wineries’ centenary entrails. Between caves covered in moisture you may find the wine cask destined to Spanish Monarchy’s Head as well as a collection of thousands of bottles, some of them keeping wines a century old. If you need more time to admire Gehry’s building, stay right there: it’s a luxurious hotel.

Haro and Briones are next two destinations in La Rioja Community. Briones is another medieval small village, who has an almost rectangular plaza (square) –wishing not to be geometrical—, where you can find several small bars ideal for tasting La Rioja’s peppers and potatoes or some other tapa (snack), which will give you enough energy to visit the huge Museo de la Cultura del Vino (Wine Culture Museum), a wine’s cult temple that Dionysius would have liked for himself. 

But in Haro --a modern city with the highest density of wineries-- is another veneration’s place of viniculture, located in Bodegas López de Heredia. It’s not a formal museum, but the importance given to wine’s production process has allowed the keeping of tools, barrels and original architectonic details, letting see the classic and genuine grape’s work. Of course, the house wine can be tasted in a contemporary space created by architect Zaha Hadid.

From Haro you may take A-68 highway, one of those paths that don’t want to know region’s details, although it would be better to take secondary roads and be captivated by endless vineyards and dozens of small wineries full of tales about their own trip by viniculture’s world. Later, you may go to Logroño by A-68 highway and look for Laurel Street --although San Juan and Portales streets also offer the famous “Chuletillas al Sarmiento” (Sarmiento’s style pork chops) and, surely, all those wines matured in Dionysius’ kingdom, with don Felipe’s permission, of course…