A long weekend in Rioja offers visitors a dazzling array of choices of places to stay, eat and visit. We suggest you base your visits on our ‘Best Of Wine Tourism’ award-winning properties, where you are guaranteed a comfortable home base, a restful sleep, great food, visits to wineries and other sites that will not only tease your palate but show you the commitment Rioja makes to assuring enjoyable experiences.
Where to stay
Thursday, 7pm
The newly crowned 2026 Best Of Wine Tourism winner, Hospedería Los Parajes in the village of Laguardia is a great option. Laguardia is a medieval walled village high above the patchwork of vineyards between the Sierra de Cantabria mountain range and the Ebro river. Located on the village’s main square, Hospedería Los Parajes offers 55 tastefully decorated rooms, two restaurants, a spa and underground caves, where one can enjoy wines in a unique atmosphere.
Photo: Hospederia de Los Parajes.
After arriving, unwind from your trip by enjoying a glass of wine and people watching at the winery’s terrace on Laguardia’s main square. Then, wander around the village, discover the street plan of a medieval fortified village, window shop, visit the wine bars and restaurants and enjoy the spectacular Church of Santa María with its magnificently preserved polychrome statues of the Twelve Apostles, and the Baroque altar. Tickets are available at the Laguardia Tourist Office.
Friday 10am
Your first stop is the Hotel Viura in the nearby village of Villabuena de Álava. Villabuena, called Eskuernak in Basque. This village boasts the most wineries of any town in the Rioja region. The Hotel Viura is a great place to stay, but the 2026 ‘Best Of’ award was given for Art & Culture. Designed by the Designhouses architecture studio, the hotel is made up of cubes stacked haphazardly on top of one another, each housing a room.
Photo: Hotel Viura (Villabuena de Álava, Spain).
Each room has a unique design and its furniture has been created specifically for the hotel by avant-garde design brands.
The hotel website states that Designhouses “created an avant-garde building fully integrated into the town” but you cannot help but be surprised when you come upon the colorful hotel surrounded by the ochre-toned buildings in the village.
Friday, 12 noon
Travel to nearby Haro to Bodegas Ramón Bilbao.
Bodegas Ramón Bilbao won the 2026 ‘Best Of’ award for Innovative Wine Tourism Experiences. The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024 and has created a range of experiences that highlight Ramón Bilbao’s grapegrowing, diverse styles of wine, pairings with cheese and gastronomy.
Journey of the Senses is a welcome wine, guided tour of the winery, a barrel tasting and a guided tasting of three wines. Wine and Cheese Harmonies includes a guided tour, a tasting session featuring four cheeses paired with
Ramón Bilbao wines as well as a tasting of a selection of local cheeses. Sensory Exploration is a guided tour and a tasting of three wines paired with small appetizers (tapas).
In addition, visitors can enjoy tastings and pairings in the wine bar and of course, in the winery restaurant.
Photo: Bodegas Ramón BIlbao.
Friday, 2pm. Lunch!
Enjoy Haro’s tapas route, centered around Santo Tomás street or have a sit-down meal at one of the restaurants along the route. For a unique experience, we recommend that you book a table well in advance at Nublo one of Rioja’s Michelin-starred restaurants. Here you can sample Riojas from the 1000-plus wine selection in the restaurant’s cellar and enjoy the cuisine based on roasting on a wood fire.
Friday, 5pm
After lunch, drive down the hill to the Train Station District, a 2024 ‘Best Of’ winner for Architecture and Landscape. Here, century-old wineries were built around the Haro railway station where their wines were shipped to the port of Bilbao and from there, around the world. The wineries have joined forces to create experiences that offers visitors a tour or a passport to visit the six wineries’ visitors areas and wine bars.
Alternatively, you can book a visit to Bodegas Bilbaínas, located in the Train Station district. Bilbaínas is a triple winner of a Great Wine Capitals award: the local and global awards for Architecture and Landscape in 2025 and the 2025 People’s Choice Award, voted on by the general public.
Bodegas Bilbaínas was founded in 1901 but traces its origins to 1859 when French winemakers arrived in Haro in search of phylloxera-free grapes and wine.
Friday, 8pm
Return to Laguardia for a relaxing evening, strolling and tapas bar hopping artound the village with locals and visitors alike.
Saturday, 10am
Visit the two wineries that make up Palacios Vinos de Finca, in the village of Nalda, a short drive south, of Logroño on highway N-111 linking Logroño with Soria.
Palacios Vinos de Finca and its wineries Nivarius and Proelio received the 2026 Best Of Wine Tourism award for Sustainable Wine Tourism Experiences.
The company philosophy centers on the importance of the land for the creation of singular wines: understanding its characteristics, protecting it by not using harmful products, and tending it properly.
Understanding the land and its characteristics has allowed Palacios Vinos de Finca to create Nivarius, the first winery in Rioja devoted exclusively to white wines with long ageing potential from several plots located in the Sierra de la Demanda, at an altitude ranging from 700 to 800 meters above sea level, among the highest vineyards in the Rioja Appellatiion. These plots have been planted with viura, maturana blanca, garnacha blanca and tempranillo blanco.
Proelio, Nivarius’ sister winery, specializes in reds.
Photo: Palacios Vinos de Finca.
Saturday, 2pm Tapas for every palate
Enjoy Logroño’s iconic Old Town, centered around Laurel and San Juan streets. Here, more than 100 tapas bars and restaurants offer artisinal culinary treats, along with glasses of Rioja.
After lunch, drive or take a taxi across the Ebro river to the nearby village of Oyón, home of Bodegas Faustino and its Visitors’ Center. Faustino Legacy is the 2026 Best Of Wine Tourism winner for Architecture and Landscape. The spectacular building, resembling a cylinder cut in half lengthwise, was designed by Norman Foster & Partners, the architecture studio that designed Portia, the Faustino group’s winery in Ribera del Duero. Opened to the public in 2024, the space, Planet 1.0 , is the home of Faustino’s range of wine tourism experiences.
Photo: Bodegas Faustino.
Saturday evening
Return to Laguardia on the N-232-A highway (that changes its name when you enter the Basque Country just outside Logroño to the A-124). From this highway, the views of the Rioja Alavesa subregion of Rioja with its patchwork of vineyards abutting the Sierra Cantabria mountain range are nothing short of breathtaking.
Instead of turning left and going up the hill to Laguardia, stay on the highway bordering the town for about one kilometer where you will see a turnoff to Bodegas Ysios. This winery, with its undulating titanium roof designed by Santiago Calatrava, was one of the first avant-garde properties built in Rioja, and a winner of a Best Of award for Architecture.
Sunday
An unmissable destination is the Dinastía Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture in Briones. It is arguably the world’s best, showcasing not only Rioja wines, but the history of wine culture from prehistory to today.
The museum has been the recipient of several Best Of Wine Tourism awards, but most notably, the prestigious Great Wine Capitals Special Achievement award, one of three properties to receive the award in the 25-year history of the Great Wine Capitals.
The museum features a spectacular collection of Greek and Roman artifacts devoted to wine, sculptures and paintings by Picasso, Miró and others. Not to be missed is the world’s largest collection of corkscrews and wine.
You can enjoy lunch at the museum’s restaurant before heading home.
A Roman mosaic showing Bacchus (Photo Tom Perry).
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The Best Of Wine Tourism Bilbao-Rioja 2026 awards were presented on October 8 at a gala held at Bodegas Bilbaínas (Haro). The gala was organized by La Rioja Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Services in collaboration with the Government of La Rioja.
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Text by Tom Perry, Inside Rioja.
Featured photo: Bodegas Faustino.
Learn more about Bilbao-Rioja Great Wine Capitals.