
Laguardia is a picturesque walled village that doesn’t permit cars inside of the walled limits. It makes it a perfect place to walk around, enjoy the quiet cobblestone streets, hop into a bar for a tapa and a glass of the finest Rioja vino, and of course, take the tour of your choice of one of the many wineries located here!
First, we took a sneak peak at Zorione’s (Cristina’s friend) awesome B&B, she is an amazing decorator, and she let us into one of the rooms where the guests had already checked out! So cute! Then over a café con leche, we discussed our plans for the afternoon and she arranged for us to visit one of the wineries in the village. We were even lucky enough to be accompanied by some of her friends that were visiting from Bilbao. Before our tour started, we had some time, so we stopped into a bar nearby for a quick tapa and a wonderful glass of wine, my favorite so far, I think. Delicious! I definitely noted that wine for a future purchase!
When it was time for our tour, we moseyed over the Bodega Carlos San Pedro, surprisingly right in the middle of the village. I asked myself, how could it be possible that there would be space to make wine right here in the middle of the town? But Pedro, our guide and the owner, quickly explained to us that the entire village of Laguardia is filled with caves below the houses and that is where everyone keeps there wine while it goes through the fermentation process. Aha! We then climbed down the stairs right beneath us, into the dark, humid cave where the wine was ‘emerging’ to perfection. We learned that these caves are the perfect place for the wine to ferment because it stays the same temperature all year around and the humidity level is just right as well, thanks to the ‘penicillin’ (aka: mold) growing on the walls!
Pedro directed us through the cave showing us the process that the wine goes through as well as showing us how they used to have to do everything by hand in the past. What a job! He then arrived at a huge barrel of wine, where he first let me climb up the ladder and see and smell for myself the amazing aroma of the wine as it ferments. Then he climbed the ladder and extracted, with some kind of tool, wine straight from the barrel for us to try. He warned us that it was not at its prime yet, because all good wines finish the fermentation process in the bottle, but he wanted us to experience the wine right as it came out of the barrel. So cool! I thought the wine was great, it had a stronger flavor, but still it was very good. Quite an interesting experience! Thanks Cristina for again showing me another great treasure in the Rioja!
El sábado pasado, Cristina y yo fuimos a visitar a una de sus amigas que tiene una casa rural en Laguardia llamada Legado de Ugarte. Laguardia un pueblo muy conocido por sus bodegas de vino de Rioja y está ubicado a solo 15 minutos de Logroño. Otoño es la estación perfecta para visitar el pueblo porque sus viñedos cambian sus tonos de color verde a amarillo, después a rojizo pasando a anaranjado y terminando en marrón. ¡Unas vistas absolutamente increíbles!
Laguardia es un pueblo pintoresco que está rodeado de murallas muy antiguas. Han preservado las murallas como prueba del paso del tiempo en la zona y el interior del pueblo está protegido de la entrada de vehículos a motor. Por eso, Laguardia es un lugar perfecto para dar un paseo por las calles de adoquines, tapear en un bar con un vino muy bueno de Rioja, y desde luego, hacer un tour por alguna de las tantas bodegas más ubicadas allí.

Cuando llegó la hora de nuestro tour, fuimos a la bodega “Carlos San Pedro”, y me sorprendió que estaba en el centro del pueblo. Me pregunté, ¿Cómo puede haber una bodega en el centro? ¿Dónde habría espacio para guardar el vino y las uvas? Pero de repente Pedro, nuestro guía y el dueño de la bodega, contestó mi pregunta. Estando en la planta baja, donde se venden las botellas de vino, nos explicó que debajo de cada casa en Laguardia hay un espacio vacío, es decir, una cueva donde se almacena el vino mientras madura y fermenta. Después bajamos unas escaleras y llegamos a la bodega (la cueva) justo debajo de donde estuvimos antes. La cueva es un lugar muy oscuro y húmedo donde el vino se guarda en un depósito hasta que llega el momento del embotellado para así almacenar las botellas en las cavidades de la propia bodega. Aprendimos que estas cuevas son el lugar ideal para guardar el vino durante el proceso de fermentación porque la temperatura allí es la misma todo el año y el grado de humidad es perfecto, gracias a la ‘penicilina’ (también conocida como moho) que crece en las paredes con el paso del tiempo.

Hi Tonya! My name is Christina and I am a good family friend of Nancy and Chelsea Meek! I loved reading about all your travels but I would love to talk to you more about Spain and the teaching you did there! I dont want to start a huge convo on here so please email me at christinaferrero@hotmail.com! I am looking to teach there in April and would love all the advice I can get! Thanks so much I look forward to hearing from you!