Best Rioja Wineries to Visit in 2026 — Top 10 Bodegas

López de Heredia is not just the most traditional winery in Rioja — it may be the most traditional serious winery in the world. Founded in 1877 by Rafael López de Heredia, the estate is now run by his great-grandchildren and operates today with essentially the same philosophy it had in the nineteenth century. Their wines spend longer in wood than any other producer of comparable stature: the Viña Tondonia Reserva takes a minimum of six years between barrel and bottle before release; the Gran Reserva can spend a decade. The barrels themselves are made in their own on-site cooperage. The underground cellars beneath the Haro station district — carved from the rock, dimly lit, draped in cobwebs and mould that the family considers part of the ecosystem — are among the most extraordinary wine spaces in the world. Bottles laid in these cellars in the 1950s and 1960s are still quietly ageing in their racks. Above ground, the original 1877 wooden tower and the octagonal Zaha Hadid-designed glass tasting pavilion (2001) sit in arresting juxtaposition — tradition and modernity held in the same frame. The white wines are as important as the reds: Viña Gravonia Blanco, made from Viura aged four years in barrel, is one of the most unusual and compelling white wines produced anywhere. Appointments are essential; they are not taken lightly, and group sizes are kept deliberately small. The visit is not a slick operation — it is genuinely immersive in a way that has nothing to do with marketing.

Tasting

€15–€30 per person depending on tasting tier

How to book

Appointments strictly required — book by email (visitas@lopezdeheredia.com) or via lopezdeheredia.com. Tours are conducted in Spanish and English; confirm language when booking. Address: Avda de Vizcaya 3, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 310 244. Cellar tours run morning slots; arrive promptly.

Visit policy

Visits by appointment only. Small groups preferred. The experience typically runs 90 minutes and includes barrel cellar walk, cooperage, and guided tasting of current releases.

Muga occupies a singular position in the Rioja landscape: it is among the most traditional of the premium houses in its winemaking — egg-white fining, hand-racking, wines aged in oak from its own cooperage — but it is also the most accessible and visitor-friendly of that peer group. The bodega sits in the Haro station district within walking distance of the town centre, and while appointments are recommended for the full tour, the welcome is warm rather than formal. The flagship wine is Prado Enea Gran Reserva, a Tempranillo-dominant blend from the estate's oldest fruit that is aged for over three years in barrel and a further three in bottle — one of the most complete and long-lived traditional Riojas made. Tower of Muga, a selection from a single parcela in the Viña Torre, is the prestige single-vineyard label and among the most sought-after wines in the Haro district. What distinguishes Muga's visit from most bodegas is the working cooperage on the premises — one of only a handful of wineries in Rioja (and arguably in all of Spain) that still makes and repairs its own barrels in-house. Watching a cooper work the staves while wine ages in racks above is a proper demonstration of craft that cannot be faked for a visitor programme. Tours are well organised, guides are knowledgeable and used to international visitors, and the tasting range covers the full portfolio from Muga Blanco through Prado Enea.

Tasting

€15–€40 per person depending on tour and tasting tier

How to book

Book onlineBook via bodegasmuga.com/visitas. Cellar tours with tasting run daily (confirm current schedule online). Address: Barrio de la Estación, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 311 825. Walk-ins sometimes accommodated but pre-booking strongly recommended in summer.

Visit policy

Tours run at scheduled times most days; see website for current slots. Tours last approximately 75–90 minutes. English-language tours available. Wine shop on site.

CVNE — known universally by its acronym, pronounced 'Coo-neh' — was founded in 1879 by two brothers from Bilbao, Eusebio and Raimundo Real de Asúa, and has remained in family hands ever since. It is the oldest continuously operating bodega in the Haro station district and occupies a neo-classical building of genuine architectural merit, with a distinctive 1902 wine press hall that architects credit to Gustave Eiffel's engineering office (the attribution is historically debated, but the ironwork is extraordinary). Imperial Gran Reserva is the house's most celebrated wine — a Tempranillo-led blend from selected parcelas, typically spending three years in American oak and three in bottle, and representing one of the most consistent expressions of traditional Rioja at the highest level for nearly a century. The CVNE portfolio extends across multiple brands and styles: Viña Real is their Rioja Alavesa label (produced at a separate bodega in Laguardia designed by Philippe Mazières), and Contino is a single-estate wine from a 62-hectare finca in Rioja Alavesa — one of the first single-estate Riojas ever produced. Tours at the Haro bodega are well-structured and cover the historic press hall, barrel ageing cellars, and bottling facilities, with tastings that typically include wines from across all three brands.

Tasting

€12–€35 per person depending on tasting level

How to book

Book onlineBook via cvne.com. Regular tours run daily; English-language tours available at set times. Address: Barrio de la Estación, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 304 800. The Viña Real bodega in Laguardia also offers tours — book separately.

Visit policy

Tours run at scheduled times Mon–Sat. Duration approximately 60–90 minutes. Wine shop and tasting bar open to walk-ins during business hours.

Marqués de Riscal was founded in 1858 by Guillermo Hurtado de Amézaga, making it one of the oldest bodegas in Rioja Alavesa and a founding influence on the region's modern winemaking style — the estate's early adoption of Bordeaux techniques in the 1860s, including use of French oak barrels and château-style production, helped establish Rioja's international reputation in the second half of the nineteenth century. But it is the Hotel Marqués de Riscal, opened in 2006 to designs by Frank Gehry, that has transformed the estate into Spain's most architecturally extraordinary wine destination. Gehry's building — a cascade of titanium ribbons in gold, silver, and rose above the 1858 stone bodega — is technically staggering and immediately iconic. The hotel itself is a Luxury Collection property with 43 rooms, a Caudalie Vinothérapie Spa, and the Michelin-starred restaurant Marqués de Riscal by chef Francis Paniego. Visiting without staying is entirely possible and worthwhile: the architecture tour of the bodega and cellars includes barrel rooms dating to the 1860s and a bottle library that contains examples back to the 1862 vintage. The Gran Reserva is the benchmark wine — Tempranillo from the estate's own vineyards in the Elciego and Laguardia areas, aged a minimum of two years in American oak. The visit is best done as a morning tour followed by lunch at one of the estate's restaurants before the afternoon coach tour crowd arrives.

Tasting

€20–€45 per person for winery tours with tasting; hotel and restaurant dining priced separately

How to book

Book onlineWinery tours bookable via marquesderiscal.com/en/visit. Hotel reservations via the same site or Marriott Bonvoy. Address: Calle Torrea 1, 01340 Elciego, Álava. Phone +34 945 180 888. Restaurant Marqués de Riscal requires a separate reservation — book well in advance.

Visit policy

Winery tours run daily at scheduled times. English, Spanish, and French available. Hotel guests receive priority for premium experiences. Day visitors welcome for tours and the bistro (1860 bar); Michelin restaurant requires reservation.

La Rioja Alta was founded in 1890 by a consortium of five Basque and Riojan families who wanted to produce serious ageable wines rather than the bulk wine that dominated the region's production at the time. That founding philosophy remains intact: the estate produces only a handful of wines, and each one is aged for longer than legal requirements dictate. The Viña Ardanza Reserva spends three years in American oak — already beyond the legal minimum — before further bottle ageing. The Gran Reserva 904 goes further: four years in American oak, two in bottle. The Gran Reserva 890, the prestige bottling, is selected only in exceptional vintages and typically does not appear in the market until a decade after harvest. Both the 904 and 890 have cult status among collectors of traditional Rioja and are among the most sought-after wines in the Haro station district. The bodega itself is a beautiful late-nineteenth-century building in the station district, with enormous cellar rooms holding over 30,000 barriques of ageing wine at any given time. Tours are genuinely educational — the scale of the operation and the visible contrast between recently racked and long-aged barrels illustrates the house style more concretely than any tasting note. The visit is one of the most visitor-friendly of the traditional houses; daily tour times are published and the guides are well-prepared for international groups.

Tasting

€15–€35 per person

How to book

Book onlineBook via riojalta.com/en/visits. Daily tours at scheduled times; English-language tours available. Address: Av. Vizcaya 8, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 310 346. The estate also has properties in Rias Baixas (Lagar de Cervera) and Ribera del Duero (Áster) which can be discussed on request.

Visit policy

Tours run most days at fixed morning times. Duration approximately 60–90 minutes. Wine shop on site with access to back vintages not available in standard retail.

Artadi requires a note before anything else: in 2015 Juan Carlos López de Lacalle took the unusual and pointed decision to withdraw Artadi's wines from the Rioja DOCa designation, labelling them instead as Vino de Mesa — table wine, the most basic classification in Spanish wine law. The move was not about quality downgrade; it was a statement. López de Lacalle wanted to be free of Rioja's blending rules and the DOCa's requirement that Rioja wines not carry detailed vineyard origin information on the label. He wanted Artadi to stand for specific places — specific parcelas in and around Laguardia — not for a regional brand. It worked: Artadi is now among the most discussed and most sought-after wines from anywhere in Spain, DOCa or not. The flagship is Viña El Pisón, a single hectare of old-vine Tempranillo in the clay-limestone soils above Laguardia, planted in 1945 and producing roughly 3,000 bottles per vintage. The wine is routinely compared to great Burgundy: not in grape variety, but in the precision with which it expresses its exact site. Beyond El Pisón, the Artadi range includes Pagos Viejos (from old-vine parcelas across Laguardia), Grandes Añadas (the prestige selection), and a set of individual vineyard bottlings — Valdeginés, El Carretil, La Poza de Ballesteros — that read like a Burgundy premier cru map transposed to Laguardia. Visits are by appointment and the experience is intimate rather than tour-group-oriented.

Tasting

[TBD — confirm when booking]

How to book

Appointments by request via artadi.com or email. Address: Carretera de Logroño s/n, 01300 Laguardia, Álava. The winery is in Laguardia, 45 minutes south of Vitoria and 35 minutes north of Logroño. Phone +34 945 600 119.

Visit policy

Visits strictly by appointment. Small groups only. The tasting focuses on the single-vineyard range; availability of El Pisón for tasting depends on allocation and timing.

Roda was founded in 1987 by Mario Rotllant and Carmen Daurella and represents the modern wing of the Haro station district — a deliberate counterpoint to the traditional houses that surround it. Where López de Heredia and La Rioja Alta age wines in American oak for extended periods, Roda works primarily with French oak and aims for earlier aromatic expressiveness, with tannin integration as a priority. Their vineyards — old-vine Garnacha and Tempranillo, in some cases over 60 years old — are dry-farmed in the Ebro valley and the Sierra de la Demanda foothills; the selection of parcelas that make Roda I (old-vine Tempranillo, minimum 18 months in French barriques) versus those that go into Roda II (slightly younger, different parcelas, lighter style) is made in the vineyard rather than the winery, following Burgundian logic. Cirsion is the prestige label: a micro-selection from a single old-vine parcel, typically under 3,000 bottles per vintage, aged in new French oak with a deliberately reductive approach. It is among the most coveted wines in Rioja. The winery building itself is striking — modern architecture that makes no attempt to mimic the historic stone houses around it — and visits are well organised with English-speaking guides. The location within the station district means Roda can be combined with López de Heredia, Muga, and La Rioja Alta in a single day's walk.

Tasting

€20–€45 per person depending on tasting tier

How to book

Visits by appointment — contact via roda.es or email visitas@roda.es. Address: Av. Vizcaya 5, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 303 001. The bodega is in the station district and walkable from Haro town centre.

Visit policy

Appointments required; small groups preferred. Tours in Spanish and English. Duration approximately 75 minutes including tasting. Wine available for purchase on site.

Bodegas Riojanas was founded in 1890 in Cenicero, a small town midway between Haro and Logroño on the main road through the Ebro valley, and has been producing wine from its own vineyards in the surrounding area ever since. The estate tends to be overlooked in the same conversations that cover López de Heredia, La Rioja Alta, and CVNE — partly because its wines are priced below those peers, partly because its marketing is quiet rather than prominent. This is an opportunity: the quality of the Monte Real range consistently overdelivers for the price, and the cellars and visitor facilities are well set up for an unhurried visit. The Monte Real Gran Reserva, from old Tempranillo vines in the Cenicero area, is the house benchmark — American oak-aged in the classic Rioja Alta style, with the kind of smooth, tertiary complexity that requires years in bottle and rewards patience. The estate also produces Canchales (a fresh, early-drinking Tempranillo for immediate enjoyment), Monte Real Crianza and Reserva, and the premium Viña Albina range, which uses both American and French oak for a slightly more contemporary profile. The cooperage on site — one of the working traditional cooperages still active in Rioja — is part of the tour and worth seeing. Guides are knowledgeable and the welcome is genuinely hospitable.

Tasting

€8–€25 per person

How to book

Online or emailTours bookable via bodegasriojanas.com. Walk-in possible during business hours at the cellar door. Address: Calle Estación 1, 26350 Cenicero, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 454 050. Cenicero is 20 minutes east of Haro by car or accessible by regional train from Haro or Logroño.

Visit policy

Tours run on weekdays and Saturdays; confirm current schedule online. English available with advance notice. Duration approximately 60 minutes. Wine shop with full range on site.

Ysios was built in 1998 to designs by Santiago Calatrava, the Valencian architect and engineer best known for bridges and transport terminals across Europe and North America. The building is among the most immediately memorable in the wine world: a long, undulating aluminium roof whose wave form deliberately echoes the ridgeline of the Sierra de Cantabria mountains directly behind it. Photographed from the access road or the vineyard in front, the winery and its backdrop compose together in a way that is almost too symmetrical to be real. The wine estate is owned by Pernod Ricard (through its Bodegas y Bebidas subsidiary) and the wines — Ysios Reserva and Edición Limitada from Rioja Alavesa Tempranillo — are serious and well-regarded rather than being window dressing for the architecture. The Ysios Reserva, aged 14 months in a mix of French and American oak, is a clean, fruit-forward expression of Rioja Alavesa's altitude and chalk-limestone soils; the Edición Limitada is a selection from the estate's oldest vines, more structured and age-worthy. The visitor experience is well-organised: tours cover the winery (the interior is as dramatic as the exterior, a single open nave of concrete, glass, and steel with natural light flooding the barrel room) and include a structured tasting. Laguardia is walkable from the Ysios access road; combining a Ysios visit with lunch in the medieval walled town and a visit to Artadi makes for a full and excellent day in Rioja Alavesa.

Tasting

€15–€30 per person

How to book

Book onlineBook via ysios.com. Tours run daily at scheduled times; English available. Address: Camino de la Hoya s/n, 01300 Laguardia, Álava. Phone +34 945 600 640. Parking on site. Laguardia town is a 15-minute walk from the winery.

Visit policy

Tours at scheduled times, walk-in possible if space available but pre-booking recommended. Duration approximately 60 minutes. Wine shop on site with current releases and library stock.

Álvaro Palacios needs little introduction: his work at L'Ermita in Priorat through the 1990s — a wine that became one of the highest-rated and most expensive in Spain almost immediately — established him as one of the decisive figures in modern Spanish wine. What is less universally known is that Palacios's family bodega, Palacios Remondo, sits in Alfaro in Rioja Oriental — the southernmost and warmest of the three Rioja subzones, historically dismissed as bulk wine country. Álvaro took over from his father José Palacios in 2000 and has spent the years since demonstrating that the old Garnacha and Tempranillo vines of Rioja Oriental, given serious attention, can produce wines of real complexity and character. La Vendimia is the accessible, earlier-drinking entry point — Garnacha and Tempranillo in a fresh, fruit-forward style at a price that makes it one of Rioja's best overperformers. Propiedad is the prestige bottling, from a single 30-hectare finca of mixed old Garnacha and Tempranillo, aged in French oak and embodying the kind of site-specific winemaking Álvaro learned in Priorat. Plácet Valtomelloso is the white — Garnacha Blanca from old vines, aged in French oak with regular bâtonnage, and considered by many sommeliers among the finest white wines produced in Spain. A visit to Palacios Remondo serves a dual purpose: it shows what Álvaro Palacios is doing in his home region, and it opens the door to Rioja Oriental as a subzone that rewards curiosity.

Tasting

[TBD — confirm when booking]

How to book

Visits by appointment — contact via palaciosremondo.com. Address: Avenida de Zaragoza 8, 26540 Alfaro, La Rioja. Phone +34 941 180 207. Alfaro is approximately 70 kilometres southeast of Haro — combine with a Rioja Alta visit over two days or treat as a standalone trip from Logroño (45 minutes by car).

Visit policy

Visits by prior arrangement. Tours and tastings tailored to the visitor group. English available. The full range including Propiedad and Plácet Valtomelloso typically featured in tastings.