Gallery Hosted & Scheduled Tour, Madrid to San Sebastian

JOANNA WIVELL 

Originally from Yorkshire, UK, Joanna Wivell has always felt a natural attraction to Spain. She lived in Madrid for 19 years, where she first worked in television for the lifestyle channel, Canal Estilo, and then the National Geographic Channel. For the last 16 years, she has been showing visitors Spain with a personal, insider’s view through her company's Insider’s Travel. Joanna has enjoyed walking on her travels through South America and in Europe. She has a love for flamenco dancing, languages and connecting visitors to Spain.

Where we begin the tour.

2 nights Hotel NH Palcacio Tepa, Madrid 5*

Meet your guide at 7:30pm for a gourmet tapas tour of the Spanish capital, stopping at our pick of the city’s most authentic and beloved castizo taverns.

Prado Museum

Prado Museum, Las Meninas by Velázquez

Reina Sofia Museum

Reina Sofia Museum, Guernica by Picasso

Lunch at NuBel

El Restaurante Botín, Tour & Dinner

El Restaurante Botín, Tour & Dinner

Meet Raúl Orantes, our charismatic wine specialist guide. 

Bodega Dominio de Cair.

A winery designed to the exacting standards of renowned producer Juan Luis Cañas. His operation is known for low-yield, high quality grapes, grown from rigorously maintained old vines on the small plots that define the area. A full private visit tells you everything you need to know about the love and care that go into the resulting wines, which you then get to taste: La Aguilera, Tierras de Cair, Cruz de Pendón, and Pendón de Aguilera.

Bodegas Aster.

A magnificent estate with a romantic aspect similar to the wine-growing chateaux of the French countryside.

Bodegas Aster.

Aster is a major player within La Rioja’s essential winery group, Rioja Alta, which planted its flag here in Ribera del Duero in 2000. The distinctive vintage produced on this property, Finca El Otero, is sourced from a single high-altitude plot, which packs the wine with tannin-rich intensity. Taste for yourself over regional dishes in the private dining room that overlooks the vast and deeply evocative barrel room.

Bodegas Ismael Arroyo (ValSotillo).

The frontier-like home base of a true pioneer in Spanish winemaking, and one of the founders of the Ribera del Duero appellation created in 1982. 

Bodegas Ismael Arroyo (ValSotillo).

A family member leads us on a private excursion through deeply atmospheric 16th century tunnels, which are used to age excellent house wines made exclusively with tempranillo grapes. While down there we taste two of Arroyo’s organically grown wines, a crianza and a reserva, then return above ground where the family own 32 hectares of vineyards around the estate and town.

Hotel for the night, Castilla Termal Monasterio de Valbuena, a spa hotel within a 12th-century Cirtercian monastery.

Castilla Termal Monasterio de Valbuena, a spa hotel within a 12th-century Cistercian monastery.

Conde de los Andes.

Occupies subterranean caves carved into the Churrumendi mountains in the Middle Ages. 

Conde de los Andes.

An exclusive guided visit takes us from sumptuous surface rows of Tempranillo and Viura vines down into an underground cellar system bearing some of Spain’s finest Moorish architecture. 

Conde de los Andes.

Some 400,000 bottles are stored in the Calado de las Grandes Añadas, or Great Vintages Cellar, which is known as the “Sistine Chapel of Rioja” and houses precious specimens that date right back to when the winery was founded in 1892.

Bodegas Javier San Pedro Ortega, where Javier himself shows us around the winery he set up in 2018. Among the younger stars of the business in La Rioja, he’s also fifth-generation winemaker with centuries of combined ancestral experience to draw upon.  

Bodegas Javier San Pedro Ortega

His property occupies a prime location with painterly mountain views across the Sierra de Cantabria and the dreamlike design of neighbouring Bodega Ysisos.

This tour includes tastings of Javier’s premium wines and a lunch prepared by Iñaki Murua and Carolina Sánchez, owners of the Michelin-starred Ikaro in Logroño. 

Marqués de Murrieta,

whose Rioja Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva 2010 was rated by The Spectator magazine as the best wine in the world in 2020. This is one of the region’s truly foundational wineries, dating back to the 1850s and known for pioneering the local use of French techniques to enhance the complexity and longevity of La Rioja’s signature red grape, Tempranillo.

Marqués de Murrieta,

A private tour of the bodega culminates with lunch paired to premium wines.

Laguardia, a medieval hilltop town ringed by stone walls and ramparts. 

The interior labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets twists around ancient Roman ruins and Renaissance churches before opening out onto the Balcón de Rioja for spectacular views across hillsides laced with vineyards.