Hi Everyone,
I am back with our impressions on the winery tour.
In the end we took a tour of the
Marques de Riscal Bodega in Rueda. It was by pure chance that we were able to tour it due to a huge mistake on my part.
Marques de Riscal has two bodegas, one in Logroño and one in Rueda. I thought I had called the one in Rueda to make tour reservations but unbeknownst to me I had called the Logroño bodega. When we showed up at the bodega in Rueda, they were completely surprised as they don't normally offer tours and aren't really set up to do so. Turns out that the bodega in Logroño is a huge touristic complex complete with hotel, spa, etc. What we saw in Rueda was just a small winery.
The personnel in Rueda, realizing the mistake that I had made, were immediately accomodating and got ahold of the enologist who happened to be on site. He was more than happy to give us the tour (in Spanish, I translated for my family) and then at the end we were able to sample the wines produced there.
It's a small world as the enologist is very good friends with my husband's cousin and was actually going to have dinner with her and her husband that night. Furthermore, it turns out that the personnel working in reception and running the bodega are distant relatives of my husband!
We bought several bottles of wine there for a great discount (and then the family discount on top!
).
My family was very very impressed by the accomodating and personal attention that we received (even before the family connection was discovered). There were parts of the bodega that were not accessible by wheelchair but my mother enjoyed the tour all the same.
If anyone has any specific questions about our experience, I would be more than happy to answer them.