Last Wednesday we took a trip to the museum at the Bodegas
Dinastía Vivanco in Briones. The 45-minute bus ride through the Riojan scenery wonderful. It also helped that the bus driver found us an English radio station filled with more than enough Shakira, Call Me Maybes, and Justin Beiber to last us a lifetime. (I did find
it slightly amusing that the driver temporarily changed stations during every
other Adele song. I guess we can’t all be fans. ;) )
The vineyard was beyond beautiful. Age-old vineyards
sprinkled with old monasteries and cobblestone pathways: I’m convinced that you
can’t find a more European town in all of La Rioja.
The first half of the tour consisted of a visit to the
vineyard’s museum. Making wine is a delicate science, and the “cultured and
refined” part of me wanted to seriously study every detail of the process.
However, the kid in me won out, and I spent more time gawking at the glass
blowing movie and dying of intense boredom than I did trying to
decipher the detailed Spanish descriptions by all of the farm tools. I was half tempted to lie on the floor
and play dead at one point but was quickly saved by a smelling game meant for kids in the corner of one of the last rooms. The sliding door in the bathroom also proved
mildly entertaining. That’s about it.
After we were finally freed from the museum, we got a tour
of the underground holding facilities for the wine. There were endless rows of
perfectly formed barrels stacked in perfect triangles. The lighting dimly showcased
barrel sets of nine. It was deathly quiet and our classy mouse-of-a-guide fit
the magical dugout perfectly. (I’m convinced that it would have been the
perfect place for a Harry Potter duel.)
At the end of our tours we had the opportunity to try some
of the wine. There were about seven of us who don’t drink alcohol, so the tour
guide kindly presented us with glasses of mosto. To keep it simple, mosto is
fancy grape juice. I can honestly say that I like the grape juice from the tiny
vine in my backyard better than the world’s best mosto. Oh well. It’s all about
the experience, right?
After we awkwardly drank our mosto from fancy wine glass,
they released us to play on the playground shaped like a bunch of grapes.
Childhood will always be fun. After taking a few pictures, we called it a day
and headed back to Logroño. It wasn’t the most exciting afternoon of my life,
but I think I survived it well enough.
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| Like I said...we enjoy playing around a bit. ;) |
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