López de Heredia Viña Tondonia

Haro's Barrio de la Estación packs its historic bodegas into a few hundred metres, and López de Heredia is the one that changed least. Wine Spectator calls it the most tradition-bound and least changed house in Rioja. Zoltan Nagy, a Rioja specialist quoted by SevenFifty Daily, says the estate's higher Garnacha proportion "creates a lighter body and gives their reds a very unique, very specific style". The Traditional Rioja Bodega Crawl in Haro walks the district.

A counter, not a tasting room. The visits page of Bodegas López de Heredia states that the winery is open for professionals by appointment, that it is closed during harvest season, and that tastings are not available. Wine is sold to the public Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 15:30, and a reservation is required. The DOCa Rioja Consejo Regulador lists a store and a gallery on site, in Spanish, English and French, with groups capped at ten.

Avoid the harvest. Bodegas López de Heredia is closed during harvest season, and the house does not publish the calendar dates, so anyone travelling in early autumn should confirm by telephone before setting out. Holidays are closed as well. Wine sales run Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 15:30, which leaves Sunday visitors to Avda. de Vizcaya looking at the outside of the building, and a reservation is required on the six days the counter opens.

Avda. de Vizcaya, 3, 26200 Haro, La Rioja. Telephone +34 941 310 244; bodega@lopezdeheredia.com. Wine sales to the public run Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 15:30, closed on holidays, reservation required (July 2026). The winery itself is open for professionals by appointment and closed during harvest season. Bodegas López de Heredia does not publish a visit or tasting price, and its visits page states that tastings are not available. The DOCa Rioja Consejo Regulador caps visiting groups at ten.

Bodegas López de Heredia stands at Avda. de Vizcaya, 3, in Haro's Barrio de la Estación, the cluster of bodegas that grew up beside the railway station. Bilbao, Vitoria and Logroño airports are all within about an hour by the AP-68 motorway, with Logroño 45 km away and Bilbao 100 km. Bodegas Muga sits on the same avenue and CVNE a short walk further.

Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia has occupied Avda. de Vizcaya in Haro since around 1877, when Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta began building it after following French négociants into Rioja. The house calls it the oldest bodega in Haro and one of the first three in the Rioja region. Four generations and 149 years later it still ferments in wooden vats and holds its Gran Reservas ten years in barrel. It sits in Rioja Alta.

Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta built his bodega at Haro from around 1877, after French buyers came south to replace harvests lost to oidium in 1863 and phylloxera in 1867. The Barrio de la Estación association records his as the district's first surviving house, with CVNE following in 1879. Wine Spectator qualifies the superlative: Marqués de Riscal and Marqués de Murrieta both date to the 1850s, making López de Heredia the oldest in Haro, not in Rioja.

Viña Tondonia covers over 100 hectares on the right bank of the Ebro, between 438 and 489 metres, inside an estate Spanish Wine Lover puts at 170 hectares of vineyard alongside Viña Cubillo, Viña Bosconia and Viña Zaconia. Every bottle López de Heredia sells comes from that land. Wine Spectator reports the family replanting with more Graciano against rising growing-season temperatures, and parcels left fallow up to fourteen years before replanting.

Bodegas López de Heredia publishes its own free walking route through Viña Tondonia, one to two hours on foot. It leaves on the old mediaeval road that ran to the Basque Country, crosses the Briñas bridge, and passes the Panteón de los Liberales cross marking seven deaths in the fight against the Carlistas on 13 March 1834. The vines along it are trained gobelet, not trellised, which is how the house says its parcels are told apart.