Marqués de Riscal

Three things sit inside one courtyard at Elciego, and no other Rioja estate stacks them this way. La Botellería, the bottle cellar inside the 1860 building, holds over 130,000 bottles running back to the 1862 vintage. A Frank Gehry hotel stands directly above them. And World's Best Vineyards ranked Riscal first in the world in 2024, a place Catena Zapata held in 2023.

Visits to Marqués de Riscal start at the Plaza del Reloj, the square of the sundial, from which the estate's buildings can be read in sequence. Four tiers are published. Riscal 1 runs 90 minutes with three wines and Rioja chorizo and sausage. Riscal 2 and Riscal 3 run 1 hour 45 minutes, pour older bottlings, and are closed to under-18s. For a step-by-step visit, see Marqués de Riscal City of Wine.

Marqués de Riscal publishes no closure months: the City of Wine is listed as open Monday to Sunday year-round. Tour availability is the thing that moves. The Sublimme visit is listed as running from 1 August, at €31 for adults. Guests staying at the hotel are told not to book visits through the website at all, but to arrange them with the booking department, so accommodation and tour dates need settling together.

The Marqués de Riscal City of Wine opens Monday to Sunday, 10:00 to 19:00. Tickets are sold online in advance. Riscal 1 costs €30 for adults, €14 ages 11–17 and €4 ages 3–10; Riscal 2 is €45 and Riscal 3 €60 per person, both over-18s only (July 2026). The booking centre answers on +34 945 180 888, Monday to Friday 09:00–19:00 and Saturday 09:00–17:00. Pets are not admitted except guide dogs.

Marqués de Riscal stands at C/Torrea 1, 01340 Elciego, in the province of Álava, at the heart of the medieval town. The winery switchboard is +34 945 60 60 00; visits are handled separately on +34 945 180 888. A combined ticket pairs the winery with the Añana Salt Valley, which the estate places 75 kilometres away — plan that as a full day, not an add-on.

Marqués de Riscal is a winery and hotel complex at Elciego, in Rioja Alavesa, founded in 1858 and still trading as Vinos de los Herederos del Marqués de Riscal. The estate calls the site its City of Wine: an original bodega built in 1860, the 1883 extension known as El Palomar, and a titanium-clad hotel by Frank O. Gehry inaugurated on 10 October 2006. Its Rioja vineyards run to 1,500 hectares.

Marqués de Riscal was founded in 1858; the house names its founder as Guillermo Hurtado de Amézaga. Construction of the original bodega began in 1860. The house dates its first bottled wines to 1862 and describes that release as the first Rioja wine ever bottled. In 1895, by the estate's record, it became the first non-French wine to win the diploma of honour at the Bordeaux exhibition — a diploma it then printed on the label.

The grapes for Marqués de Riscal's Rioja wines grow on 1,500 hectares spread between Elciego and neighbouring villages including Leza, Laguardia and Villabuena. The estate describes the soils as poor and chalky clay, sitting on terraces above the river Ebro. This part of Rioja Alavesa is known for wines built to age, which the house attributes to the high acidity and tannin structure of the musts. Tempranillo is the predominant variety.

The gold mesh that made Marqués de Riscal recognisable is being retired. In June 2024 the house announced it would stop using the netting on its Reserva, with the 2020 vintage the first release to go without — roughly 14 thousand kilos of brass wire a year. Gehry's roof still carries gold for that braid. Anyone wanting a netted Reserva should look for vintages before 2020 on the shelf.