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Around Logroño, the Rioja region unfurls its vineyards along the valleys, bathed in sunshine. The wines, mainly reds, are a delight to the palate. Over the last thirty years or so, golf courses have sprung up where vines were out of place in the limestone subsoil. It's enough to attract epicureans to Spain's smallest region to discover its charms, with a club in one hand and a glass in the other!
To the north of Logroño, Izki Golf, Spain's 1st public golf course, designed by Severiano Ballesteros, has taken over the 98 hectares of a property where a virus was compromising the crops.
In 1994, the herald of Spanish golf found here a field of expression where his sense of the game favoured wide fairways lined with oak trees, even if a few pitfalls added to the challenge, such as on the 13th where ditches cut the track several times. A huge pond, in play on the par 3 17th, is very useful as a watering reserve. The undulating terrain adds rhythm to the game, while on the horizon, two cracks in the rock give a Solutré look to the upper Izki valley, a natural park where walking and mountain biking complement the sporting activities.
Between Burgos and Logroño, surrounded by the peaks of the Sierras de la Demanda and La Decollada, where you can ski in winter, the Rioja Alta Golf Club boasts 72 hectares of gently rolling terrain surrounded by vineyards, a graphic backdrop to snow-capped peaks. Some holes approach a forest of hundred-year-old oaks to shelter their greens in the shade of the foliage that visually separates the design into two parts.
Otherwise, the layout designed by Enrique Saenger in 2004 unfurls wide fairways in a plain slightly modulated by the architect. Eight water hazards disrupt play between holes 8 and 14, providing a comfortable clubhouse at the end of the round. Combining wood, steel and glass in a futuristic harmony, this elegant building faces the 18th green, against a backdrop of sierras.
La Rioja, a first-rate wine region, saw the birth of Golf Club Sojuela in 2006, some fifteen kilometres south of Logroño. On undulating terrain, Severiano Ballesteros designed a technical layout, more suited to ball handlers. It was a successful gamble in this forest of oaks and pines dominating the peaks of the Pyrenees. With a fairly tight outward stretch and a more airy return, the design offers a great variety of play between the trees and the slopes, where golf carts are very welcome.
Bordering the greens on 12 and 18, the course's only water feature keeps the course green in summer. The clubhouse, with its very contemporary decor, overlooks the valley from its shady terrace, where fine bottles are waiting to be uncorked...
Opened in 2003, Golf Club Logroño, designed by Marco Martin in the heart of the 500-hectare Parc de la Grajera, quickly established a solid reputation thanks - or because! - of hole 4, a par 5 618 metres long, the longest hole in Spain and one of the world records. Apart from this protrusion where you just have to take your time to reach the green on a slight dogleg left, the layout is pleasant with lots of bunkers as on the 5th, 10th and 15th.
Some very pronounced doglegs, such as 7, 12 and 18, can confuse visitors, although the sketches at the start of the holes guide players on the right path... In 2008, Miguel Angel Jiménez drew inspiration from the booklet to score a 60 at the Spanish Pro Championship. Fifteen years later, this score remains the course record. And with good reason!
Discover
In 2019, La Rioja was awarded the "Golf Destination to Discover" label by the International Association of Golf Travel Writers. Did tasting the best grape varieties influence their vote? Not at all... La Rioja, around Logroño, has plenty to offer golfers, gourmets and wine lovers alike. In fact, all three criteria are often grouped under the same silhouette, that of an epicurean, someone who enjoys the pleasures of life.
Behind its ramparts, which protected it in the past, Logroño has preserved its old stones, a heritage often squatted by the town's first tourists, the storks, who take advantage of the pleasant winter climate here to see their young grow up before long journeys. If there is a tradition of good food in this country, it is due to the siege of the town in 1521 by the French armies! Francis I and General Lesparre's troops laid siege to the town, and the entrenched inhabitants stocked up on flour, fished in the Ebro, the river that flows through the town, and drank bottles of wine from their cellars to accompany meals and forget the anguish of the attackers. The town held out until the arrival of the Castilian troops...
Every year, around 11 June, on Saint Barnabas' Day, a large festival commemorates the event at the foot of the Porte de Revellin, with bread, fish and wine, lots of wine. The rest of the year, in the shade of the narrow streets, under the arcades where theabuelitas chat with their girlfriends, the calados await you to taste the best Rioja grape varieties.
On 21 September, on San Mateo day, the grape harvest festival, it's "vino a gogo"... In the centre of Logroño, in Calle San Juan and Calle del Laurel, one tapas bar follows another. Here you can munch on pintxos without hunger - or should I say, without end! - while excellent wines at reasonable prices accompany jamón serrano and tortilla de patatas into the night.
On the way out of town, in the heart of Rioja Alavesa, between olive groves, wheat fields and vineyards as far as the eye can see, some fine family-run and more structured wineries await you to sample their wines. In the village of Eltziego, the famous Marqués de Riscal winery is undoubtedly the best-known, looking like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. It's true that this extraordinary place is also the work of Franck Gehry, the famous American-Canadian architect and father of the museum. Bodega Murua also produces great wines for laying down, reds with powerful, complex aromas that go well with stewed meats.
A little further on, in Laguardia, one of Spain's most beautiful villages, the wine cellars line the main street. The Eguren Ugarte winery, founded in 1870 by the owner's grandfather, is emblematic of this valley where nature is so generous. Here you can taste wine, of course, but also vintage olive oil, of which the family is very proud.
In the heart of Logroño, Bodega y Viñedo Arizcuren has set up its winery in town, a way of being as close as possible to its customers and their expectations, even though its vineyards are located in the Sierra de Yerga, in eastern Rioja. On the road to Pamplona, just outside Logroño, Bodega Viña Ijalba is the first organic winery in La Rioja. It uses old grape varieties, with low yields but such subtle flavours. As Dionisio Ruiz Ijalba, the 85-year-old patriarch who created his vineyards with his own hands, says: "Today's wines are born from yesterday's grape varieties...". A concept that fits in well with golf and wine tourism, with courses and vintages to be enjoyed without moderation! And all year round...
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