Unlike Napa Valley or the Okanagan in BC, Spain is more difficult to do wine tastings in. Mostly you need to book a tasting time, but in Haro there are several tasting bars that you can just walk into. Our favourite was our first stop in town at Roda Winery. You can take your glass of wine down into the cellars and they have olive oil tastings as well.
I highly recommend a visit to Roda, they are welcoming and the wine is delicious withour being ridiculously expensive.
We also stopped at Muga Winery where they offer flights of wine. My favourite was the Muga Torre but at 50EUR, it is still sadly at the winery.
A little further east in Samaniego our next stop was Baigorri, interesting for both the wines, the tasting experience and the architecture
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Seven stories with a beautiful glass reception room at the top overlooking the vineyards and a magnificent tasting room at the bottom.
The tasting menu offers very good value for 35EUR there was 6 courses served with wines.
My first and favourite was the Crunchy salmon with trout caviar, aoili and dill oil.
The crunch was corn nuts. Sounds awful but the whole dish was amazing served with a Rose made from Tempranillo and Granacha was a perfect pairing.
This mushroom and puffed pastry with Idiazabal cheese cream with smoked paprika was delicious with the barrel fermented white wine.
I love beans and this stew with spicy peppers was perfect with a young red tempranillo.
I can't give say I loved the blood pudding with chutney but the presentation was very nice.
My table mates swore the following Iberic pork jowl slow cooked in Baigorri Carbonic Maceration was delicious and I tasted it. I think it was good but I just can't go over to the dark side at this time in life.
The pepper garnish was delicious and the Baigorri Crianza was a tasty wine.
Creamy creme caramel with blueberry sauce, ice cream and yoghurt was another hit. I loved the yoghurt but am not an ice cream fan. This one tasted like pure cream.
I'd recommend a visit to Baigorri.
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