Many of us have no idea what Vinotherapy is. I for one, imagined myself sprawled out on a chez lounge in the middle of a dimly lit cellar. While my therapist listened attentively to my emotional rollercoaster ride of the day, she would compassionately nod her head while pouring my glass full of Gran Reserva held firmly in my own hand, a tissue to wipe away my tears held firm in the other. I then wondered if vinotherapy described a new magical wine that can cure all of my fears and frustrations. A wine so astounding that with little sip, I’d be healed, spending my newfound days with happy grin pasted on my face. Unfortunately, neither of my theories were accurate, however, I wasn’t far from the mark either.

Although there is no one agreed upon definition of vinotherapy, Robert McIntosh of The Wine Conversation has a fabulous definition in his article on Vinotherapy:

Wine Therapy (Oenotherapy, Vino Terapia, … etc.) claims to take the health benefits of wine to a new level by slapping them on your face, rubbing them on your skin or reducing them to a pill format that you can swallow without having to swirl.

This is the crème de la crème luxury for wine lovers. It takes your adoration of wine to a whole new level as you both sip and bath in your favorite Cabernet Sauvignon, caress your baby smooth skin after a Chardonnay exfoliant or sigh in relaxation as grape pulp oil is delicately rubbed into your previously rigid muscles.

However, prior to this year, I was ignorant to such extravagances. I figured wine should ideally be aimed inside the mouth, rather than all over my body. But by the beginning of January, my …

I’ll be the first to admit that I can only take so much wine while on a business trip. After awhile, my eyes glaze over and I feel an intense craving to either down a gin and tonic, or at the very least, stay as far as humanly possible from a fermentation tank. And god forbid if I actually start dreaming about wine, like having the winemaker lecturing me on whether one should place a single row of grapes in a bin during harvest or two. Then, there is that one nightmare where I’m chained to a long wooden table adhering labels to each bottle as a raspy female voice sounds over a speaker, “You now have 981,872 labels remaining…you now have 981,871 labels remaining… Yeah, that’s when you know that you’ve visited one too many wineries in a day!

However, over the years, I have realized that it is not so much wine that I tire of, but it’s the way in which I am enjoying it. Sitting in a tasting room with a notebook in hand and my glasses propped low on my nose, a potentially remarkable wine loses its magic. It becomes something sterile and empty, one of the millions. Something I analyze and critique with the winemaker anxiously sitting in front of me wondering if I am giving his liquid child an “A” for stellar quality or an “F” for pure plonk. And when scheduling three wineries a day, this process can get tedious rather quickly.

Hence, on our last trip to Rioja, we decided to start incorporating new ways in which we could enjoy Spanish wine, rather than solely in restaurants, cafes or …

Having just walked into our hotel five minutes ago as the clock struck 9:30pm, I feel like a decade has slipped through our fingers. Over the past three days traveling throughout Rioja, we’ve seen one of the oldest and most traditional; one of the newest and most technologically advanced; one of the smallest yet productive; one of the most extravagant and luxurious; one of the most the quirky and inexplicable; and one of the most intriguing wineries in Rioja. And it’s not to say there haven’t been similarities from one bodega to the next, but the diversity we’ve experienced has been outstanding in everything from their philosophy of winemaking to their definition of a Rioja wine.

First, allow me to give you the general breakdown of what we’ve experienced since Monday morning. We began our week with a short, but informative, tour of Bodegas Tobia, producing wines from the humble setting of their garage. This was followed by lovely visit to Haro, where we ogled the wind swept sandstone buildings, ate a simple lunch of hamburger stuffed red peppers, patatas riojanas, white asparagus in a white sauce and lamb chops with roasted potatoes and red peppers, and discussed Ryan’s family tree, which passed through this area five centuries ago. As the fog rolled in come early evening, we arrived to Lopez de Heredia, where we took a two hour tour with the public relations manager, Lidia Zanzar, followed by an additional two hour wine tasting with one of the many family heirs to the bodega, Maria Jose Lopez de Heredia. Content and on information-overload, we ended the evening in our hotel room eating a simple salad and sandwich from some crazy German chain called, …