Marqués de Riscal

The history of Marqués de Riscal begins in 1858, when Camilo Hurtado de Amézaga, Marqués de Riscal, founded the first Rioja winery following Bordeaux winemaking techniques learned in France. For over a century, the winery pioneered the region, from introducing French oak barrels to the extended aging that defined the Rioja style. In 2006, the winery took a visionary turn by commissioning Frank Gehry to create a building that would redefine wine tourism in Spain, thus giving birth to the City of Wine and the hotel that now crowns the vineyards of Elciego.

Frank Gehry accepted the commission to design the hotel because wine connected him to childhood memories in Toronto, where his grandfather distilled spirits at home. The architect saw in the project an opportunity to explore that sensory memory through architecture. The undulating titanium ribbons are not whimsical: the pink evokes the color of wine, the gold the capsule of Marqués de Riscal bottles, and the silver the nets that protect the vines from birds. The building seems to float above the vineyards, supported by columns that mimic the shoots of the vines.

Elciego is a village of barely a thousand inhabitants where time seems to stand still among vineyards and century-old wineries. La Rioja Alavesa, with its privileged climate between the Sierra de Cantabria and the Ebro, produces some of the most prized wines in the world. A few kilometers away, Laguardia preserves its walled medieval layout with cellars excavated beneath the houses, while nearby Haro houses the great Rioja wine houses in its Station District. It is a landscape that has been shaped for centuries by wine culture, where every hill and every valley has its own name.