Wine Architecture in Spain's Rioja Álavesa: A Guide to Avant-Garde Bodegas

The Rioja Álavesa region in Spain has become a destination for architecture enthusiasts, featuring works by starchitects Frank O. Gehry, Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, Philippe Mazières, Iñaki Aspiazu, and Aurelio Ibarrondo. The area, with only 12,000 inhabitants and 400 wineries, blends viticulture with cutting-edge design. Gehry's Marqués de Riscal hotel (2006) is a titanium-clad Luxury Collection Hotel with 61 rooms and 10 suites. Calatrava's Ysios winery (2001) features a wave-like wooden roof and water basins. Mazières' Viña Real (2004) is a circular structure inaugurated by King Juan Carlos. Aspiazu's Baigorri (2002) is a seven-story underground gravity-flow winery with a glass and steel pavilion, featured in SFMOMA's exhibition "How wine became modern." Hadid designed a pavilion for López de Heredia Viña Tondonia in Haro, protecting a modernist stand from the 1910 Brussels Expo. The Hotel Viura in Villabuena de Álava, by Beatríz Pérez Echazarreta of MUP Arquitectos, uses stacked cubes and sustainable biomass heating. Other notable bodegas include Luis Cañas, Ostatu, Altos de Rioja, and Lozano. The region also boasts the Romanesque-Gothic portico of Santa Maria de los Reyes in Laguardia.