Sitting in the main square in Haro it occurs to me: I’ve been getting gin and tonics wrong my whole life. Not that I’ve had that many, probably because I was always getting them wrong.
My grandmother stayed with us a lot when I was young. She wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house, so most evenings she sat in the garden, a lit Benson & Hedges in one hand, gin and tonic in the other. Desperate to annoy my parents, I’d join her. Unlit Benson & Hedges in one hand, lemonade in the other. And because she was the kind of grandmother who thought it was totally fine to encourage her granddaughter to suck on a cigarette and dramatically exhale imaginary smoke into the night air, she wasn’t averse to sharing her drink. Heavy on gin, deflated tonic, no ice. In desperate times, a spritz of Jif* in lieu of fresh lemon. It was bitter and tasted metallic and made my tongue want to turn in on itself.
* The plastic bottle shaped like a citrus fruit came out every pancake day and, having squirted someone in the eye, was placed back into the cupboard ready for next year.
At university, G&T was seen as sophisticated. A sign you’d graduated from house parties fuelled by Archers and lemonade or Malibu and pineapple. That you’d left those saccharine-sweet JD and coke days behind. Gin and tonic said pre-theatre. It meant party preparations and evenings filled with entertainment and effervescence. But however you dress it up, the student bar always mixed the same sub-standard serve as my gran. The craft gin boom of the 2010s did change things – glasses got bigger, ice more plentiful – but by that point, I only had aperitif eyes for negronis.
Anyway, it’s 2022 and we’re continuing our tour of northern Spain. We’ve got two nights at Apartments Turisticos Beethoven in Haro and are ready to swap vermouth in Navarra for wine in La Rioja. But before we go bodega-hopping, we’re sitting in the main square. The evening is warm and we can’t stop sneezing because of all the poplar dust that’s floating around. Several old apartment blocks are covered in scaffolding, their old wooden box windows being stripped and sanded and painted a brilliant white. We want something thirst-quenching and refreshing and decide to order gin and tonics. A bottle of MG Gin and a balloon-shaped Copa glass filled with ice and curls of lemon and lime peel is brought to the table on a tray. The guy pours and pours and I feel like it would be reckless not to tell him to stop with the gin but I do appreciate the generous approach. Everything is swirling and sparkling, the ice cubes crack and clash and catch the light, and my mouth is watering. It’s the best gin and tonic ever.
Onto the wines and our friend at Ochoa in Navarra put us onto these two: Miguel Merino in Briones where a husband-and-wife team oversee the production of around 50,000 bottles a year (anything under 0.5 million bottles is considered small by Rioja standards). They’ve been up all night with their kids but happily show us around. Here bottles are turned by hand and one new barrel is introduced each year – probably from Wisconsin as they prefer its ‘spicy vanilla’ as opposed to the ‘Haagen-Daz vanilla’ of Bordeaux.
We buy a few bottles – he can’t spare much with international orders stacking up – and drive over to meet Bárbara Palacios of Barbarot at her warehouse. It’s more industrial than Migeul’s stone farmhouse, but just as welcoming. There’s also a huge dog – Puppy – who appears on several wine labels alongside the premium Palacio range, so we head to the vineyards for him to let off some steam.
We hear about hand-labelling with friends and family and how the plot of land almost left the family before Babara’s father intervened. She tell us she’s making a white for the first time this year and as Puppy pads around she checks the tight little clusters of grapes growing under the watchful eye of a statue that marks the starting point of San Asensio’s annual wine battle. The summer has been so hot, the herbs that are usually planted between the rows of merlot have been dug up – the vines don’t need any more roots competing for their much-needed water.
Our circular route takes us past the fancy Bodega Ysios in Laguardia and we spot shell-shaped signs pointing the way to the Camino do Santiago pilgrimage walk. When it’s time to eat, we head to Logrono where the bars lining Calle del Laurel specialise in just one type of pintxos. Like Bar Soriano which serves garlic mushrooms and Torrecilla’s seared foie gras. We stand at a serving hatch while a man puts together toothpick spears of olives, pickled hot peppers, raw onions and boquerones. Tangy, tart and vinegary – and perfectly accompanied by chilled red wine.
Ok, we didn’t get to as many wineries as we had hoped, but it was a good start. If we had more time we would have gone to some of the places the girls at our beloved Veraison Wines on Camberwell Church Street suggested – namely Bodega Akutain in Haro, Hacienda López de Haro near Miguel’s place and Bodega Torre de Oña near Laguardia. And, if you do want to dig deeper, Jason Wilson at the fabulous Everyday Drinking is about to release a guide to La Rioja for paid subscribers. Recommend.
Finally, when you are not bar-crawling in Logrono or wine sampling throughout the region, grab a table at Restaurante Terete in Haro – it’s a roast lamb institution that’s been running since the 1870s.
Read about the first part of our northern Spain road trip through Navarra and watch out for part three as we head west to the cathedral cities of Burgos and Leon.