Just beyond the expanse of glass windows at the Castillo El Collado, a historically rich luxury hotel in the city of La Rioja in northern Spain, a blazing orange ball of a sun slips behind the mountains and a violet haze descends upon the valley.
Time is relative here, and the hours of the day are delineated by sensory impressions. Morning is the smell of freshly baked bread and the crow of a rooster; afternoon, the feel of the broiling sun on one's back; nighttime, the sound of clicking castanets and the silky taste of a rich red wine.
Nowhere is this timelessness more apparent than in La Rioja. The smallest of Spain's 17 regions, La Rioja attracted, at various times, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, Muslims and Christians, all of whom left their mark.
Lying in the shadows of the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates Spain from France, La Rioja is split in two: Rioja Alta (Upper Rioja) is mountainous and humid, while Rioja Baja (Lower Rioja) is flat and has a Mediterranean climate. But the two have one thing in common - together, they constitute Spain's most prolific wine-producing region.
Here, in the basin of the River Ebro, in an area 130km long and 50km wide, are 500 wineries, or as they are known in Spain, bodegas. Upper and Lower Rioja, along with adjacent Rioja Alavesa in the Basque country, have been producing Spain's premier (mostly) red wines since the Middle Ages when monks doubled as the first winemakers.
La Rioja's bodegas are not always available to tourists who just happen by. Many are open by appointment only, and a visit requires some previous knowledge and planning, especially if you require an English-speaking guide. But for those determined to stop and sip, a few bodegas are open to the public on a regular basis. Bodegas Muga, located near the city of Haro in Upper Rioja, is perhaps the best known, although Bodegas Palacio and Bodegas Ontanon in Lower Rioja are also worth a visit.