During our honeymoon in Spain, my husband and I spent a day in Rueda. We love verdejo wines and wanted to see where they came from. During the time, we wanted to tour one of the wineries. Because our Spanish is not exceptional, we wanted to do the tour in English. We e-mail many wineries and several were able to accommodate us but Hermanos del Villar was the first to reply, so we arranged a visit with them.
I think this tour was smaller and more personal than we would have gotten from a winery that promotes their tours more. These guys don't mention anything about wine tourism on their website, but were happy to help us when we e-mailed. I communicated with Pablo, the president of the winery. However, he had a meeting when we arrived so Guillermo (the winemaker) took us on the tour. He showed us the casks and explained the process of making the wine, and we got to see the bottling machines in action. We also got to taste three different wines (the Oro de Castilla verdejo and sauvignon blanc as well as a sweet, sparking verdejo that was quite innovative). The tour and the tasting were both free. Seriously. We asked how much it was and they said it was free, so of course we bought three bottles of wine. The tour and the tasting took about an hour.
There are a lot of wineries in Rueda that seem to offer some excellent tours. I didn't get to see any of them so I can't compare, but I'd highly recommend Hermanos del Villar for a very cool and personal tour of a winery. read more