If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR213.64), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Turning water into wine, or as close as with its River Ebro and vineyard views, Hotel Santa María Briones feels like a modern day miracle by any oenophile’s stretch of the imagination – here you’ll split your time between the bottle-packed subterranean cellar and the library-style wine bar. The 16 bedrooms tally with the manor’s 16th-century origins, which have been transformed into soothing spaces sealed in original stone walls and set beneath darkly-painted wooden beams. Tuck into more-ish tapas dishes while seated at dimly-lit dining tables, soaking up the extensive wine list which celebrates La Rioja’s producing prowess. This sun-drenched corner of Spain enjoys an unhurried pace, so you can take your time vineyard-hopping, meandering along mountain trails, and picnicking on pinchos in bottle-green valleys.
Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £201.35 (€235), including tax at 10 per cent.
More details
Rates include a continental buffet breakfast with à la carte eggs, plus home-baked bread and pastries, and freshly gathered fruit from local orchards.
Also
All the common areas and one of the Deluxe rooms are wheelchair-friendly.
Hotel closed
The property closes for a short stint throughout January and February each year.
At the hotel
Reading room, wine cellar, gym, charged laundry service, plug adaptors, and free WiFi. In rooms: smart TV, air-conditioning, L’Occitane bath products, bathrobe and slippers, and minibar.
Our favourite rooms
Whichever room you choose, you’ll awaken to relaxing natural hues and period details which are given pride of place, whether it be a sloping ceiling or a stone-wall headboard. As the hotel’s stand-alone suite, room 21 should get special mention. Named after the region’s ancient inhabitants, the Berones Suite is split over two levels with its own lounge and direct access to the manor’s main balcony. Though repeat guests will tell you that room 33 is the one to book, for its extra exclusivity on the top floor and outrageously good views. You can even spot the castle of San Vicente de la Sonsierra on a clear day.
Spa
The gym is free. The machines include a bicycle, running machine, gym weights, a bench, toning machine, and towels.
Packing tips
Every room comes with at least three wardrobes, which means you can pack as much winery-appropriate finery as you please. Bringing an extra suitcase for all those bottles of – you guessed it – Rioja also wouldn’t go amiss.
Also
To really drink in the hotel’s history, take a seat beside the 11th-century aljibe, a medieval well which once held the town’s water.
Although not strictly ‘adults only’, the hotel is aimed at children aged 12 and over.
Sustainability efforts
Food miles matter all the more when you’re perched on a hill. The Rioja-born chef makes full use of nature’s larder to keep the restaurant’s carbon footprint to a minimum while supporting the local supply chain, sourcing his ingredients straight from the surrounding orchards and vineyards. The house was also restored using only regional materials, and it runs sustainably, with motion-detecting LED lights, air-purifiers, reduced plastics and eco-friendly products.
When it’s not groaning under the weight of the generous breakfast buffet, the table known as El Reservado is available for private dinners in the former grape pressing room. Or ask to be seated in the candlelit cellar for more clandestine conversations.
Dress Code
Don your darkest attire in case of any spillages, with some trusty flats to navigate the cobblestones.
Hotel restaurant
Come to Allegar restaurant with a hearty appetite and a glass-half-full – or even ‘full’ – attitude. The eatery takes its name from an old Riojanism ‘to gather’, which translates more rough and readily here as piling up your plate with slabs of grilled meat as thick as the stone walls. Chef Juan Cuesta is a Rioja native, who puts ancestral recipes on a plate with a generous dollop of his Michelin-starred training, and takes pride in the provenance of his ingredients. The carefully prepared courses change with the seasons – but the honeyed, crispy lamb on sweet potato cream and panko breadcrumbs usually stays on the menu year-round by popular demand. Or venture down the rock-hewn stairs to Calado restaurant, where simplicity speaks volumes through rustic yet refined dishes in the darkly atmospheric setting of an ancient cave.
Hotel bar
Most guests simply help themselves to the cellar’s stockpile, but there are a few stools discreetly tucked into the hotel’s reading room if you’d like to taste en el bar. Cold meats, coffee, and cocktails can also be savoured out on the patio, against the weathered backdrop of the old town wall.
Last orders
Allegar serves lunch from Tuesday to Sunday between 1.30pm and 3pm, and dinner on Fridays and Saturdays from 8pm to 10pm. Calado is closed on Friday and Saturday, but is otherwise open for lunch from 1.30pm to 3pm and dinner from 8pm to 10pm.
Room service
Breakfast in your room is a must when the views are best enjoyed from bed. Simply dial down to reception and your wish is their command.
Don’t let Hotel Santa María Briones’ hilltop setting and medieval defences put you off – the vineyard-encircled, walled town of Briones is surprisingly accessible and utterly charming with a lost-to-time feel.
Planes
Domestic travellers can opt for the smaller airports of Logroño–Agoncillo, which is half an hour’s drive, or Vitoria (an hour by car), but most international arrivals will fly into Bilbao or Madrid. The hotel can help to arrange transfers, which are lengthier (allow up to three hours from Madrid) but rewardingly scenic.
Trains
Haro is just a 10-minute drive from the hotel, and is served by direct trains from Bilbao-Abando. Transfers can be arranged from €20 one-way.
Automobiles
Though we wouldn’t normally recommend getting behind the wheel in wine country, a car will place La Rioja’s crumbling castles, monastery-dotted mountains, and wineries within easy reach (sorry, designated drivers). The hotel has four private parking spaces (for €30 a night) with a Tesla charger for e-vehicles.
Worth getting out of bed for
La Rioja most certainly is wine country, which means tours and tastings are the most popular time-passers for red-loving visitors and locals alike. Right on Hotel Santa María Briones’ doorstep, the Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture delves into all things oenological with something to suit every taste - ancient drinking vessels stand on display alongside agricultural tools and grape-centric artworks which peel back layer after well-balanced layer of Spain’s fermentation fascination. Save time for a stroll through the museum’s Garden of Bacchus, a mighty fine vine collection of over 220 grape varieties from around the world. To truly take a step back in time, hop aboard a horse-drawn carriage in one of nearby Haro’s wineries to clip-clop your way up and down the vines, learning about the harvesting from sun-kissed farmers as you go. Should you time your visit for mid-June, be sure to set your watch back six centuries or so as the entire town of Briones will be dressed head-to-toe in traditional costumes to celebrate Medieval Day. Come for the bustling bodegas, stay for the sword-brandishing knights.
Local restaurants
You need not live off a liquid diet in La Rioja, for the region’s culinary offering is as robust as its wine-making. Many of the wineries serve accompanying small plates of local meats and cheeses, but for more of a sit-down affair there are a few fine-dining establishments to take note of. The brotherly love of Ignacio and Carlos Echapresto is poured into every flavour-packed dish at Venta Moncalvillo, where the family recipe book has been written using handpicked, seasonal ingredients from the restaurant’s orchard and vegetable garden nestled into the northern slopes of Sierra Moncalvillo. For almost-too-pretty-to-eat platos, reserve a table at Michelin-starred Marqués de Riscal - each course is daintily presented and delivers on both style and substance.
Local bars
We could wax lyrical about the wine-based watering holes in and around Briones, but you won’t go far wrong by simply stumbling into the first bar or bodega you come across. For lively evenings in Logroño, the atmosphere at Wine Fandango is as upbeat as its name suggests. It all starts with some rather civilised toe-tapping, but you’ll soon be on your feet dancing with your bar stool neighbour after knocking back a wine flight, or two.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this artfully revived manor house in Spain and unpacked their Rioja stained coasters and corkscrews, a full account of their grape-picking break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Santa María Briones in La Rioja…
Wining and dining is likely to be on the menu for most guests who rest their grape-stomping feet at Hotel Santa María Briones, a family-run restoration project which has been centuries in the making – and whose spirit has been aged to perfection. Quite literally leaning into its 400-year history, this heritage-steeped manor house is still in part held up by one of the 11th-century town walls which hems in the property’s olive-scented courtyard. With the blessing of Don Ángel, the local parish priest, the hotel has borrowed its name from the neighbouring Briones church. Its honey-hued bell tower can be seen (and heard, most delightfully chiming) from many of the minimalist rooms, where oh-so-thick stone walls frame far-reaching views across the vines and River Ebro’s swirling waters. You can also recline, Roman emperor style, to get an even greater glimpse through the low-level windows, which means the vineyard-vistas are best appreciated from bed - all king-size, naturally.
The views aren’t the only thing you’ll want to lie down for, as your head might be feeling a little fuzzy from Rioja-fuelled antics in the hotel’s underground wine cellar. If you don’t fancy stumbling up all the stone staircases, sink-into sofas surround a flickering fireplace in the ground-floor reading room, which also doubles as a bar if the night is still young – and here it ages as languidly as a fine wine.
