Adventures in Spain: Tasting Navarra's Best Wines

During our week in Spain, we were invited to tour two of Navarra’s finest wineries.  Neither of us knew much of anything about wine other than how to empty a glass of it, so it was nice to take a closer look and see how wine is produced from start to finish.  The process is extensive: harvest and crush the grapes, fermentation, aging period, and finally bottling the wine to be sold.  The master of all things wine, or the "enologist," ultimately determines when the wine is in its peak form and ready to be bottled.

Both Otazu and Monjardin opened our eyes to the winemaking process and all of the TLC that goes into the creation of each bottle.  I'm typically not a fan of red wine, but I was converted after our samplings.  We really enjoyed all of the wines we had a chance to taste and will most definitely be looking out for them in the states!

We passed a beautiful field of sunflowers on the way to Otazu

 Otazu wine cellar

 Otazu

Amazing Otazu wines we sampled

Lovely Monjardin wines we sampled

  Entrance to the Monjardin winery

Señorío de Otazu s/n

31174 Etxauri, Navarra (Spain)

948 329 200

http://www.otazu.com/home.php/en

Castillo de Monjardin

Viña Rellanada s/n

Villamayor de Monjardin, Navarra (Spain)

+34 948 537 412

http://www.monjardin.es/