Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Spanish Vacation: Day Five Continued

Day Five Continued..

After lunch, we stopped at the Dinastia Vivanco, the Museum of the Culture of Wine. This is a huge place, maybe the largest wine museum in the world. The museum contains exhibits about all aspects of wine from its ancient roots to its place in art. There are artifacts that extend back thousands of years as well as more modern ones. Throughout the museums are short films about wine topics. The film on creating wine barrels was particularly interesting. They also have a large exhibit of corkscrews. You cannot believe how many different corkscrews they have. Several hundred, at least. It is simply amazing. You could probably spend an entire day exploring this museum and I do recommend that if you are in the area to stop by for a visit.


This was an interesting sculpture located outside the museum.

The museum also has their own winery and they make two wines, the Dinastia Vivanco Reserva and a Crianza. The bottle was specially designed by the winery, based on a model dating from the 18th century. This design has even been registered and patented. You get a free taste of their Crianza upon exiting the exhibit halls. You can also get tours of the winery.


Outside of the museum, they have a garden area where they have rows of grapevines, with a diverse selection of grapes. These are more to exhibit the different grapes than to use to make wine. Definitely check out this museum.

After the museum, we made a brief stop at Marques de Riscal winery. This winery has created a "City of Wine." This is a new complex designed by the renowned architect, Frank Gehry, who designed the Guggenheim Museum. This new facility has a hotel, restaurant, spa, meeting halls and more.

This is certainly an unusual looking building.

We had a drink in the bar. I enjoy the Marques de Riscal wines and have for a long time. the picture below was taken in the bar.

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