Rueda, Siempre Que Puedo

A day trip from Madrid into the Rueda wine country of Castilla y León — home of Verdejo, Spain's great white grape — for a vineyard visit and a slow lunch or dinner of Castilian lamb. You're driven north from Madrid, two hours, to Pozaldez — a village in the heart of the Rueda appellation whose subsoil is honeycombed with more than a hundred underground wine cellars. A winemaker walks you through the vineyards, explaining how Verdejo is grown on this high, stony plateau. A Verdejo tasting follows. Then comes lechazo — milk-fed Castilian lamb, slow-roasted in a wood-fired clay oven — the Sunday-table centerpiece of Castilla y León, paired with the region's wine. The day is offered two ways: an 8 AM departure that arrives mid-morning and includes lunch, or a 4 PM departure that arrives in the afternoon light, with dinner. If you happen to be in Madrid marking a special occasion, this makes a memorable way to spend the day — a vineyard, a long meal, a beautiful setting, and good wine.

“Vino de Rueda bebo, siempre que puedo” — wine of Rueda I drink, whenever I can, says an old Castilian saying affectionately about Rueda. Verdejo has grown here since the 11th century, but phylloxera destroyed the vineyards in the late 1800s. In the 1970s a handful of winemakers reinvented it — fresh, cold-fermented, picked at night — and turned Verdejo into the white wine Spain now drinks more than any other. Rueda is Spain's great white region but it sees few visitors — most head to Rioja or Ribera del Duero. What Reyes has arranged is not a commercial winery tour. You’re walked through the vineyards by someone who grows the grape, then taken into an old underground cellar of Pozaldez — whose name, Pozal de Hez, means "abundance of wine" — and sat down to a proper lechazo roasted slowly in a wood-fired oven. None of it is a tasting-room queue or a booking-desk transaction; it’s a working village opened up through relationships built over years. And at an easy distance from Madrid.

Your host is a member of a winemaking family from Pozaldez — someone who grows the Verdejo, works the harvest, and knows the underground cellars beneath the village. Reyes García curates this experience alongside a wider collection of cultural experiences across Spain — all built on the principle that the parts of Spanish life worth traveling for are only made accessible through relationships built patiently over years. Because this is a welcome to a family rather than a commercial visit, she ensures the family who open their doors are properly cared for. The value runs both ways — for you, and for them.

Comfortable shoes for walking the vineyards and the uneven ground of the old cellars. Sun protection in the warmer months - and a bottle of water for the drive. A layer for the evening on the afternoon departure — the Castilian plateau cools quickly once the sun drops. An appetite.