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Our meal consisted of toast spread with various pates and a blue goat cheese blended with some of the sidra that was astringent and delicious.
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A side effect of turning our back on wine was that we had some delicious dry cider (sidra) from Northern Spain, which you pour into glasses from great height to give it some foaminess.
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the remarkable-for-Spain beer list
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Always iconoclasts, we ended up in a beer bar for dinner during our night in wine country. In fairness, it had been practically impossible to find decent beer thus far. Plus, Leslie was in the throws of a cold and needed some heathful Franziskaner to heal properly.
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cathedral in the dark![IMG_2582](users/overt/_data/i/users/overt/menalto_albums/travel/20111105/20111110/IMG_2582-sm.jpg "IMG_2582 (1132 visits) Bryan enjoys our "obligatory" glass of wine in the hotel lobby. When in La Rioja...")
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Bryan enjoys our "obligatory" glass of wine in the hotel lobby. When in La Rioja...
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Almost without exception, our hotels had wonderful teensy balconies
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view from our hotel balcony in Logroño
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We were very excited to see this bull silhouette, which was featured on the cover of our guidebook, until we drove a little more and realized they're all over the damn place.
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again
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more stunningly red grapewines
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another playground! this one wine-grape themed
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including the inevitably naughty ones
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purportedly the world's largest corkscrew collection
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the real wine cellars
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okay, and popular art
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an exhibit of wine-related fine art
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An exhibit with all the aromas found in Rioja wine, smellable
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a triple-press, each with an individual, religiousy name
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another giant-ass press
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more tools for barrel-making
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corks-in-progress
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barrel-making exhibit
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more old presses
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Bryan poses and Leslie fails to align a shot with a giant old wine press.
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This museum had a fabulous amount of historical equipment for wine growing, harvesting, pressing, bottling...
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photo and tools used by winemakers of the 19th century
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Spanish grape varieties
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another look at Briones from the parking lot of the Dinastia Vivanco museum
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Leslie, vineyard