Charlotte Ivers: ‘My road trip through Spain's world-class vineyards'

Times

8 hours ago

There's a small strip of land along the Duero River known as the Golden Mile. As is the way of such convenient place names this is, of course, a lie. The golden mile is in fact nearly ten miles long. It's an inauspicious piece of land: parched earth, and the soil doesn't look up to growing much.
Drive along the dusty road, and little collections of buildings — sun-bleached, ramshackle, seemingly hastily assembled — spring up on the horizon and disappear as soon as you reach them. There's something of the Western frontier to this place. Or maybe it's more like California during the gold rush, or those early Texas oil towns. But it isn't oil these pioneers are chasing. It's grapes.
For a long time this little chunk of Castile and Leon was a destination only for those who knew what they were looking for, and what they were looking for was wine. Madrid to the south and San Sebastian to the north take care of the tourists in search of a bit of glamour and a Michelin-starred meal. Wine connoisseurs — importers, restaurateurs, buyers — come to the Golden Mile to cart back crates of red bottles of liquid gold.
In recent years, however, the small Spanish hotel group Castilla Termal, which specialises in converting historic buildings into high-end spa destinations, has opened a five-star hotel in a restored 12th-century monastery. Suddenly, there's a reason for luxury travellers to come to this part of the world.
Perhaps there always was: the vineyards here are world-class. If you're into tempranillo, this place is the ultimate pilgrimage site. But this was not an area designed for leisure visitors. It was a hard sell as a mini-break before this extravagant hotel and spa sprang up.
Stuck onto the side of tiny San Bernardo, the bottom half of the monastery remains a historical site, and the Catholic church attached is still used by the hundred or so people who live in the village. There is a sense of staying in a living museum: a type of historic grandeur with which no billion-pound new-build could hope to compete. Most rooms are located on the first floor, reached by a walkway looking down into the cloisters below. There are only 79: all spacious, some cavernous, all decorated in an understated, modern manner.
We are here as part of a package Castilla Termal has set up. The idea is that you spend three nights here at Monasterio de Valbuena, then two at another of its hotels in the slightly larger village of Brihuega (of which more later). On arrival, the first thing this entails is dinner at Converso: a restaurant set up in the hotel just a few months ago with the advice of Miguel Ángel de la Cruz, a renowned local chef who specialises in vegetarian and sustainable cooking. This restaurant is a clear statement of intent, in terms of sustainability and quality. The ingredients all come from the hotel's vegetable garden and, more impressively, the eggs come from its own hens. It is, quite clearly, Michelin bait. No doubt they will get their star soon: this is the best restaurant around by miles.
The next day there's an almost infinite supply of vineyards to be getting on with. We visit Emilio Moro, one of the oldest and most notable vineyards nearby, for a tour, tasting and lunch. (During which the proprietors absolutely did not skimp on sharing their product. We rolled home.) Then there's an extremely pleasant day out to be had at Finca Villacreces, touring the vineyard on electric bikes to see the different terrains, before returning to base for tasting and snacks. In both cases, it is clear that these guys really live their wine; these are guides who can cater for everyone from the most serious of wine professionals to those who just fancy a few glasses of red and a look at the countryside.
Back at the hotel the spa is the main event. The thermal pools, indoor and outdoor, contain more means of administering a water jet than you ever thought possible, whether you're standing, sitting or lying down. The best part, however, is the Chapel of San Pedro spa experience. Castilla Termal has painstakingly recreated the beautiful little chapel that sits off the side of the main church. Instead of worshippers, this one hosts a steam room, a sauna and a variety of Roman bath-style plunge pools of varying temperatures. It's a private space: you book your time and don't have to share with other guests. Once you've got over the vague sense of sacrilege and realise that a thunderbolt hasn't actually descended from the sky, it's wonderful. With its vaulted ceilings and pale stone walls, this is the spa you always imagine when plotting a relaxation day — but which never quite seems to manifest in the real world.
The view from our vast bedroom window is quite remarkable. Looking out into the romantic garden we can see straight into the treetops. This view isn't hard to come by in this hotel; the rooms here circle the building, most facing outwards into the garden. The room is high-ceilinged and bright, with wood panels and the pale white stone of the original building. It's elegant and modern, yet understated.
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After three nights we drag ourselves away from the pools and head onwards to our next stop: driving a couple of hours east to Brihuega, a small town of fewer than 3,000 people just north of Madrid. Here Castilla Termal has another hotel, rising out of a hill in the centre of town in an old cloth factory. Again, this is a place you would never find on a standard tourist route. Again we find ourselves in the most remarkable building: circular, with a covered courtyard restaurant in the middle, at the centre of which is a vast indoor tree. Gardens in the romantic style surround the hotel, with views across the hills.
It's a more casual dining situation here — a fresh, light, à la carte menu — and that's perhaps what we need after several days of red wine at lunch. And this time the town is big enough to sustain several restaurants and bars. Here we get the longed-for opportunity of every European holiday: to sit in a pretty town square with a small beer and some salty snacks. Except for the hotel, this is a locals' town. It only strikes me now that we didn't hear a single passer-by speaking English outside our hotel, quite a rare thing when combined with a luxury spa break. We enjoy our impeccably authentic tapas, negotiating the language barrier as we go, and then return again to the peace of the thermal spas (nearly identical to those in our last destination) and to the hotel's signature massage which, in homage to the building's origins, uses cloths to stretch out our limbs by pulling the fabric to extend or bend them gently.
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As a day trip, the hotel team recommends we head an hour or so away, to Cogolludo, to meet quite a remarkable man named Yñigo Miguez del Olmo. Del Olmo has done the thing that every city worker threatens to do but never actually does: he has sacked off the corporate life to head to the hills, where he makes his own wine and has restored a quite remarkable 16th-century convent. Here he has created a makeshift museum, full of his collection of carved stone going back to Roman times.
At 11.30am he uncorks several bottles of his wine made, to our excitement, from vines that emerged unscathed by the phylloxera that destroyed the vineyards of Europe in the 19th century. It is a thrillingly rare experience, made more delightful by del Olmo's general sense of joie de vivre. Soon, we are joined by his wife and baby daughter, and there is little wine left. We pour ourselves into the taxi home, utterly charmed by this rare show of hospitality and authenticity.
These are the things that make this driving holiday such a remarkable find. So often, travel is a trade-off between luxury and authenticity. The problem with places off the beaten track is that they aren't well-equipped for high-end tourism. The problem with places well-equipped for high-end tourism is, well, they are full of high-end tourism. What a joy to find a means of experiencing the best of both. And it doesn't hurt that it's accompanied by vast rivers of red wine.
Charlotte Ivers was a guest of the Luxury Holiday Company, which has five nights' B&B from £1,935pp on a Gastronomy & Wellness in Central Spain itinerary, including flights, car hire, spa treatments, a wine experience and some extra meals (theluxuryholidaycompany.com)
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