San Román de Hornija

The church bell tolls twice and the only other sound is a tractor shifting down on the road out of the village. At 671 m above the flat Castilian tableland, San Román de Hornija is high enough for the air to carry a sharp edge before breakfast, even in late May. Vineyards press against the last houses; beyond them the land unfurls, biscuit-brown and ruler-straight to the horizon. This is not a place that shouts for attention—its population hovers just below 300—yet it sits at the geographical heart of the Toro wine zone, the small print on the back of bottles that Rioja drinkers seldom read.

A village that works for its living

Forget floral balconies and souvenir shops. Adobe walls are still patched with lime wash each spring, wooden gates open straight into barns stacked with seed drills, and the weekly delivery lorry brings more tractor oil than mineral water. Visitors sometimes mistake the quietness for abandonment; in fact the fields around the village keep several families busy year-round. Pruning starts in February, the grape harvest arrives by mid-September, and between those two points the day begins at daybreak and finishes with the television weather forecast.

There is no ticket office, no interpretive centre, no guided walk with colour-coded arrows. What you get instead is access: farm tracks that you can follow for kilometres, the smell of damp earth in traditional bodegas scooped out of the hillside, and the chance to taste wine where it is actually made. The arrangement suits the British habit of pretending to be low-maintenance while secretly expecting things to work—so long as you remember two golden rules. First, send an e-mail at least 48 hours ahead; second, bring cash. The village bar, open 07:30–15:30 on most days, still writes your bill on the counter in chalk.

Wine that predates the A-roads

Tinta de Toro, the local strain of Tempranillo, has been grown here since before the Romans met the A1(M). Its skins are thick enough to shrug off the 38 °C heat that can arrive in July, and the resulting reds are darker and spicier than most Riojas. Three bodegas within five minutes’ drive of the square will open for pre-booked tastings:

• Bodegas Elias Mora: English-speaking staff, three wines plus cheese, €12 pp, weekday mornings only.
• Maurodos: Modern cellar under a 19 C farmhouse, two top-label reds, €15 pp, minimum four people.
• Pintia (Vega-Sicilia’s Toro project): Polished set-up, tours last 90 min, €25 pp, sells out weeks ahead.

None of them offers a gift shop the size of a department store. You taste, you spit (or not), you buy a couple of bottles at cellar-door prices, and you leave with the distinct feeling that you have just gate-crashed someone’s harvest.

What passes for sightseeing

The sixteenth-century parish church of San Román is the only building tall enough to cast shade at noon. Its tower was rebuilt after lightning in 1892; inside, the single nave smells of candle wax and the stone floor dips where centuries of boots have entered at a shuffle. That is more or it for monuments. The real architecture is vernacular: adobe houses the colour of pale mustard, grain lofts raised on mushroom-shaped stones to keep the mice out, and the low doorways of private bodegas scooped into the slope behind the main street. Walk south along Calle Real and you will see them every twenty metres—dark mouths barred by iron gates, some still padlocked with keys the size of a potato.

If you keep walking you reach the cemetery on the ridge. From the wall the land falls away in wheat-coloured waves, wind turbines turning slowly on the far side of the valley like silver thistle heads. Sunrise here is worth setting your alarm; the light starts peach and turns to brass, and you will share it only with a pair of magpies and the man who delivers bread from Toro.

When to come and how not to fry

April to mid-June and mid-September to late-October give you temperatures in the low- to mid-twenties and skies scrubbed clean by Atlantic weather that never quite makes it over the Duero. July and August are frying-pan hot; sightseeing becomes a race from one patch of shade to the next, and the village itself empties as families retreat to stone houses that stay cool until the sun drops. Winter is crisp, often below zero at night, but bright. Snow is rare; if it arrives the access road from the A11 is cleared within hours, though you may still need to walk the last 200 m to your accommodation.

Driving is the only practical approach. Valladolid airport is 35 min north on the A62; the nearer city of Zamora is 25 min west. Neither airport has a large car-hire fleet, so reserve before you fly. Trains reach Toro, 14 km away, four times daily from Madrid Chamartín (1 h 15 min on the Alvia), but taxis from Toro station to San Román must be booked by phone and cost €22 each way.

Something to eat that isn’t roast lechazo

The village café does a decent tostada—rubbed tomato, a thread of local olive oil, coffee from a machine that wheezes like an old accordion. Beyond that, cooking is domestic. If you are staying in self-catering accommodation, the Saturday market in Toro sells queso Zamorano, a firm sheep-milk cheese that behaves like a Spanish answer to Manchego, and morcilla de Burgos, the rice-stuffed black pudding that tastes milder than the British version and fries to a sticky crust. Pair either with a young Toro red and you have supper for under a tenner.

Proper restaurant meals happen in Toro. Try El chocolate de la Iglesia for roast lechazo (order half a portion unless you are spectacularly hungry) or La Mar del Duero for river fish and reliable vegetarian starters. Both open 13:30–16:00 and 20:30–23:00; Monday is the likeliest closing day, so check.

The catch (there always is)

San Román de Hornija is not postcard-pretty. Power lines slice across some views, the main road carries grain lorries at dawn, and the smell of fertiliser is part of the package in April. Visitors looking for medieval arcades or boutique hotels will be happier in nearby Urueña or even Zamora. What the village offers instead is proximity: to wine makers, to skylines uncluttered by cranes, to a working countryside that has not yet been re-branded as a leisure park. Stay a single night and you may leave slightly puzzled; stay two and you will find yourself timing tomorrow’s drive so you can still catch the bakery van before it leaves at ten.