Anguciana

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is a forklift shifting pallets of newly picked grapes outside a family bodega. Anguciana doesn’t do fanfare; it does grapes, and has done since the Middle Ages. Five square kilometres of La Rioja Alta, nine kilometres west of Haro, contain 500 souls, 300 hectares of vineyard and zero traffic lights. Visitors who arrive expecting a plaza mayor and souvenir stalls usually circle back to the car within twenty minutes. Those who stay longer discover a village that functions as an open-air loading bay for the Rioja wine trade, where the boundary between farm and home dissolves.

A Walk Round the Block, 360 Degrees of Vine

Start at the sixteenth-century church of San Martín de Tours; its sandstone tower is the highest point for miles and the compass every local uses. “I’ll meet you at the tower” is the standard arrangement, because every lane funnels back to it. Stone and brick houses line the two main streets, some freshly rendered, others still wearing their original wine-coloured lintels. Peek down the side alleys and you’ll spot sloping wooden doors leading to underground cellars; most are locked, but the smell of fermenting juice drifts out through air-bricks. There is no centre as such, just a tapering ribbon of houses that thins into dirt tracks within three minutes in any direction.

Those tracks are the real attraction. They form a grid through the vineyards, wide enough for a tractor and completely open to walkers. No entrance fee, no way-marking beyond the occasional finger-post to Haro or Casalarreina, and almost no shade: early morning or late afternoon are the only sensible times between June and September. A thirty-minute loop east brings you to a low ridge where the village shrinks to a smudge of terracotta roofs and the sierra de Cantabria rises blue on the horizon. Come back at dusk and the same path is a soundscape of clinking bottles as growers rack this year’s Tempranillo.

What You Can Taste, and What You Can’t

Anguciana has no tourist office, no wine shop and no formal tasting room. If you want to sample wine you have two choices: knock on a door and hope the owner is bored, or drive eight kilometres to Haro’s Barrio de la Estación where historic bodegas run ticketed tours from €12. What you can do here is eat like a labourer. The single bar, Casa Tómas, opens at 07:00 for strong coffee and a plate of chistorra sausage, then reopens after siesta for raciones. Order pimientos rellenos—red peppers stuffed with salt cod and garlic—and a glass of young white Rioja served at eight degrees; it’s closer to Sauvignon Blanc than to anything oaky. Locals treat the place like their living room; visitors who start asking for vegetarian options are politely handed an omelette.

Sunday lunch is the weekly performance. Families converge on Asador Alameda, twenty paces from the church, to share a 1 kg chuletón grilled over vine cuttings. The steak arrives rare unless you specify “más hecho”; chips come separately and nobody minds if you add a fried egg on top. Book, or you’ll be eating crisps back at the bar.

When to Come, and When to Stay Away

Spring and mid-autumn are the sweet spots. In April the vines push out lime-green buds and the temperature hovers around 18 °C—perfect for a ten-kilometre circuit that takes in neighbouring Cihuri and its Romanesque chapel. Late September brings the vendimia: tractors towing trailers of grapes crawl through the streets, and the air smells like crushed blackberry. A small fiesta on the nearest Saturday to the 21st supplies free paella and a brass band that gives up at midnight sharp.

July and August are harsh. The plain is 500 m above sea level but feels lower; the sun ricochets off pale clay and shade is non-existent on the tracks. Midday walking is miserable, and the village’s only grocery shuts for the entire afternoon. Winter is quiet—too quiet for some. Nights regularly drop below freezing, the Airbnb tree-cabin has no central heating, and the agricultural roads turn to slick red mud after rain. Photographers love the minimalist palette of black vines against white frost, but you’ll need a car with decent tyres and a coat that can handle the wind that barrels down the Ebro valley.

Getting There, Sleeping, Leaving

There is no railway station. The ALSA coach from Logroño will drop you on the N-124 if you ring the bell, but it leaves you with a 600-metre walk in the dark if you’re on the evening run. Hire a car at Bilbao airport (90 minutes) or Zaragoza (75 minutes); parking is free and usually within sight of your front door. Accommodation is thin: two rural houses, the controversial tree-cabin, and a pair of village apartments on Airbnb, all under €90 a night. None serve breakfast, so factor in a 50-metre stroll to the grocer for crusty bread and the local peach jam that tastes like liquid summer.

Check-out is uncomplicated: hand the key back through the letterbox and go. The dual carriageway to Haro merges seamlessly onto the A-68, and by the time you reach the first logroño exit the vineyards have been replaced by polytunnels and discount furniture warehouses. Anguciana doesn’t haunt you with drama; it slips away like a half-remembered chorus, leaving only the faint scent of fermenting grapes on your walking shoes.

Come if you need a place to pause between bodega appointments, if you like the idea of a village whose pavements end where the tractors begin, and if you’re content to make your own entertainment by walking until the vines turn into sky. Don’t come for postcard plazas or guided tours; Anguciana is a working settlement that happens to have rooms to spare. Treat it as someone’s home rather than a destination and it repays you with silence thick enough to hear the grapes grow.