New design hotel (by Gehry) in Bilbao

Rioja in a designer glass

In an exclusive preview, we take a look around Gehry's latest masterpiece, a wavy titanium-clad hotel on a 150-year old bodega
Dale Fuchs
Saturday September 23, 2006
The Guardian

Driving south from Bilbao through swathes of fertile countryside, stone churches and rustic Basque towns, you don't expect to stumble across an example of splashy modern architecture. But there it is, sprouting from the vineyards, a sculpted metallic hulk - tinted wine red, gold and silver - rather like the twisted foil discarded from an open bottle of Rioja.
The hotel at the 150-year-old Marqués de Riscal bodega near Elciego in La Rioja, which opens next Wednesday, bears all the wavy titanium-clad hallmarks of its designer Frank Gehry.

Ever since Gehry's Guggenheim put Bilbao on the map almost a decade ago, designer buildings and bridges have been shooting up throughout Spain, from Santiago Calatrava's ship-shaped opera house in Valencia to Sir Richard Rogers' rainbow-coloured airport in Madrid. Now bodegas have joined the quest, with the likes of Calatrava's avant-garde cedar-clad, barrel-like winery installation at nearby Bodegas Ysios, which is open for public tours.


The Marqués de Riscal has gone one better, creating a wine-themed hotel. Part of the €80m winery overhaul, it is aimed at design-conscious and gastronomic tourists who don't mind paying between €300 and €1,350 for a room with red velvet curtains and sleek marble baths.
Except that here ordinary baths will not suffice. Instead at the "wine-therapy" spa, travellers can soak in tubs that look like oak barrels, bubbling with wine extracts.

The grape is everywhere, from the cellar beneath the lobby to the curled metallic canopies on sandstone pillars, meant to suggest a vine sprouting from the ground. Take the first sip on a 90-minute tour (€6), which begins at stainless-steel fermentation vats and concludes in a century-old stone cellar where oak barrels line dark, mould-stained walls.

Next to the Guggenheim, of course, the interiors of the hotel seem a bit tame. You expect every space to be mind-blowing, like the museum, and it is more standard urban chic. But a few curvy walls and the Gehry-designed chairs and lamps keep it interesting. The best place to be is on one of the many outdoor decks enjoying the view of distant mountains while watching the sun reflect on titanium ribbons. The contrast of the avant-garde building with the surrounding countryside is exhilarating.

Back inside, the chef, Francis Paniego, hails from a Michelin-starred Basque restaurant, El Portal known for its creative cuisine, and the €90 tasting menu includes dishes such as foie gras custard, Iberian-ham ice cream and sweet tomato tartar with cold garlic cream soup.

Watch out if you drink too much wine at dinner: some of the the sleek rooms are slightly dizzying at first, with undulating leather headboards and slanted windows that follow the contours of Gehry's design.

Next year, a spokeswoman says the hotel plans to offer grape-harvest packages for do-it-yourself tourists who think strenuous exercise is romantic. The Sauvignon massage may just come into its own.