Ysios

What Ysios is

Ysios is a boutique winery in Rioja Alavesa, the Basque province of Álava’s share of the Rioja wine region. It sits on the Camino de la Hoya, about two and a half kilometres north of Laguardia, a walled medieval town on a hill, with the limestone wall of the Sierra de Cantabria directly behind it and its own vineyards in front.

The building is the reason most visitors make the turn. Santiago Calatrava designed it and it was completed in 2001: a long, low box faced in cedar, topped by a roof of aluminium waves. Seen head on from the vineyard track, the roofline repeats the profile of the mountains behind. Seen from the side it reads as a row of barrels. The building appears on the label of the wine made inside it, which is unusual and tells you how central it is to the brand.

The name comes from Isis and Osiris, the Egyptian deities of the moon and the sun. The winery was founded in the late 1990s, so it is a young operation in a region where neighbours date themselves to the nineteenth century. Production is small compared with Rioja’s big houses, built around Tempranillo grown on the estate.

When I filmed there the thing that struck me was how quiet it is. This is a landmark building with no crowd management around it, which is not what you expect after seeing it in photographs.

Who is behind it

Ysios has changed hands more than once. It was built by a Spanish drinks group, passed into the Pernod Ricard wine portfolio, and since 2025 has sat inside Vinarchy, the company formed by merging Pernod Ricard’s wine business with Accolade Wines. Day to day winemaking is led by the estate’s own team; the winery’s oenologist Clara Canals has been named by The Drinks Business among its list of leading female winemakers worldwide.

How a visit works

Visits are guided and by appointment. You cannot walk the cellars unaccompanied, and the number of English-language slots is limited, so the language is chosen at the point of booking.

• Standard guided visit: the vineyard, the production floor and the barrel room, then a tasting of two or three wines with Iberian ham or a pintxo. Count on 60 to 90 minutes.
• Fine wine tasting: a longer sit-down tasting of the upper range, priced well above the standard visit.
• Private and vehicle tours: small group tours driven through the vineyards with a full tasting, sold for two to four people at a fixed fee.
• Exclusive group bookings: the winery also sells whole-group experiences for up to about 25 people.

What you see

The architecture is the headline, and the guide will spend time on it: the cedar cladding, the wave of the roof, the window at the centre that frames Laguardia and the valley. The working side of the visit covers the fermentation hall and the underground barrel room. The tasting at the end is short rather than exhaustive, which suits people fitting two or three wineries into a day.

If your interest is purely the building, you do not need a ticket. Park, walk the perimeter, and shoot it from the vineyard track. Late afternoon light on the west face is the version most people have seen.

What it costs

Ysios does not publish a single fixed ticket price in one place, and the figures below come from wine tourism listings rather than a menu board. Confirm the current rate when you book.

Item	Price
Standard guided visit with tasting	Roughly 20 to 35 EUR, about 25 to 40 USD
Fine wine tasting	Quoted near 90 EUR, about 104 USD
Private vehicle tour, 2 to 4 people	Quoted from about 350 EUR for the group
Exclusive group experience	Quoted from about 600 EUR for the group
Seeing the exterior	Free

Older reviews quoting 15 EUR are out of date. For context, small family bodegas inside Laguardia charge less, and some visitors find Ysios expensive by that comparison. What you are paying for here is the building.

How to book

• Online at visits.bodegasysios.com, choosing a date, group size and language.
• Phone: +34 945 600 640.
• Through a tour operator, if you want Ysios bundled with Marqués de Riscal and lunch.

Book at least a few days ahead in spring and summer, and further out at harvest. English slots are the constraint, not capacity.

Getting there

• Address: Camino de la Hoya, 01300 Laguardia, Álava, Spain.
• From Laguardia: 2.5 kilometres north, about 5 minutes by car. Walking is possible but there is no footpath and you would be on the road shoulder.
• From Logroño: about 20 minutes.
• From Vitoria-Gasteiz: about 40 minutes.
• From Bilbao airport: roughly 90 minutes, about 120 kilometres.
• Parking: free, on site.
• Public transport: none that is useful. Drive, take a taxi from Logroño or Laguardia, or join an organised tour.

Before you go

• Book the language, not just the slot. English tours run at set times only.
• Walk the full circuit before or after the tour. The building changes completely between the front, the side and the back.
• Plan the driver. Spanish drink-drive limits are lower than many visitors expect and there is no way out of here without a car.
• Add Laguardia itself. The old town is a few minutes away, closed to traffic, and riddled with family cellars dug under the houses.
• Pair it with Marqués de Riscal. The Frank Gehry winery is about 20 minutes away and makes the obvious other half of an architecture day. See my Marqués de Riscal review.
• Go late in the day if photographs are the point, and check the forecast; the roof is at its best with the sierra clear behind it.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above is the short version of that roof and the view back down the valley. For everything else I have filmed in Spain, open my map or browse the rest of the Spain recommendations.