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In the heart of LaGuardia, this was our favorite hotel on our trip thru La Rioja. Cleanliness, attention to detail, welcoming & friendliness made this stay an excellent experience. The room was very spacious & clean! The dining experience excellent both for breakfast & dinner. Our meals were well prepared and exactly how we ordered it. Definitely a place for us to revisit! Muchas Gracias to all the people at the hotel. Oscar y Lorena :-)

We had wanted to stay here for a number of years, after it was so highly recommended by a friend. We had also planned and cancelled trips to the region twice, due to Covid and other plans getting in the way. We stayed here for 5 nights using Marriott points and it was nothing short of spectacular and awesome in every way! From the point we drove up the drive to the front door, to the time we left, the service and staff were always helpful and friendly and followed through on everything we asked them for or to do. We got upgraded from a Spa Terrace room to a main building Gehry room with an Elciego view, and although we lost the terrace, the room was amazing, spacious and comfortable. And being in the main building was very convenient. We had a rental car and self-parked, which was easy and convenient, right in the vineyard, between the spa building and the main building. We used the de Riscal as our base to explore and enjoy the Rioja wine region, taking a full day wine tour, going to Haro, Laguardia and Logrono, driving up to the mountains and just enjoying the deck at the de Riscal wine bar, as the weather was nice the entire time we were there! We also did the de Riscal winery tour, which is included in your hotel stay, and having been on many winery tours in Napa, Sonoma, France, Germany and now Spain, it is a very nice tour with very good wines for tasting, along with a nice tasting accompaniment afterwords! It seemed like hotel guests get a little smaller tour and more private tasting, but that could just be the day and time we did ours. Although I had not heard of their wines - like many Spanish wines - the operation is very large, even by U.S. standards. It's a very popular stop apparently, as even on Easter Sunday they had folks doing the tour by the busloads! We were celebrating a couple of occasions on this trip, and the meal at the Restaurant Gastronomic, the hotel's one star Michelin restaurant, was very much worth it. The food was all very good and well done, and the service was as expected in a starred Michelin restaurant. They made our celebration very special! As Titanium members, the breakfast in the 1860 ”Traditional” restaurant was included, and it was also very good! They had a buffet as well as a few items you could order every morning, with a special. We ate dinner in the Traditional twice, as we usually ended the day there rather than have dinner elsewhere in Rioja and drive back to the hotel. Again, the wine bar deck was good, and we had light snacks/pintxos there a couple of days and just enjoyed the weather and the view! The one drawback to the incredible location is that there are really no other places to eat that are close; you can walk into Elciego but the places there are nothing special. The upside is that the 3 choices at the hotel are all very good, depending on how much you want to spend! I used the gym twice during our stay, and while not large, it's decent sized with plenty of equipment.

If you book or get offered suite 101 don’t accept it. The kitchens are at the other side of the wall to the head of the bed and the kitchen's don’t finish until 00:30 so if you like to sleep when you go to bed and your head is on the pillow make sure you change to another room. They moved us to a smaller room at 00:15 as we had been trying to sort the issue with reception from 11:00 who kept on telling us the kitchen would be closing in 10minutes, simply not true. As well as the noise issue there was an emergency fluorescent light which stayed on, not just the green lights, they tried to resolve this by sellotaping a black bag over the light, god forbid if we had had an emergency situation as the emergency light was covered over, great move by the hotel. As well as the noise and the light, having been moved to another room, we realised our suite had not been part of the hotel’s renovations, room 101 decoration and furnishings were outdated by more than 20yrs. As well as room 101 being outdated the hotel is crying out for some reinvestment to refurbish everything, the exterior is in a desperate state of disrepair, the exterior looks like it’s not been touched for 20yrs. As well as all the above the hotel were offered the opportunity to compensate us and they felt it was sufficient to offer us a box with 3 wines in it and note simply saying ‘sorry for your inconvenience, we took this back to reception and suggested it was inappropriate as we were flying home. For all the inconvenience of moving to a small room with twin beds having booked a suite, not getting to sleep until after 01:30 due to having to move rooms, we checked out being told we ere only being charged for the smaller room and not the temporary use of the suite and we later found out through our correspondence with the hotel manager who was not available at the time of our stay, that we had had a further discount off the smaller twin bedded room of 10%, 10% of what rate we will never know, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a competitive rate anyway. Avoid like the plague

Everything in this review is from the lense of my wife and I who stayed here two nights while in the La Rioja region for a wedding in Ollauri. 1. This hotel is incredible. It shouldn't be reviewed as less than 5 stars, period. Do you know how hard it is to find an impeccable hotel and location in Europe regardless of the hotel rating and especially one located in a town of 700 people? I would dare say impossible. However this hotel in Briones nails it. There is history, wonderful people, and this boutique hotel that should be 100% booked year round (there were openings while we were there in July, insane...). If you are lucky enough to book a stay here, hug a stranger and count your blessings. 2. This hotel is a converted family mansion with an actual well deserved Michelin star (1 star) ”Allegar” with a limited amount of rooms (I believe 16 total rooms). The hotel dates back to the 16th century with some of the original walls still built against with a modern build out. Bathrooms, beds, furniture, etc... all date from the 2020s and feel brand new (even though this hotel has been open for a few years). Every staff member was fantastic on-site. Start up a little conversation and you might be surprised by the little tid bits they have to offer. 3. Allegar! Okay Spain has tons and tons of Michelin star restaurants and while we haven't eaten at every single one in the country, we have had enough choice food across the globe to know when we are eating something spectacular. Allegar's La Rioja tasting menu was so damn good we ate it two days in a row. You likely won't want to eat anything else for the rest of the day because of how filling the journey is, but who cares? That's the point of food this good. The chef is marvelous and his team of sous chefs deliver right along with him. The first tasting was a solo date and the second day was with friends. If we had more time we would have eaten there again and had the Allegar tasting menu (the other main tasting menu other than a la carte). 4. The wine. You're in the La Rioja region so yeah, there is fantastic wine everywhere. The hotel has its own wine and we purchased it as gifts for family and friends because it was as good as the hotel stay and the Allegar. If that isn't enough for you, then check out the Bodegas (yes wineries, not shops) in the area and you will have even more to bring back home. Side note, ladies if you need your hair done, there is a quaint local salon in town (think Paul Mitchell 1980s vibes) and the owner/team there know their stuff. To all the team members at the Santa Maria Briones, my wife and I would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the wonderful stay this year and we cannot wait to visit again in the future!!!