Recs for private day trip tour from Barcelona with wine tasting
 

We will be meeting friends in Barcelona for a couple of days in early November (we'll be there a week, and friends are meeting us on the 5th day). I was thinking of arranging a private tour for the 4 of us including wine tasting and maybe some sight-seeing outside of Barcelona. One of our friends can't do extensive walking so I thought a private guide/driver would make the most sense (as opposed to doing it on our own). Our friends have been to Barcelona before, and by the 5th day, we would have done much of the local touring ourselves so I thought a good day trip would be nice, and we'd all like a little wine tasting.

I came across the Costa Brava Wine Tasting and The Jewish Heritage of Girona by Euroadventures which looked good. Anyone ever take one of their tours? Any other guides and/or tours to recommend?

Hi MFNYC.
The following companies offer one day wine tasting trips to the Penedès, south of Barcelona.

Vintage Spain
The leading Spanish wine touring company, which offers wine tasting tours throughout the country to all of the major D.O.s

Its Penedès tour is 9 hrs. long, from 9:30-6:30 and includes 3 winery visits along with gourmet lunch with wine.

I can vouch for Vintage Spain.

www.vintagespain.com/onepenedes.htm

There's also Spanish Trails, which offers basically the same.

www.spanish-trails.com
(never taken one of their tours)

There's also Explore Catalunya, which offers a Montserrat-Freixenet cava cellars tour plus other options. But folks can do both Montserrat and Freixent on their own via public transport.
www.explorecatalunya.com

Catalonia Tours offers a small group tour via minibus (don't know if they would do this for just 4) which includes a visit to the Miguel Torres winery in Vilafranca del Penedès, then the Cordorníu cava cellars.
www.cataloniatours.com


If it were me, I would explore the first option by Vintage Spain. They're really the pros and have been for quite some time.


Or...for the Rolls Royce of tours, you could take the VIP luxury tour of the Penedès offered by the deep pocketed folks of Cellar Tours. VIP treatment all the way (with prices to match), in a chauffeured Mercedes, visits to boutique wineries and gourmet lunch.

http://www.cellartours.com/spain/win...y-penedes.html

Thanks Maribel. ABout how far in adavcen do these need to be booked?

For Vintage Spain (or Cellar Tours) I would email them right away about putting together something custom for you, and compare their prices.

For Explore Catalunya and Catalonia Tours, may be week in advance, since they take clients to wineries (Freixent, Codorníu, Miguel Torres) where they just join the regular scheduled group tour.

Catalonia Tours has a US number-
Tel: +1 571 224 2987

or EMail: [email protected]

I contacted Vintage Spain. They said they don't do tours from Barcelona and referred me to their collaborator, http://www.elmolitours.com/catalan/W...neCulture.html

Do you know of this one?

Yes, MFNYC, I do know them.

V.S. lists (or maybe listed) that they offer(ed) the tours, but it's through their collaborator.
That's often the case. Agencies based in one region (like the Rioja) have an agency in another region (such as the Penedè with whom they collaborate.

OK, that makes sense.

So after researching and emailing, we have come to the conclusion that we'd like to rent a car and do it ourselves. The full day private winery tours with driver are very expensive (about 200E pp). The original tour I found is cheaper but not a winery. It's tasting in a gourmet store and a tour of the town. That was about 105E pp.

Is the drive to the wineries in the Penedes area easy? Are there some nice stops along the way? Do we need to make reservation in advance in the wineries? Any suggestions on where to rent the car (agency / location)? We'll be staying at Hotel Inglaterra.

I just want to add that we've driven in Italy before on a couple of occasions, but never in Spain.

MFNYC,
Custom food or wine or any kind of sightseeing tours to the countryside can be quite pricey since one is paying for the professional guide with fluency in English, the chauffeur, the arranging of a customized winery tour in English, the handling of all logistics (coordination of visits can be tricky) and usually a gourmet lunch with wine.

Part of what one pays for is a smooth, stress free, carefree day with someone else doing the driving after wine tastings.

We'll be headed to the Penedès and Priorat wine countries shortly.

The Penedès can be accomplished in an easy day's drive from Barcelona. But yes, you do need advanced reservations at wineries. Some have shortened weekend hours.

I can't recommend any nice stops along the way, but if the timing were right, you could visit both Vilafranca del Penedès and Sant Sadurní d'Anoia for the cava cellars in the same outing-the 2 towns are under 20 km. apart. But I'd assign a designated driver if you plan to visit more than one winery.

Again, you should have advanced reservations for an English tour.

And I wouldn't do this on a Fri.-Sat.-Sun. when visiting hours are shortened.

For example, Torres is open Mon.-Sat. from 9-5 but closes early on Sun.
Freixenet is open Mon.-Thurs. from 10-1 and 3-4:30 but closes at 1 on Fri., Sat., Sun, holidays.
Codorniu opens Mon.-Fri. from 9-5 but Sat./Sun./holidays from 9-1.

and some wineries have shortened hours in July/Aug.

The Torres winery is located outside of Vilafranca del Penedès. You can book online at
www.torres.es

The Freixenet and Codorníu cellars are found in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, along with many others.

Book online at
www.codorniu.es
www.freixenet.com


The closest major rental car agency office to the Hotel Inglaterra would probably be Europcar on Gran Vía de les Corts Catalans 680 at corner of Carrer Bruc. It opens at 8 am.

There's an Avis office in the Eixample at Còrsega 293, also opening at 8.

The rule of thumb is that it's much easier to pick up and exit a busy city from a dowtown rental location at that hour than to return to it in late afternoon. I don't worry about an 8 am pick up (have done it at the Avis location), but the return can be a bear! Once spent almost an hour circling in heavy traffic to get the darn car back to Avis on Còrsega when I was only 2 blocks away! Not fun....

We are going to Barcelona the 1st week in November, but can only do this tour on Friday, Nov 6th. That's the only full day we'll have with our friends (who are European - have homes/family in Paris, Geneva & Instanbul). Our friends also speak multiple languages fluently and naturally are familiar with European traffic patterns, etc so they are good people to be touring with. We realize that's we'll definitely have to plan for a 'designated' driver.

I was actually looking forward to the idea of a private tour and drivier, but my husband is of the do-it-yourself mentality especially when the cost factors in ;)

Hi MFNYC,
The Freixenet cellars are open on Friday, Nov. 6, from 10-1, so you probably will want to hit Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, Catalunya's cava capital first. These cellars are located directly across from the train station.

Maribel,
If we were to pick 2 wineries to visit, which 2 would you recommend? ALso, in your guide, you mentin a place for lunch called Cal Blay. Is this a good lunch stop?
Thanks.

1 more thing...how's the parking in these areas?

and lastly, i still am not sold on diving but my husband insists. One of our friends can't handle a lot of walking which is a concern if parking isn't necessarily close to where we have to go. Also my husband isn't the most patient driver, especially if traffic is slow, parking is difficult and directions/streets are confusing. He's fine with Europe highway traffic, but driving in towns and cities isn't his cup of tea (Rome was a nightmare).

I can talk my husband out of this if these things can be genuine issues.

MFNYC, As an aside, I found a bottle of dry Rose Freixenet recently; it was really a poor wine.

Most Freixenet isn't that good. Try the Juve y Camps Cava cellars and taste their Cava. It's like chlak and cheese to Freixenet.

If I had 2 to choose from, I'd choose the Torres and the Codorníu, which is a beautiful Moderniste structure, worth of a visit for the architecture alone.

I talked the other night with the wine tourism and events manager for Torres. You can now visit the medieval Milmanda castle (chardonnay) which rises up next to the magnificent Monatery of Poblet and the Grans Muralles estate, which sits between the Milmanda castle and the Monastery, whose walls were built in the 16th century by the Cistercian monks. This is a visit for those who would like to combine wine tourism with the Cistercian Monastery route around Espluga de Francolí in the Tarragona province.

The Castell can be visited on Fri. from 10-2 and 4-6. Both are located on the l'Espluga de Francolí highway. This could be combined with a visit to the magnificent Cistercian Monastery of Poblet, plus the scenic fortress town of Montblanc but must be done by car.
And all of this lies further west of the Penedés wine country.


Or the other more common Torres experience is a tourist visit to the cellars 4 km. outside of Vilafranca del Penedés on their El Maset estate.
This visit takes 1 hour, or...
there is an exclusive "walking tour" that takes 2.5 hours.
They do have a private restaurant there, Mas Rabell, that serves lunch for groups, but individuals may also dine there if they do have a group that day that has reserved the restaurant for lunch. This Torres visitors' center is open on Fri. from 9-5.

I asked about coming by commuter train, and he replied that upon making the reservation, visitors can request a taxi to be sent to pick them up at the Vilafranca del Penedés train station. Cost of taxi is 15 euros one way. This would be a way of avoiding the cost and hassle of a rental car. You can email Marc Kolling ([email protected]) for more information about this and about the taxi, or
[email protected]


Both Sant Sadurní d'Anoia and Vilafranca del Penedés can be reached from Barcelona by commuter train line C4 from the Plaça de Catalunya or Sants stations. Sant Sadurní comes first.

I mention this just in case you'd just like to avoid a car rental and parking and just take the train, then taxi to Codorníu in Sant Sadurní and Torres in Vilafranca. But this would require
some work matching the train schedule with the winery tour schedules on a Friday, and of course, advanced reservations are required for both.

See the schedule at www.renfe.es then under Cercanías (commuter trains), choose Barcelona, then click on Horarios (schedules), then select Barcelona Plaça de Catalunya as your Origen, then Vilafranca del Penedés as your Destino, then under Consulta por tipo de día choose Viernes (Fri.). The C4 schedule will then pop up. It's a 57 min. ride from the
Plaça de Catalunya commuter station to V del P or 50-52 min. from Sants station.

P.S.
I also prefer Juve y Camps and Gramona cava to Freixenet. But...I simply mention Freixenet in the Barcelona file because it's extremely easy to reach by commuter train since it lies directly across from the train station.

The Cal Blay restaurant is located in the cava town of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, walkable from the cellars.

So after looking at a map, reading up on the various options, and discussing it all with the other parties involved, the plan of action will be renting a car. Touring the Codorníu winery in the morning then heading to Sitges afterwards. The consuenus was that 1 winery is enough so we thought while we had the car, we'd do a little sight-seeing outside of Barcelona. I also suggested Montserrat as an option, but the preference was Sitges.

If you need a very nice lunch spot in Sitges, I can recommend La Fragata, right on the Passeig de la Ribera, next to the church, or La Nansa (on Carreta 24).
www.restaurantefragata.com/