Walk this way to find the best Riojas

Spain's wine country is a great place to go rambling, The refreshments aren't bad, either

Aspler introduced me to Rioja at dinner in Toronto 20-odd years ago. Tony is an oenophile of note and the author of a series of alcohol-infused whodunits featuring everything from Arsenic and Armagnac to Zinfandel and Zigal. Until Tony produced his dusty bottle with its Spanish grandee of a label, all coronets and curlicues, I had thought of Spanish wine as rot-gut "Spanish burgundy" in England or penny-a-pint plonk you mixed con gaseosa on very hot days in Andalusia. I changed my mind when I tasted the velvety contents of that first bottle of Rioja and now that I have seen where it comes from I am even surer than before. The wine is great, the territory that goes with it even greater.

Wine country has obvious advantages for a gentle walking holiday. Vineyards tend to be criss-crossed with accessible tracks; there are no wild animals to worry about; and there is no danger of inadvertently trampling the crops. And when you are not walking there are chances to sample the product. Wineries the world over are increasingly welcoming to visitors. I started in Haro, a substantial town with a cluster of bodegas around the railway station.

John Hawes of Laymont and Shaw, a specialist importer of Spanish wines, describes Haro as "the cradle of the Rialto" and arranged a tour of La Rioja Alta, a 19th-century foundation which has undergone a stylish makeover: caverns of stainless steel vats buried under newly planted lawns; state-of the-art steam cleaners for oak barrels alongside men holding up sample glasses against the naked flame of a burning candle in a practice unchanged since wine began.

Haro has a crumbling charm with a core of sandstone buildings adorned with escutcheons of nobility. Narrow alleys contain dark shops full of smoked ham, cans of asparagus, jars of preserved fruit and vegetables and, of course, bottle upon bottle of crianzas and reservas and gran reservas, numbered and classified and dated and a few of them enclosed in that distinctive cat's cradle of gold wire peculiar to the region. That evening, at the Casa Terete, we sat on benches at long scrubbed tables and ate a vegetable stew, heavy on the artichoke, and roast baby lamb with the inevitable robust red Rioja wine as accompaniment. Traditional, timeless and delicious.

The serious walking began the following day from La Bastida, a small town about five miles from Haro in the lee of the Sierra de Cantabria, the verdant mountains with white craggy peaks which provide the northern flank of the wide valley through which the Ebro flows. Napoleon slept here. We set off up the hill, past two churches, through an arch where we were invited to "pick up a track". Here confusion ensued. There was not one track but two. After prolonged discussion with my Australian companions, we took the right-hand fork but after about a quarter of a mile we realised we had made a mistake and retreated to try the alternative track. This time we were right. On the whole, the stony sandy paths were well defined and we were seldom out of sight of such landmarks as hilltop villages, ancient hermitages and the hills themselves. Even so, I was glad to be walking in company.

Our week of walking was guided by maps and seductively written detailed notes provided by InnTravel, the company which had arranged the trip. The company specialises in this sort of break. The inns recommended are almost invariably the sort of comfortable, charming, sometimes mildly eccentric small country hotels you would never find on your own. The company arranged for our luggage to be taxied on ahead of us. It was a comfort to carry no more than picnic, sun-cream and waterproof jacket.

We walked in late spring, which seemed an ideal time. In the valley the vines were lime green with young leaf. On the hillside the tracks were flanked with bushes of dog-rose, thyme and rosemary, cornflower and other flowers we could not identify. The views across the vineyards to the distant Sierra de la Demanda were huge and dotted with tiny tractors spraying fertiliser. Men pruned unwanted new growth from the stems of the vines, regimented into a parade-ground of plants. Later in summer it could become too hot, but an attractive alternative is harvest time when the leaves turn red and gold and the valley is alive with the hum of hundreds of workers picking the precious fruit.

After about five hours we came to the village of Abalos, where we stayed in a renovated manor. The bodega belongs to Eduardo Garrida, who has just two hectares of vines and is represented in England by an estate agent in Northampton who happened to be passing one day. The most eccentric aspect of his bodega is the "museum", which does, indeed, contain antique winemaking tools and an array of historic bottles, but also displays old typewriters, an 18th-century English newspaper (on a slow newsday), curling irons, model cars and, well, anything you care to name really. We spent a quiet day strolling on the hillside above the village, picnicked at the 11th-century hermitage of San Felices and in the evening were shown the spectacularly restored Baroque reredos in Saint Esteban by a proud caretaker.

The journey to the next village, Samaniego, was no more than a two-and-half-hour meander through the vineyards, pausing to consider a 13th-century wine press chiselled out of the rock. In Samaniego, Jon and Ana, presided over a hotel in a renovated 17th-century palacio. Ruddy-faced winemakers sat in the bar alongside what looked like old Bilbao money and there was a wine list made up entirely of riojas from the village.

The final journey was to the fortified hill-town of Laguardia. There was the high road (views, climbing) or the low road (vineyards, a couple of villages, less climbing). We took the low road. Outside Villabuena there was a disturbing piece of ETA graffiti reminding us that this bucolic landscape was not necessarily as equable as it seemed. In Navaridas the only sign of life was canine.

The final ascent into Laguardia was steeper than expected, though for miles we had been watching the rocky fortress town from the valley below and once we arrived we realised how impregnable it must have seemed to the Moors. Within its walls it flattens out into a warren of narrow car-free alleys dotted with bars where an almost exclusively male clientele chewed on chorizo and watched the bull-fight on prime time TV. Here we stayed at the Posada de Migueloa, a cool 17th-century house, run by the smiling, matronly Meri who decanted her own wine at dinner from the cellar below.

Just as we were eating olives and sipping vino tinto and remarking on this timelessness, we were interrupted by wine-makers from China. Look out for Chinese Riojain less than 10 years. Outside town we visited the modern Villa Lucia museum and the futuristic Allied Domecq bodega, whose undulating roofs matched the summit of the sierra above – a bit like encountering the Sydney Opera House in the boondocks. In the village of Paganos an exuberant all-male card-playing club sang lusty songs in Hector Oribe's restaurant and I sampled a pink cough-mixture tasting Basque liqueur called Pacharan. An acquired taste.

One day we drove to see the spectacular views at the "balcon de Rioja" and over the mountain to the small Basque town of Pipeon where there were preparations for a folk festival and the men really did wear berets. In the end, however, I think my heart belongs in Abalos. I must contact the estate agent in Northampton and see if he can let me have one of the Eduardo Garrido Reservas so that I can pass it on to Tony Aspler in Toronto. A belated thank you for a memorable introduction.

The Facts

Getting there

Tim Heald's walk in the hills and vineyards of La Rioja was arranged by Inntravel (01653 629010; www.inntravel.co.uk). A similar week's walk costs from £798 per person, based on two sharing, including return scheduled flights to Bilbao, transfers, seven nights' b&b, six dinners, three picnic lunches, maps, notes and luggage transfers.

The same package costs £587 with Channel crossings. Connections can also be arranged between Plymouth and Santander with Brittany Ferries (0870 536 0360; www.brittany-ferries.com).