¨Christopher Columbus stay here. ¨ Andres says as we head into the wine cellar. His English is pretty good, charming. I almost slip into ex-TEFL teacher mode and correct him. I restrain myself.
¨When the big house was monastery this the bodega.¨ It´s not a cellar as in my childish thoughts, no steps down into cavernous arched rooms. ¨Pues, was wine cellar when monks was here and us when we began to producing wine on the estate, but now not, it doesn´t keep the temperature constant we need. ¨
Ancient barrels line the walls ¨Now we do bodas, er, wedding today days and there, up we do wine tastes. ¨ He pointed to the upper gallery. That´s what we are here for, my husband, Nick, and I, to sample the estate´s wine.
¨See anything not normal about the roof? ¨ Andres asked. ¨It´s wood? ¨ I offer. ¨Is wood, but what it look like, the shape, what it remind you? ¨ I look again ¨an arch? ¨ Kindly, he corrects me ¨A boat, umm bottom up, the shape of boats Columbus have sail on his exploring trips. Let go up and you look from the end, it more a boat, more obviously. ¨ It was. I kind of got that, now it had been pointed out, the upside down hull of an ocean going vessel – back in the day.
We´re at Hacienda Zorita an ancient monastery saved from ruin and resurrected into a wine hotel and spa. Its history began in 1336, later it was given to the church and became a Dominican monsatery, which Christopher Colombus visited. It was here he gained the support of the Catholic Kings to pursue his dream of heading out to discover the ´New World´. Later, after falling into disrepair it was given a new lease of life as fabulous hotel, winery and spa.
It´s quite a trek from home in Andalucia, almost six hours of stunning, ever-changing scenery, with breakfast and lunch breaks. The flat plains of Castilla-La Mancha, with a few windmills visible on low hills. Heading into Castille y Leon the landscape gets more mountainous, livestock roam, castles loom. We spy the walls of Avila and know it´s not far to go now.
We drive through the stone-pillar entrance with fields of sweetcorn on one side and grapevines on the other. The entrance road snakes to the left, vines trained espalier method line the grass verges. We park and are met halfway by a smiling guy from reception who relieved us of our bags, checked us in most efficiently and marched us off to our room, giving us a potted history of the Hacienda along the way.
Entering the hand-painted lift we emerged on floor two, Room No. 13 was us. An enormous and extremely comfortable double bed, his and hers sinks, views of the gardens via the window set in immense original walls and water inlet. We were more than happy. Photos taken before the bags disgorge, Nick tested the bed in full siesta mode, I took my phone and camera to explore, we´d fifteen minutes before the wine tasting, and my legs needed to walk.
The wine tasting, amusing and informative came with cheese, olive oils, jamon and dried meats from the Hacienda´s Organic Farm. They were, apparently, the first to follow the slow food movement in this area.
Located on the River Tormes the spa is located in the 18th century watermill, the Hacienda has forty rooms including doubles, suites and villas transformed from the original stable blocks. All keeping the monastic style with discreet mod cons, it´s easy to forget the age of the main house is more than half a millennium.
Hacienda Zorita Wine Hotel & Spa in the Duero valley is 10 minutes by car from Salamanca, 2 hours from Madrid, 1 hour from Valladolid and 5 hours 42 minutes (according to Google maps) from home, life is too short to repeat visit places, we don´t. An exception could very well be made for this Hacienda.
See Hacienda Zorita Wine Hotel & Spa on Booking, if you choose to book this way I get a small commission which goes towards being able to travel around Spain and share about it.
See my video on my Where to Stay in Spain video channel on YouTube.